One-on-one feedback, whether over a coffee or over the phone, is often seen as the holy grail of getting honest, useful feedback on something.

And it certainly has its place.

The danger of receiving feedback in this way though is you may feel the need to interrupt, to defend your choices, to make excuses.

And the danger of that is you might encourage the person giving you the feedback to hold back or lose their point.

Meaning you never really get the full, sometimes uncomfortable truth (and that’s what you should be asking for).

Maybe better then to ask the person to email their thoughts or record their opinions first, uninterrupted, ‘uncensored’ by you.

You then have the opportunity to clarify one-on-one from a better starting point with less chances of you sabotaging what you need to hear.