Dealing with feedback¶

The previous section, Getting feedback, dealt with the question of why it’s crucial to have and seek feedback. The next question is how you actually receive it when it comes, and what you do about it.

What you need to know about your feedback¶

Three really crucial questions to ask about any feedback you receive about your performance are:

What judgement is expressed in it?
What direction does it give me?
What am I going to do about it?

For example, suppose your manager says:

I don’t always feel that you are well-prepared for our one-to-one meetings. You need to be an active participant, with an agenda. Last week you didn’t have any work ready to show me, and I was surprised that I had to ask you for a progress report on the project.

Two dimensions of feedback¶

There are two very distinct things in this.

the manager’s judgement (backward-looking): your preparation is poor, you take a passive role
the manager’s direction (forward-looking): the manager wants you to have an agenda and a progress report ready, and behave like a driver, not a passenger, in meetings

Good feedback includes both, and you must be able to understand how and why your work was successful (or not), and know what you can actually do next to improve.

Filling in what’s missing¶

When people give you feedback, they don’t always make the judgement and direction explicit. Sometimes one or the other is merely implied (though high quality feedback generally gives both, explicitly). So, sometimes you have to do the work to add the missing dimension.

That work could include following up with someone. For example quite often when you get positive feedback, people just leave it at a positive judgement (“The CLI documentation improvements were really excellent!”) without offering you direction as well. In that case, you should take the trouble to press them for more. “Thanks for the feedback - I hope you can also give me some advice on what would be a good next step to build on that, or to improve even further.”

Try it¶

You receive the feedback:

Your presentation yesterday wasn’t a success - mostly because you didn’t discuss it with me first. It should have been much shorter, and focused entirely on technical implementation, not the back-story.

What key judgements about how well you did are expressed here that you can learn from?
What important direction are you given, that will help you do better in the future?

Recording feedback¶

The way of recording feedback described here does more than just collect it, it also frames it in a structured way, obliging you to distinguish between the judgement and the direction.

In the example of the manager’s feedback above, you have to do a bit of work to separate them. You could record the judgement as “I am too passive, and not always prepared” and the direction as “Have an agenda, be ready with progress reports etc before being asked”.

As well as the feedback you receive, you should note your proposed or actual response, and record when you actually act upon it.

Feedback					Response
When	From	Type	Judgement	Direction	Action	When
01 May 2025	Manager	Corrective	I am too passive, and not always prepared	Have an agenda, be ready with progress reports etc before being asked	Had both ready for the next meeting	02 May 2025
12 May 2025	Manager	Corrective	Presentation was poor; too long, wrong focus	Discuss plans; share work in progress	Shared and discussed work in progress on API problem	14 May 2025
13 May 2025	Senior	Positive	Excellent work implementing new logging API		Ask for directive feedback
19 May 2025	Colleague	Positive	Good CLI documentation progress; should have informed team	Always keep the team abreast of my work; don’t do it in silence	Give regular progress reports on next project

Why this system works¶

Judgement, direction, action¶

It’s powerful to have a system that separates the judgement from the direction this way.

It doesn’t just help clarify what you need to do, you can use it with the person who gave you the feedback to make sure you understand what they need you to do, or identify when that haven’t made it clear. And, it helps you attach a particular future course of action to feedback.

Highlighting incomplete feedback¶

It also shows up clearly when feedback is incomplete. For example, if you get negative feedback, without any implicit or explicit direction on what you can actually do to improve, it’s not corrective, it’s only negative - you deserve better feedback than that and you are entitled to ask for more.

Negative feedback into positive energy¶

The final thing this system gives you is that it helps channel even negative feedback into a positive direction. It’s easy to be undermined by negative feedback, however helpful it is intended to be. The anxiety it provokes can drive someone who is struggling even further down.

By insisting on attaching a direction and an action to all feedback, this way of recording feedback turns that energy to a forward direction.

The gift¶

Your starting-point for thinking about feedback should be to regard it as a gift. It’s almost always a gift of something that you didn’t have, that you lacked.

When it’s unwelcome feedback it can be hard to feel that it’s really a gift. But, the primary reason anyone gives you feedback at all is that they want to do better - to be more successful - and they believe that their feedback will help you achieve this.

When the feedback is positive, it’s easy to accept. When it’s negative, that’s more complicated.

Negative feedback can feel like a blow, particularly when you already have some doubts about your own performance and ability. But, you have received it and now you have to unpack it.

You might disagree with the feedback - that it is actually wrong, or too harsh. It might be. You can reject the feedback in that case, but even if the feedback is wrong, you are rejecting a valuable gift, and denying it to yourself. It’s a valuable gift precisely because it’s something you don’t have.

You only have your own perspective, and the feedback is from a perspective you don’t have. It represents how at least one person, but probably more, saw your performance and your work. They could all be wrong, but still, it is how you are seen. Being successful isn’t a matter of being right, it’s about meeting and exceeding expectations.

It’s fine to think that other people are wrong, but it is completely stupid to reject the feedback they give you. Feedback is not something whose truth you reject or accept, but information you can work with, to do something.

Receiving feedback¶

If you are able to see feedback as something someone gives you (whether it’s a welcome gift or not) rather than as truth you have to agree to, you are in a position to receive it more effectively.

Receiving feedback isn’t just passively being there to hear it. It means putting yourself in an open, active relationship with it.

Give yourself a little time to get over an immediate shock, if the feedback is unexpectedly bad (or even unexpectedly good). That’s a normal human thing to do. It’s absolutely fine to take delivery of it, but not actually address it until you are ready,

As you as can though, you should be unpacking it in the company of the person who gave it to you: “Please can we go over the feedback you gave me?”

Saying that you needed a day or two to think about it properly doesn’t show slowness or weakness, but maturity and a determination to engage in a serious way.

What’s in the box?¶

Unpacking the feedback is a good metaphor. It’s not just something to be handed over, but to be looked over and inspected.

It’s an active process. Nodding submissively in agreement isn’t the same thing (better than showing your rejection of it through defensive body language, but not much better).

The other party needs to feel that you are there to understand what they have told you. Not that you agree, not that you are really sorry, not that you are very keen to do better next time, but that you have understood.

Put it in your own words and repeat it back to them. Describe what they think could have been better and you should do in the future in concrete terms. Ask them to confirm that they agree with your restatement of their words.

To be clear: you thought that I wasted time by going over the problem, and that people were expecting to hear about the solution we had agreed on - so I didn’t need the first five slides at all - correct? And that I should have gone into more detail about how we’ll handle pooled connections and time-outs?

and:

For the next session I will check with you what we need to cover in the presentation a week beforehand.

This has to take place in a relationship of trust. You need to be able to say tentative things, for example:

Would it have been better if I had instead <done xxx>? Would it be a good idea to try <yyy>?

and feel that the other person is there to help you not just unpack the box, but improve your work through the experience.

Owning feedback¶

This process of unpacking feedback helps you own it - making it yours. One hard part of feedback is that it comes from outside you, but feedback that you have successfully integrated into your own picture of your professional performance and development is a powerful thing to have.

It transforms it into something else (it also feels different). If it remains someone else’s thing, then you when you follow its advice you’re being led by someone else, or resisting someone else, if you don’t. Either way, you are not in command.

When you make it yours, you become the author of what you do next. You get to own any future success and achievement that comes out of it.

Receiving positive feedback¶

To receive positive feedback can be a tremendous boost. If you get it, you have deserved it, so enjoy it.

Much of the advice above has focused on corrective feedback. Don’t get the idea that positive feedback should be treated or received differently: approach positive feedback in exactly the same way.

Look for both the judgement and direction (in the case of positive feedback you will often need to ask explicitly for some direction). Record it in the same way. Treat it like a gift, receive it and unpack it, with the giver (also allowing yourself time to process it first) and then own it.

There is in fact a special risk in getting positive feedback: false modesty, that means you shrug it off. Put that aside. It can obstruct your learning and progress as effectively as any obstinate pride.