You know how it goes. A draft goes out. Comments come back.
Some are sharp, some ‘make it pop’, and one is from someone who didn’t read past the first paragraph.

Three rounds later, the deck is better, but nobody could tell you why it improved or how to avoid the edits next time.

Fixing it comes down to three things: agreeing on how you’ll work together before the pressure comes, having a shared language for feedback that’s neither too vague nor too in-the-weeds, and treating the feedback as a habit rather than a quarterly event.

Laying out clear expectations from the get-go will front-end the thinking, cut rework and lift the quality of insights you and your team deliver.

Here are three ideas for making that happen.

Agree on a structured way to collaborate on key communication.

In my experience, preparing formal communication slips into the general to-and-fro of ‘work’, rather than being completed as part of a clear working arrangement. The drafting, reviewing and reworking go with a kind of organic flow that gets a bit pressured the closer the deadline looms. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Laying out clear expectations from the get-go will front-end the thinking, cut rework and lift the quality of the insights you and your team deliver.

Provide clear and specific feedback.

Once you’ve agreed on how you’ll work together, the next question is what good feedback actually looks like. Avoid giving feedback that is too vague or too specific. Neither is helpful.

Feedback that is too vague goes a bit like this: ‘tighten the messaging and be more direct’, or perhaps ‘focus on the audience more’.

Feedback that is too specific looks like this: ‘Avoid em dashes; it looks like AI wrote it,’ or ‘The CEO doesn’t like that word,’ or perhaps ‘Stop joining complete sentences with a comma.’

Instead, you want to have a way to be both specific and also get above the minutiae. I use my SCORE framework to do that:

• Set the scene quickly by drawing the audience toward one insightful message
• Convey the right balance of strategic and operational detail
• Organise the ideas in a well-structured hierarchy
• Ready the audience for a productive discussion
• Engage the audience using a medium, style and tone that suits them

Give quality feedback regularly.

Frameworks are only any good if they are used. Instead of holding off until someone’s quarterly review, take a few moments to regularly point out what is working, what’s not and to nudge people to keep growing. This could be commenting on an insightful email, an obvious lift in clarity in a doc of some kind or sitting down with someone to walk through why you changed their draft.

Do this consistently, and feedback stops being something people brace for and starts being a valuable tool that lifts the quality of thinking and writing within your team.

More soon,
Davina

PS. I know: last week I shared the only 7 frameworks you need to know and left this one out. D’oh.

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