Rick Segal has an interesting story about trying to get honest feedback from people:

For the first group of people, I said basically this:

While working on my electronics research, I came across an interesting way to make sure popcorn gets done right as I hate burnt popcorn… Insert above story… what do you think? I need some honest feedback.

I divided this story telling into people I knew and ones I’d never met before.  What was interesting (and probably not surprising) is that when I claimed this idea as my own, the worst feedback I got was “a bit narrow of a solution, don’t you think”.  Virtually everybody wanted to come up with ideas on getting the microwave oven and popcorn folks to sell or include my pop-rite device. Most struggled and wanted to change the subject, only one person said “kinda goofy” and I knew them.

For the next group of people, I went with this version:

So, I have a guy pitching me the following. He is a electronics wiz… Insert above story… what do you think? I need some honest feedback to pass on.

Same thing. Divided this up into people I knew and didn’t know.  The feedback was brutal. Ranging from wow must be a smart electronics guy to get that to work inside a microwave all the way to, did all the stupid people have a convention in Toronto?

Same idea, same basic pitch, same request.  The difference being that I set up an environment where it wasn’t personal and the feedback could flow without the perceived or real fear of offending me. It didn’t matter if these were friends or people I had never met before.

The lesson for you is simple but often overlooked.  Most people will not trash you or your ideas no matter how hard you press for honest feedback.  It is really tough to get. Running around and getting “trusted” people saying, cool or that’s awesome may not be useful.