Actively seek feedback that could prove you wrong
Ask the people most likely to see your errors — not the people most likely to affirm you.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Ask the people most likely to see your errors — not the people most likely to affirm you.
- Why it works: Confirmation bias and social dynamics conspire to give confident people mostly affirming feedback: people hesitate to correct someone who seems certain. Actively requesting critical feedback — and creating a low-cost channel for it — counteracts this by making it easier to share corrective information than to withhold it. The information exists; the bottleneck is permission to deliver it.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Framing the request as "what do you think?" (too open) or asking only people who are junior to you, who are most unlikely to volunteer criticism.
Why it works
Confirmation bias and social dynamics conspire to give confident people mostly affirming feedback: people hesitate to correct someone who seems certain. Actively requesting critical feedback — and creating a low-cost channel for it — counteracts this by making it easier to share corrective information than to withhold it. The information exists; the bottleneck is permission to deliver it.
How to do it
- 1Identify someone who has more expertise or a different vantage point on your work.
- 2Ask a specific disconfirming question: "What do you think I’m getting wrong?" or "What’s the thing you notice that I don’t seem to see?"
- 3Resist the urge to defend or explain immediately — take notes instead.
- 4After several such conversations, look for recurring themes.
What the evidence says
ObservationalResearch on feedback-seeking finds that people tend to avoid unsolicited feedback that may be negative, and that organizations with explicit cultures of candid feedback show improved decision-making. Soliciting disconfirming feedback directly counteracts this tendency.
Honest caveat: Feedback quality depends on whether the giver actually knows more and feels safe to be honest. In low-trust or high-power-distance environments, this practice may surface only what people think you want to hear.
Common mistake
Framing the request as "what do you think?" (too open) or asking only people who are junior to you, who are most unlikely to volunteer criticism.
IX Coach helps you craft specific disconfirming questions for each domain, and tracks what recurring feedback you receive so the pattern is visible across conversations rather than isolated.
Practice this with IX Coach →