Working on my comment (continued)

Friday, June 17, 2022 (15:56)

I received more feedback to my comment. Two of them were in written form. Here is the first:

Mulle tundub see tekst päris hea ja täpne, vähemalt nii palju kui selle teise rühmaga seotud olin. Aga võib-olla oled liiga kriitiline enda töö suhtes. Kui ongi nii, et on need “major points of discord”, siis oleks ju raske neid ühendada sellise projektiga. Aga vähemalt sai kaardistatud neid erinevusi - see on juba suur samm.

Here is the second feedback:

I read your comment in full (and I have browsed and partially read many previous documents).

I think this summary comment is very helpful. It is informative and it also sort of “brings health”. It happens quite often (at least in my experience) that there is lack of satisfaction after a task, to some degree, when goals and wishes were big, and the outcome not quite as “grand” as expected or hoped. But this comment gives a sort of conclusion to the work, both emotionally and factually. And, if read, it just might be even more valuable than the report itself!

I think it is good that you kept the comment short. The bold font in “dissatisfied” brings attention and curiosity and invites to read more. Then thoughtful sentences follow. It is really good.

This sentence, “I failed to speak in an understandable way and often used a provocative style, causing counter-productive emotions”, is very relatable to me. … I often make that mistake, over and over again (but maybe, hopefully, a bit less frequently than earlier; maybe I have managed to improve a little bit!) I want so much to make people get “wiser” (as I see it), but I sometimes make them hostile instead (at least for some time). It is such a difficult balance. One cannot always be “nice and pleasant”, sometimes one needs to put some argument a bit more strongly also … but not too strongly. Such a difficult balance sometimes. But there should always be some sort of “peace” about it. So easy to say, so hard to do! I think you feel the same as I do about this.

Already before reading these feedbacks, I had had the feeling that there was something wrong with this table (see Working on my comment). After these feedbacks, I now changed the column headings of the table (“just “left” and “right” instead of “team A” and “team B”) and added another paragraph “It is important to note that no participant of the Synod is fully on one side of the table. Dichotomies are useful indicators that help us to grasp certain aspects of reality, but they remain human-made “labels” that connect to diverse meanings and therefore cause diverse emotions.”