A short YouTube segment (speaker: Steven Burch) relays Adam Grant's distinction between quality and taste when receiving criticism. The speaker advises actively seeking additional feedback: if multiple people point to the same issue it's likely a quality problem to fix; if others respond more positively, the negative response may reflect personal taste rather than true quality.
One of my favorite authors, Adam Grant, he talks about this idea of quality versus taste. This happens a lot, right? When you hear some feedback that is a little bit hard to hear. We all do this human nature, but we tend to close up and stop asking for further input, right? Well, he suggests that we do the opposite. So his thought is that you should actively be seeking further input from others. If those other people are responding similarly and they're circling around the same problem, then perhaps there's an issue that you need to address with your work. However, if other people are responding more positively than that initial feedback that was slightly negative could very well be just a matter of taste and not a matter of quality with your work.
