Are you aware that 86 percent of your employees can smell a ‘but’ coming from three hallways away? I am currently sitting in my office, the air conditioning humming at a frequency that feels like a drill in my left temple, and I am still reeling from the audacity of a silver sedan. That driver saw me signaling. They saw me waiting. They simply chose to exist in a world where my intentions did not matter. It is the same flavor of clinical disregard I feel when a manager sits across from me and begins the ritual of the ‘Feedback Sandwich.’ You know the one.
It starts with a compliment so thin you could see through it, followed by the actual point-usually a stinging critique-and finished with a pathetic little garnish of ‘keep up the good work.’ It is a performance of empathy that contains none of the actual substance.
At no time in the history of human interaction has someone felt genuinely uplifted by a compliment they knew was only serving as a delivery vehicle for a reprimand. It is a cowardly structural choice. We are told in management seminars that this is the ‘gentle’ way to handle difficult conversations. In reality, it is a way for the person giving the feedback to avoid the discomfort of their own authority. They want to be liked more than they want to be clear.
I once spent 56 hours trying to fix a hot spot on a Caravaggio because the previous designer tried to ‘soften’ the blow of a structural pillar. They failed the light because they were afraid of the shadow. We do this in our offices every single day. We treat our colleagues like toddlers who cannot handle the weight of a direct observation.
The Cortisol Spike
When you wrap a correction in two layers of fake praise, you are not being kind; you are being manipulative. You are training your team to treat every piece of positive feedback with a profound sense of suspicion. You are creating a Pavlovian response where ‘I really liked your presentation’ triggers a spike in cortisol because the brain is already bracing for the impact of the ‘however’ that is 6 seconds away.
This erosion of trust is expensive. It costs us the ability to celebrate wins because we are always looking for the hidden trap.
The Cost of Comfort
Repair Cost vs. Honesty Delay
$866 Impact
I remember one specific mistake I made early in my career. I was working on a project with 36 different light sensors, and I had a junior assistant who kept miscalculating the beam spreads. Instead of telling him clearly that his math was flawed, I spent 16 minutes telling him how much I appreciated his punctuality and his choice of notebook. Then, I whispered the correction. Then, I told him his hair looked nice. He left the meeting thinking he was a star. Two days later, we blew out a circuit that cost the gallery $866 in repairs. He was blindsided when I finally had to be firm. He felt betrayed, not because I corrected him, but because I hadn’t been honest from the start. I had traded his growth for my own temporary comfort.
There is a certain dignity in being told exactly where you stand. When we strip away the artifice, we allow for genuine transformation.
This is something that becomes very apparent in high-stakes environments where problems need to be solved in real-time. For instance, in the collaborative atmosphere of seg events, the focus shifts from polite dancing to actual problem-solving. In those moments, the ‘sandwich’ disappears because there is no room for it. You either fix the light, or the stage stays dark. You either solve the logistics, or the event stalls. There is a profound beauty in that level of directness. It treats every participant as an adult capable of handling reality.
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[The architecture of the truth requires no scaffolding.]
– Alex N.
The Parking Lot Analogy
I find myself thinking about that silver sedan again. If the driver had just rolled down their window and said, ‘I’m stealing this spot because I’m late and I’m being selfish,’ I might have actually respected them. It would have been a moment of shared reality. Instead, they avoided eye contact, pretending I wasn’t there.
Clinical Disregard
Respectful Exchange
The feedback sandwich is the management equivalent of avoiding eye contact after stealing a parking spot. It is a refusal to acknowledge the person standing right in front of you.
Why do we struggle so much with the 46 percent of conversations that require friction? Friction is how we create warmth. Friction is how we move.
Nice vs. Kind: The Core Difference
Nice (The Sandwich)
Focuses on surface comfort; avoids friction.
Kind (The Truth)
Focuses on growth, even when friction is required.
We have created a culture of ‘nice’ that is the enemy of ‘kind.’ Nice is about the surface. Nice is about the sandwich. Kind is about the growth of the individual, which often requires the removal of dead weight and the shining of a very bright, very focused light on a flaw.
If someone is failing, tell them. If a report is sloppy, identify the slop. If a deadline was missed, ask why. Do not tell them their font choice was ‘inspiring’ first. I am currently looking at a spreadsheet with 106 line items for a new exhibit. Each one is a potential point of failure. If I were to approach my team with ‘sandwiched’ critiques of their data entry, we would be here until the year 2046. We don’t have time for the bread. We only have time for the meat.
A culture of candor is a culture of safety. When you know that people will tell you the truth, you don’t have to waste 26 percent of your mental energy decoding their subtext.
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[Directness is a form of generosity.]
It saves time, allows correction, and assumes strength.
It is generous because it assumes the other person is strong enough to hear it. When we use the sandwich, we are essentially saying, ‘I think you are too fragile to handle the truth of your own performance.’ It is a subtle, persistent insult to the intelligence of everyone involved.
I should probably go find that silver sedan and leave a note. Not a ‘sandwiched’ note. Not a note that says, ‘I love the color of your car, but you’re a jerk, anyway nice rims.’ No. Just a note that says ‘You stole my spot.’ Simple. Honest. A beam of light in a dark parking lot. We are so used to the fog of corporate politeness that the sun feels like a physical assault, but I would rather be blinded by the truth than wander around in the dim, grey haze of a manager’s fake praise.
The Final Illumination
If we want to build something that lasts, whether it is a museum exhibit or a high-performing team, we have to be willing to look at the cracks without pretending they are decorative features. We have to stop being afraid of the ‘but’ and just start with the ‘here is what is wrong.’
It is the only way the light gets in.
Treat them like the professional they are. Give them the truth, raw and unadorned. They might be surprised, they might even be a little stung, but eventually, they will thank you for the clarity. Because at the end of the day, we aren’t children in a cafeteria. We are adults trying to do something meaningful, and we deserve the respect of a direct conversation.
How many more years will we spend eating these soggy sandwiches before we realize we are all starving for the truth?
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