“Clear is kind.”
- Brene Brown
Clear is Kind: Normalizing Feedback
by Claire Vo on April 7, 2024
This quote captures a powerful truth about feedback that challenges our intuition about what kindness actually means in professional relationships.
Core Meaning
- Honesty as compassion: True kindness isn't sugarcoating or avoiding difficult conversations, but providing clear, direct feedback
- Clarity prevents confusion: Ambiguous feedback creates uncertainty and anxiety, while clarity provides a path forward
- Respect through directness: Being straightforward demonstrates respect for someone's capacity to handle truth and grow
- Courage in communication: Clear feedback requires courage but ultimately serves the recipient better than comfortable vagueness
Why This Matters In Product
- Team effectiveness: Teams that normalize direct feedback build better products faster by addressing issues promptly
- Career development: Clear feedback is essential for professional growth and skill development
- Decision quality: Ambiguous feedback leads to misaligned expectations and poor decisions
- Trust building: Consistently clear communication builds deeper trust than pleasant but vague interactions
How To Apply
This principle transforms how we approach feedback in product work:
- Performance conversations: Directly stating when work isn't meeting expectations rather than hinting at issues
- Design critiques: Providing specific, actionable feedback rather than general positivity
- Strategic disagreements: Clearly articulating concerns about direction rather than passive agreement
- Cross-functional collaboration: Explicitly stating needs and constraints rather than assuming understanding
The quote reminds us that withholding clear feedback isn't protecting others—it's protecting ourselves from discomfort at the expense of others' growth and the product's success.