At Cohere, we embrace feedback as a vital part of our creative process. However, navigating feedback—especially in a creative setting—can feel like walking a tightrope. That’s where role-playing comes in. We’ve found that simulating real-life scenarios helps us identify biases that can cloud our feedback, like confirmation bias and the recency effect, while also allowing us to articulate our creative rationale more effectively.
Role Playing Exercise:
Ask your team to think about a few recent examples where their creative work was challenged by leadership or a client. Ask them to go around the room and role play the conversations that came up.
Set the Scene: Gather your team and choose recent projects to role-play. Assign roles—designer, client, project manager—to recreate the dynamics of past discussions.
We put a list of projects on the board too, that helped us identify overlapping trends with how the goals of those projects or other factors may have been unclear to begin with. This is a useful exercise to take the subjectiveness out of it!
Explore Different Perspectives: Encourage participants to step into each role to understand how different viewpoints shape feedback. This helps everyone appreciate the nuances of each position.
Identify Key Issues: Use the session to pinpoint what to advocate for and what to let go of. Discuss how to align your vision with client goals, whether it’s through design choices or strategic approaches.
Refine Your Communication & TOOLS! Practice articulating your rationale in a way that resonates with the client’s objectives. For example, explain design decisions like type choices or a digital-first focus clearly and compellingly.
Enhance Your Tools: Discuss ways to improve your language and tools when guiding clients through feedback. This can lead to clearer communication and stronger collaboration.
Aim for Constructive Outcomes: Focus on bridging gaps in understanding. Discuss why certain feedback may feel misaligned and explore ways to clarify assumptions about the client’s desires.
Find Support: We always say “don’t be on an island alone…” If you notice repetitive feedback patterns, consider pairing up with a colleague to help break out of a creative funk. Fresh perspectives can spark new ideas and solutions.
By incorporating role-playing into your feedback process, you’ll strengthen your team’s ability to defend creativity while fostering collaboration, ensuring that every voice is heard and valued.
A helpful reminder - Know Your Biases as Creatives
10 Minute Exercise - we crafted an exercise out of the reality of the biases we may encounter when in our client or leadership feedback loop. Let’s review these and identify times it has happened and ways to use the “mirror approach” as it is occurring.
Confirmation Bias: Focusing on feedback that supports initial ideas while ignoring criticism.
Anchoring Bias: The first feedback received can overly influence the design process.
Overconfidence Bias: Overestimating the effectiveness of designs and dismissing client concerns.
Sunk Cost Fallacy: Reluctance to abandon a concept due to invested time and effort.
Groupthink: Conforming to team opinions, which can stifle creativity.
Recency Effect: Recent feedback may overshadow earlier comments.
Cultural Bias: Imposing personal cultural perspectives on the client’s audience.
Emotional Bias: Personal feelings about a design or client can cloud judgment.
Availability Heuristic: Relying on easily recalled experiences that may skew understanding.
Framing Effect: The way feedback is presented can influence perception.
Discuss: Identify which biases may be influencing your current project.
Reflect: Consider strategies to mitigate these biases in your feedback process.
