An article in Bloomberg Businessweek talks about Amy Jo Martin – who is a ‘tweet coach’ to Shaquille O’Neal. In it he says: “Amy Jo always has my back. If I do something wrong, she calls me within five minutes”.

I thought this was an interesting perspective of feedback. Shaq doesn’t think of Amy Jo as behaving negatively towards him. He thinks of her as ‘having his back’. Of saving him from himself. Of being his support.

Feedback isn’t negative. Feedback just is. But one way of thinking about it if you’re giving feedback is to think that you just have your superstar’s back. Want to rant now? Somehow, that desire goes away when you think about it that way. And superstars, your manager is just showing you, he has your back. Like Amy Jo has Shaq’s.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/shaquille-oneals-allstar-twitter-co…