Lenny RachitskyHost of Lenny's Podcast | Author of Lenny's Newsletter

Build the feedback loop early

22 Sept 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:46

This is a short YouTube talk by Lenny Rachitsky about establishing a feedback loop early in working relationships. Early in collaboration, proactively set the norm that you value each other’s growth, invite frequent (e.g., weekly) open feedback, and use simple scripting (positive framing + mutual agreement) so feedback conversations aren’t initiated from a pressured, negative event.

Chapters

The first step on getting feedback or delivering hard feedback is first go and actually establish that our relationship is one in which we value each other's contribution. We want to help each other grow, and therefore we're going to be the kind of people that want to give feedback to each other every week. So when you first start working with someone, don't wait until something bad has happened. Now you have given feedback. That's already a pressurized situation. Start by saying, hey, really excited to work with you. Feel like our best collaboration is, I want you to help me get better. I think I'm good at this stuff. I'm not so good at this stuff. Stuff. What about you? Okay, you think you're good at this stuff? How about we just work together and we just help each other get better at these things? And the way we're going to do that is all feedback is open. I want you to tell me everything. Ideally, you're going to then say, yeah, I want you to tell me everything. And we've already established that.