It all begins with an idea.

Of course, I don’t mean that literally. You could be a chair, a table — maybe even a sconce.

Here’s what I do mean: I used to puzzle over how someone who is intelligent, hard-working, genuine, mission-aligned, values-aligned, could still be fundamentally incompatible to work with. (And to be fair, I’ve been that person to others.)

And then it dawned on me: I am a couch.

I’m convinced that every time a manager says “I want to empower you”, a little part of an employee’s soul dies. So often empowerment merely serves as a euphemism for doing more work. Because while managers love talking about empowerment, they get extremely uncomfortable discussing power.

Among the many well-intentioned but useless management euphemisms, none approaches the ubiquity and wrongness of “Feedback is a Gift.”

Speaking about feedback like it’s a gift is guaranteed to create a culture where people don’t give enough of it, don’t give it honestly, and don’t give it when you need it most.

I learned that the hard way.