"Timely advice is as lovely as golden apples
in a silver basket."
Have you ever received a piece of advice or feedback that you said
after, "I sure wish you would have told me this earlier and I could have
done something about it!" We likely all have had this happen to us at
one time or another. This is one of my beefs with an annual performance
appraisal/feedback process. Because bosses know that they have a time
in the year later to give the feedback they store it all up and hold it
until that one moment and by then some of it is so old that it isn't
actionable or relevant. Feedback and advice is not like wine. It does
not get better with time. Feedback and advice is best when delivered as
close to the event or circumstance as possible. It's a little like
training a dog. It doesn't do any good to scold or reward a dog for
something that happened earlier. To be most effective it has to be on
the spot. I'm not saying we are like dogs, but maybe we are when it
comes to feedback and advice. Look, if it was easy to give advice on
the spot then we all would do it. We worry about whether or not we are
going to say the right thing, or that we will be providing the right
advice, or that we will hurt someone's feelings, etc. There is lots to
consider, yes, but we should remember that timely advice can outweigh
all the rest of the concerns.
Solomon gives us a promise in Proverbs
25:11 about being timely; "Timely advice is as lovely as golden apples
in a silver basket." Let's consider today if we are sitting on some
advice and feedback that we need to give but have been hesitant to do
so. Let's also be bold enough to go and seek the advice/counsel/feedback
that we know is out for us but will not come to us unless we ask now.
Let's let timeliness rule for a bit and see what comes of being able to
take in and give out what can be most actionable.
Reference: Proverbs 25:11 (New Living Testament)
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