There are posters and “quotations” and others of similar ilk declaring to one and all that “Feedback is the breakfast of Champions”. And so all sorts of “surveys”, “feedback forms”, “hotwashes”, “debriefs”, “town hall meetings” and so forth are held every so nauseatingly often. Why? Because “Feedback is the breakfast of Champions”, of course. Ok, stop strutting around on your high horse before it gets that you need to be carried out of town. In the meantime, let’s get a few things straight. Breakfast, Champions and Feedback.
Breakfast.
Some people call breakfast the most important meal of the day. If so, my anecdotal observation is that far too many people have breakfast as if they were more the Pauper than the Prince. Breakfast is meant for us to put some starting fuel into our bodies and to remember to give thanks that we didn’t die in the night. If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then it is to be eaten heartily and the stuff you eat is supposed to prepare you for a full day’s work, and I care not if your work is more of the IT office type or whether you spend the day herding cattle or building roads and bridges. Have a hearty breakfast. If you genuinely do work that is indeed worth the salt you’re given for it, get that nosebag on and chew! A tiny cup of tasteless coffee alone doesn’t quite cut it. That is what breakfast is. Pay attention, Champion!
Champions.
A champion isn’t someone who always “knows the way, shows the way and leads the way”. Which planet do you come from? No, a champion is a weak, fallen human being who trusts that God means what He says and therefore the champion hastens to obey God no matter how hard the going gets. A champion is one who works so hard doing what is true, right and just that he might not even be able to tell you what he did in the morning if you asked him before five o’clock in the evening. If you are one of those who don’t want to believe in God, then at least look to a Constitution or some Creed or other Guiding Principle because relying on your own morals or integrity or your “best self” is not going to help you. Period. Practice. Work hard. Not mindlessly working, but constantly figuring out how to be more productive and whether the work you currently do is still worth doing or whether you should chart a new course and be fruitful in another way. That’s what a Champion really is. Constantly seeking better ways to improve the lot of other people, all the while working because he needs to feed himself and his family first.
Feedback.
If you’ve read what was written above, you’d already know what I think feedback is NOT. Read the excerpt from “Starship Troopers” in green font below and consider for yourself what “feedback” really means before you continue reading after that.
[[I know it, sir. But I do. They’re a nice bunch of kids. We’ve dumped all the real twerps by now — Hendrick’s only shortcoming, aside from being clumsy, was that he thought he knew all the answers. I didn’t mind that; I knew it all at that age myself. The twerps have gone home and those that are left are eager, anxious to please, and on the bounce — as cute as a litter of collie pups. A lot of them will make soldiers.”
“So that was the soft spot. You liked him… so you failed to clip him in time. So he winds up with a court and the whip and a B. C. D. Sweet.”
Zim said earnestly, “I wish to heaven there were some way for me to take that flogging myself, sir.”
“You’d have to take your turn, I outrank you. What do you think I’ve been wishing the past hour? What do you think I was afraid of from the moment I saw you come in here sporting a shiner? I did my best to brush it off with administrative punishment and the young fool wouldn’t let well enough alone. But I never thought he would be crazy enough to blurt out that he had hung one on you — he’s stupid; you should have eased him out of the outfit weeks ago… instead of nursing him along until he got into trouble. But blurt it out he did, to me, in front of witnesses, forcing me to take of official notice of it — and that licked us. No way to get it off the record, no way to avoid a court… just go through the whole dreary mess and take our medicine, and wind up with one more civilian who’ll be against us the rest of his days. Because he has to be flogged; neither you nor I can take it for him, even though the fault was ours. Because the regiment has to see what happens when nine-oh-eight-oh is violated. Our fault… but his lumps.”
“My fault, Captain. That’s why I want to be transferred. Uh, sir, I think it’s best for the outfit.”
“You do, eh? But I decide what’s best for my battalion, not you, Sergeant. Charlie, who do you think pulled your name out of the hat? And why? Think back twelve years. You were a corporal, remember?
Where were you?”
“Here, as you know quite well, Captain. Right here on this same godforsaken prairie — and I wish I had never come back to it!”
“Don’t we all. But it happens to be the most important and the most delicate work in the Army — turning unspanked young cubs into soldiers. Who was the worst unspanked young cub in your section?” “Mmm…” Zim answered slowly. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say you were the worst, Captain.”
“You wouldn’t, eh? But you’d have to think hard to name another candidate. I hated your guts, ‘Corporal’ Zim.”
Zim sounded surprised, and a little hurt. “You did, Captain? I didn’t hate you — I rather liked you.”
“So? Well, ‘hate’ is the other luxury an instructor can never afford. We must not hate them, we must not like them; we must teach them. But if you liked me then — mmm, it seemed to me that you had very strange ways of showing it. Do you still like me? Don’t answer that; I don’t care whether you do or not — or, rather, I don’t want to know, whichever it is. Never mind; I despised you then and I used to dream about ways to get you. But you were always on the bounce and never gave me a chance to buy a nine-oh-eight-oh court of my own. So here I am, thanks to you. Now to handle your request: You used to have one order that you gave to me over and over again when I was a boot. I got so that I loathed it almost more than anything else you did or said. Do you remember it? I do and now I’ll give it back to you: ‘Soldier, shut up and soldier!’ ]]
~Starship Troopers, Chapter Six, by R. A. Heinlein~
The sorry episode above is a good illustration of what “feedback” really is. In a nutshell – tell-tale signs. It’s what the Corporals did NOT tell Sergeant Zim, that he was getting a little too complacent. It was Sergeant Zim’s own “fatherly feelings” patting him on the back for having done a good job making soldiers out of unspanked young cubs, and thereby causing him to forget that he wasn’t their father, he was their Instructor, and he had better remember it well. It was Captain Frankel allowing himself to get so bogged down trying to fulfill all the unnecessary paperwork, infinite “regulations” and so forth, forced on the Army by civilians who know nothing about how to run an Army and so miss out on geting his own boots on the ground, so to speak, and cause him to miss out on the pulse of what was actually happening on the ground.
So, Champion, you having breakfast? Eat heartily. And make sure it’s the right breakfast.
Join me for breakfast? E: [email protected]
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