It’s great to see what pearls of wisdom one can glean while having a coffee. Which is why the #wordonthestreet section of TimeOut London is a favourite of mine.

The Mission’s Andy Raskin relates how he overheard a mentorship conversation in a coffee shop around the delicate topic of getting more honest and open feedback.

Whether from a team, or an audience you’re presenting to, it isn’t easy to gauge what people truly have in mind, and the sacrosanct “any questions?” just doesn’t help.

Instead, the mentor gives his mentee the example of the late Steve Jobs’ technique when he was occasionally dropping in at Pixar, to get a quick sense of what was going on. He would round up a team, without their direct leader, and ask each of them “what’s working/not working right now”.

Andy then explains how he adapted the feedback technique for use after a workshop: “what did I make confusing during this session” and “what will be most useful for you out of today”.