American Idol is Feedback

Every week during the Spring television season millions of viewers are exposed to performances of possibly the next American Idol. What they also view are examples of different coaching behaviors from Randy, Paula, and Simon. For the past seven seasons these three have established their own styles of feedback.

Randy provides technical feedback. All I know about music is what I like and what I don’t like. Randy shares with us feedback on tone, range, and pitch. What is important is this technical jargon must make sense to the performer. Paula provides the emotional feedback. Regardless of the quality of the performance, she always begins with a positive comment to make the performer feel good. What comes next out of her mouth as valuable to the participants is open for debate. Simon provides the honest critical feedback. In his role as a listener, he shares how he feels about the performance in a straight direct approach. His feedback is strictly professional.

While all three are distinctly different all styles have a purpose. When providing feedback to teachers a coach must know how and when to provide feedback like Randy, Paula, and Simon.

Demonstration of Mastery at Too Jay's: Roles and responsibilities lead to results

If the post, "Being A Coach at Denny's” is about a recipe of success for support, then my experience at Too Jay's was the demonstration of mastery. During my short visit it was obvious that the staff knew their roles and responsibilities and they have succeeded in achieving their short and long term goals: my immediate satisfaction and having me longing for a return visit. Honestly I am thinking it was more than just knowing and performing their job, but it was the impression that they actually loved the job that they were hired to do.

It would only be an assumption that the hostess has aspirations to do more than to anticipate my arrival, but I would never know it. It would only be an assumption that the busboy has aspirations to do more than check ketchup bottles, but I would never know it. It would only be an assumption that the waitress has aspirations to do more than to make me feel that I was making the best food choice of the day, but I would never know it.

I actually believe the hostess, the busboy, and the waitress wanted to be there and make my experience as enjoyable as possible.