How you handle critical feedback can make or break your career. Well structured feedback contains valuable information that will help you grow in your career. Kind of like a personalized curriculum for growth, custom-made for you.
However, there are a few challenges to handling critical feedback and using it to drive growth:
You could get too upset about hearing criticism of yourself to be able to objectively address it.
You could misunderstand what the feedback provider says and work towards the wrong thing.
Addressing the feedback could fall off your radar and you could end up never closing the loop with the feedback provider about addressing their concerns.
In this article, I share the framework I use to reduce the likelihood of making the above mistakes.
Let’s dive right in.
Accept your emotions
No matter how prepared you are, and no matter how kindly it is presented, critical feedback HURTS. The best thing you can do about it is to accept this fact. Allow yourself the time and space to deal with the hurt feelings so that you can move past them.
If the feedback is being delivered verbally, make notes during the meeting and ask for some time to process it before you respond. If it is written, it is easier to let the feedback and the associated feelings sink in before you take further action.
The idea is to be kind to yourself and accept your feelings as natural, so that you can move past them and onto the next steps with composure.
Ask for clarity
The best feedback is specific and presented with concrete examples.
Let’s compare the following examples.
Vague feedback: John is not a team player.
Clear feedback: When working on Project Alpha, John did not follow the priority order of tasks as set down by the product manager. He also failed to communicate which tasks he was working on, making it hard for the product manager to prepare the stakeholder for the features that were going to be delivered in each sprint. (Ideally this would also list out the actual high priority tasks John failed to deliver on time)
If the feedback you’ve received is lacking in this level of detail, craft specific questions to ask for it. Ask for examples of instances where your work wasn’t up to the mark.
You also need to understand what the expected behavior is. Don’t make assumptions. Instead, ask your feedback provider what they think you should’ve done instead.
Craft an action plan
Now that you understand where your gaps lie and what the expected behavior is, create an action plan to address each of your gaps. It helps to share this action plan with your feedback provider to confirm that you’ve understood their feedback correctly.
For example, given the feedback John received in the previous section, he would create an action plan as follows:
Identify next opportunity (e.g. next sprint, next project etc) to demonstrate my incorporating of the feedback.
Before starting on my tasks in the next project, reach out to the product manager to confirm my understanding of the priorities.
Communicate regular updates to my product manager regarding the tasks I’m working on.
Towards the end of the next project, confirm with the product manager that I addressed their feedback in this project.
Execute the action plan
Once you have the plan in place, you need to act on it - simple. But make sure you regularly track the plan and adjust it as necessary with your manager and/or feedback provider so that there are no surprises later.
Get final sign-off
Once you’ve consistently demonstrated that you’ve addressed the feedback, ideally over multiple opportunities (e.g. multiple projects), ask your feedback provider to confirm this with you and your manager. Thank your feedback provider since they’ve helped you improve something about yourself.
Ensure that from this point onward, you don’t need to be given the same feedback again. Make it a part of your default behavior.
Continuous Improvement
If you aren’t doing it already, proactively seek feedback from your stakeholders at regular intervals. For example, ask for feedback from:
your manager at every 1:1
your peers every month
other stakeholders like customers, product managers etc once you’ve completed a project
This will ensure you gather feedback from everyone you work with regardless of how proactive they are with initiating it. This plays an important part in accelerating your career since you will be crowd-sourcing growth ideas rather than coming up with them yourself :)
❤️ My favorite things this week
I just configured my One Sec app to block most of the addictive apps on my phone - and my screen time has come down drastically. Do check it out!
- has written about some of my favorite learnings from working at Amazon. Very actionable content, highly recommend it.
This summary of the book Die With Zero that talks about spending money on experiences and making memories really got me thinking about how I never prioritize either 😁
Great article, Bhavana!
Seeking continuous feedback is crucial to grow in your career.
One way I found useful was that I force myself to ask for feedback from my peers directly on the specific goals I am working on.
I do that after every projects. And, people usually are very helpful when you tell them your intentions. For example when you let them know in 1-1s that you are working on improving certain aspects and that it would really help if they give you specific feedback positive or constructive about it.
(I used to ignore the positive feedback and only focus on the constructive ones. But, I think focusing on positive feedback helps with the imposter syndrome.)
FELICES Y GRACIAS