Make Yourself Clear: Feedback

The educational driver of immediacy is feedback, and we have more to wring from it before turning our attention elsewhere. 
 
First, as has been mentioned, feedback is optimized when it arrives in the right dose, at the right time. We have all had moments where we were simply not ready to hear what was good for us and so swatted away crucial lessons. On the other end, especially if we have raised or taught children (or been married!), we have all delivered feedback at the wrong time, sending our recipient into a defensive posture, again minimizing the impact of the lesson.  
  
Second, and also crucial, is that feedback, done well, helps both the receive and the giver. Not all feedback is good feedback; not all feedback is equally valuable; not all feedback will result in learning (Hattie, 2012). So you can’t just throw it around like fertilizer and expect all the weeds to die and all the plants to, in turn, flourish. In fact, one of the most valuable aspects of good feedback is the effect that it has, to continue the metaphor, not on the weeds and the plants but on the thrower of the fertilizer -- you.
 
Taken together, these pillars of effective feedback – dosage, timing, and reciprocity – help us to notice the value of an immediacy at play in businesses that rely on multi-sided marketplaces, bringing to a fine focus much of what we have been discussing in this book: leading, selling, training, and servicing.