Embracing Feedback: The Cornerstone of Career and Personal Growth
Feedback is a gift. I think of it as the parking sensors that tell you about your surroundings that you just don’t see. Sometimes, they tell you, in a very simple beep, that you are just about to crash your own car, and you may want to stop or change directions. And thanks to that, you just don’t. Well, thanks.
This is especially true for unsolicited feedback. But it is also true that getting feedback at the right time is as rare as finding those sensors in an unsophisticated rental car you chose just by sorting by price.
Why wouldn’t someone give feedback?
There are a few reasons why people don’t give feedback when there would be a fit. In my view, mainly these:
They don’t care about people, neither personally nor professionally. To even be bothered, you need to care to some extent about the specific person and about the whole concept of people and people dynamics.
They are unable to tell the good from the bad or see enough steps ahead of situations or behaviors to realize there is room for course correction or for doubling down on something.
They don’t know how to face people, be candid but not offensive, or respond to possible reactions, and they are unwilling to make the effort.
I don’t particularly enjoy working with people who check the boxes above (especially the first two). I think it is dysfunctional when those people are in leadership, and poor you if you happen to be reporting to one: far from helping you grow, they will slow down your career and your personal growth, and if you are self-aware enough, your motivation and energy as well.
Being able to compose, elaborate, articulate, and deliver valid feedback is not a nice-to-have ability but one of the foundational grounds of leadership. If you are a leader, or you think you are, or you want to be, you better get good at it.
On the other hand, of course, it also takes a good receiver. And yes, you better be a good receiver.
On receiving feedback
Very recently, someone I genuinely respect gave me a good piece of feedback and started the sentence with something like, “Sometimes feedback is necessary, I received feedback many times in my career and…etc.”. It was nice because probably this person didn’t know me enough and thought he may need to massage me or pave the way before throwing the bomb, but I was thinking, in a funny way, oh yes, clearly you don’t know me enough, because I treasure feedback, and I receive feedback as Wilt Chamberlain would control the basketball off the backboard (sorry, that means well).
I was not always like this, but I learned to receive feedback smoothly, painlessly, and fruitfully in the last few years. Receiving feedback well includes separate dimensions:
How is that moment: awkward, violent, smooth, funny, interactive or one way, etc.
What happens later: was it all for nothing, or did something come out of it? Did anything really need to come out of it?
Let’s go one step at a time.
The ball-catching moment
Following with my sports metaphors, the feedback sent to you is like a baseball when you are the catcher,
it can hit you right in the face
You can try or pretend to catch it but yet fail miserably and see it bouncing, maybe violently, maybe ridiculously, away from you
it can totally miss you and land awkwardly nowhere while you seem to be oblivious, looking at something else
or you can grab it gracefully with your hands
The ball thrown to you exists, regardless of how you deal with it. So you will be definitely better off if you catch it gracefully so you can deal with it. If you receive feedback, listen actively. Or, to put it simply, if you receive feedback, receive it.
The comeback, or how you react
How you react to feedback has much to do with the specific feedback but much more with your personal traits. Most people have a personal way of reacting to feedback, regardless of what the particular feedback is.
Personally, receiving feedback is something I like because:
When it is something I didn’t expect at all, it makes me curious. Is there something I didn’t see? Did more people see the same? Is there something that is not like that but looks like that from the outside?
If it is something I expected or was suspicious about, it is a relief. It is like a secret being revealed, a puzzle being solved. I knew there was something; finally, I know what it is. Now I can play knowing the cards.
You may have similar or different perceptions. But if you appreciate feedback, 99% of it is done.
On the other hand, If you are of that kind that feels offended or distressed or becomes defensive or angry when you receive feedback, there are typically two main reasons for it:
that you think the feedback is totally off base,
or that you think it is totally correct.
Reacting to untrue feedback is one kind of art. My advice is to listen politely, reply politely, ask for details, and take them home.
If you get angry and defensive because the feedback is correct, that’s easier said than done, but just don’t. You have been caught and don’t like it, but you cannot get uncaught by denying it. It is like playing hide-and-seek and covering your eyes with your hands when caught: you can choose not to see the reality, but others still do. My advice here is, again, listen politely, reply politely, ask for details, and take them home.
Extra mile tip: The best way to get details that can help is by asking follow-up questions, probing, and diving deep. Like you would do in a job interview in which you are the interviewer. You want to get to the bottom of it: why do you think that, what did you do or didn’t do exactly, what moment was key, what do you think should have been done differently, etc. Recollect all possible details. All the pieces matter.
The takeaway
Making sense of feedback in the moment of receiving it is a mistake. It is not possible. You must step back, look at things with perspective, process, and digest them.
That’s why the work starts later: take the feedback home.
My advice here is simple:
Ask yourself sincerely about it; maybe you will find something about it to be true. Work actively to try to disconfirm your own beliefs and play devil’s advocate against yourself. Perhaps you find something to be true. Or maybe not, in that case:
Keep track of things people tell you. If more than one person tells you the same thing over a period of time, chances are that it is true and everyone can see it but you, or very similar: that is not true, but it is how it looks from the outside. Perception is more important than reality because, like it or not, you will be evaluated for what is perceived of you, not for whatever happens only inside of your mind.
If you find something, go to the bottom and understand the root cause and what you can do differently.
The aftermath
What happens in the short and long term with all this is what ultimately matters.
It is annoying and frustrating when someone is called out or given feedback, seems to understand it, but soon repeats the same wrong behavior. People just lose hope.
See this example below:
Sarah, a software developer, has repeatedly committed code without running the required unit tests. Her manager, John, noticed this and provided feedback.
John: “Sarah, I noticed you've been committing code without running the unit tests. It's important because..."
Sarah: "I understand. I'll make sure to run the tests before committing my code from now on."
A week later, John checks the latest commits and finds that Sarah has again committed code without running the unit tests.
John: "Sarah, we discussed the importance of running unit tests before committing code. Yet, it seems like this hasn't been done again. Can you tell me what happened?"
Sarah: "Oh, I'm sorry. I was hurrying to meet the deadline and thought it wouldn't be an issue just this once."
Sarah initially seemed to understand and agree with the feedback but soon reverted to the same behavior, indicating that the feedback was not effectively internalized or prioritized in her actions.
If you ignore feedback or receive it but don’t act on it in the short and long term, your manager, colleagues, and whoever is around you will lose trust and hope, feel not taken seriously, and doubt your actual abilities. They will feel the effort of the feedback was a waste of time, honesty, and trust, and you will come across as someone unwilling to take the extended hand. You will transform yourself into an incompetent buffoon.
To avoid this, extract learnings and apply them:
Identify what are the key points that have to change
Decide how exactly you have to do it. Sometimes, it is not so easy:
In cases of positive actions, i.e., things that you should start doing, you may want to transform the good intentions into mechanisms. For example, if you always forget to implement and run test cases, maybe you should add a subtask in your story to do so. It would be impossible to miss if it was part of a checklist. You can influence your team to do the same so you transform your problem into an improvement for yourself and everyone else.
In case of negative actions, such as “don’t do this: this” or “things you need to do differently, you may need to strategize more. For example, if you receive feedback that you complain a lot, clearly, you need to complain less. Still, you want your message to come across so you won’t simply shut up moving forward. Hence, what you need to reflect on is what words you are using that are perceived negatively and how you can transform your wording to transform a negative message into a positive one. For example, instead of saying:
“Richard is useless and is making everyone go slower. We will never deliver the project.”You can say:
“Things are challenging at the moment, but we are working around it: I’m trying to coach and support Richard, who, as you know, is relatively junior but yet a key player in the project. So I’m trying to reach where he cannot and give him direction, but this seems to be impacting our velocity. After the sprint review, I will let you know once we have more quantitative data, and we can see if there is an actual material risk.”
Try to find opportunities to implement the changes. Listen actively and think before saying anything: “Could this situation or what I would say apply to the feedback recently received?” In that case, apply what you have learned and make sure you openly observe how it works.
This will show early evidence that the feedback is received and change is possible. It will also allow you to field-test your improvement strategy and iterate if needed.