Which do you think is most useful: feedback after an event or advice before it? According to researchers from the Harvard Business School, advice is the way to go. When you ask for feedback on something already done, the evaluation you get is often too vague to be helpful. People often default to being nice and not wanting to say what they really think. It's human nature. They immediately go into evaluation mode rather than picturing how you could do something better in the future. Quite often, when we ask for feedback, we're really asking because we want to feel validated, and the person we're asking instinctively knows that. Asking for advice shows you're letting down your guard in an effort to improve, and people will be more open and honest and make suggestions that can help you do just that. But a word of advice, if someone does ask you for your words of wisdom, the best way is to ask them a lot of questions rather than giving your opinions too quickly. That way, it helps the...