Okay, so folks were asking about my time trying out that ‘Linda Steinmark’ thing. Honestly, it feels like ages ago now, but I remember the whole process pretty clearly.
Getting Started with ‘Linda Steinmark’
It started, like many things, with some chatter I overheard. Someone mentioned ‘Linda Steinmark’ as this supposedly groundbreaking way to structure project feedback or something. Sounded fancy. I figured, why not? Let’s see what the fuss is about. So, the first thing I did was try to actually find out what it was. Not easy, let me tell you. It was all very… vague. Lots of buzzwords, not much solid ‘do this, then do that’.
Anyway, I decided to just grab the bits that made some sense to me. The core idea seemed to be about separating different kinds of feedback – like, one person focuses only on positives, another only on critical stuff, maybe another on future ideas. Seemed simple enough on the surface.
Trying It Out
So, I got my small team together. We had this project review coming up. I explained my take on this ‘Linda Steinmark’ approach. You know, “Okay team, for this session, Dave, you only point out what worked well. Sarah, you’re on critical points – what broke, what was bad. Mike, you just focus on suggestions for next time.”
The initial reaction? Mostly blank stares. But they’re a good bunch, so they agreed to give it a shot. We started the review meeting like that.
- Dave went first. It felt kinda forced, just listing good things. Some were stretches, honestly.
- Then Sarah came in. Man, that was rough. Just a stream of problems. Without the balance, it sounded really harsh, even though that wasn’t her intention. Team morale kinda dipped right there.
- Mike’s turn. He had some ideas, but they felt disconnected because we hadn’t properly discussed the ‘why’ behind the problems Sarah raised.
What Happened Next
Well, the meeting ended. And it felt… weird. Fragmented. Like we’d dissected the project but hadn’t put it back together. I realized pretty quick that forcing feedback into these tight little boxes wasn’t natural for us. People usually mix critique with praise, or a problem leads directly to a suggestion. This felt artificial.
We tried it one more time on a smaller task. Same result. People felt muzzled, unable to give balanced feedback. Dave wanted to point out a problem related to something good he saw, but couldn’t. Sarah found a solution while explaining a critique, but held back because it wasn’t her ‘role’. It just gummed up the works.
Final Thoughts
So, I scrapped the whole ‘Linda Steinmark’ experiment for our team after those two tries. Maybe it works for some folks, maybe I misunderstood the whole vague concept, who knows? For us, it just created confusion and awkward silences. We went back to our old way – open discussion, people speaking their minds, mixing the good, the bad, and the ideas all together. Messier? Maybe. But it works for us. Felt much better, more collaborative.
Sometimes, these fancy methodologies you hear about just aren’t a good fit. You gotta try things, sure, but you also gotta know when to ditch ’em if they’re not making life easier. That was my experience with that whole thing. Just didn’t click for us in practice.
