Receiving feedback is a skill. Here's how to do it well so it doesn't feel like a personal attack.

Hi {{first name | friend}}

Most of us find receiving feedback really hard. Even when we know it’s meant to help us, it can feel personal, confusing, and difficult to act on.

This week, I cover:

🍿 Watch the video version of this week’s newsletter here

(or keep scrolling to read it)

We’ve all been in the situation where your manager says, “Can I give you some feedback?” and before they've finished it your brain is already three steps ahead, building a case for why they're wrong.

Harvard researchers Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen spent over a decade studying why receiving feedback is so hard.

Their conclusion?

Feedback sits at the intersection of two competing human needs: the need to grow and improve, and the need to feel accepted and respected exactly as you are. The very fact of the feedback suggests that who you are right now isn’t quite good enough.

Of course, you get defensive. I don’t blame you!

There are always two people involved in a feedback conversation. While you can’t control how your manager gives you feedback, you can control how you receive it to stop it from being a dreaded, confusing part of work.

I’ll walk you through four things you can do, then I’ll give you a task to practise this week.

What goes wrong: Your manager spends days (or weeks) dreading the conversation, even though they know having it will help you grow and prevent bigger issues later down the line. You can tell something’s off, so you walk into the conversation already treating it like an attack on who you are, not a conversation about something you’ve done.

How to fix it: Separate yourself from your work. The feedback is not about you as a person, it’s about something you’ve produced. Remind yourself that feedback is information and even uncomfortable feedback can be useful, so your job is to understand it, not to defend it.

What goes wrong: Your manager spends ten minutes giving feedback on things they prefer to see, such as the font you’ve used in a document or the layout of a report, then two minutes giving feedback on the thing that actually matters. You get mixed messages about what’s truly important, so you resent doing any of it. 

How to fix it: Just because your manager doesn’t categorise your feedback, doesn’t mean you can’t do it on receiving it. I’ve identified five types of feedback to help you work out what actually matters and what doesn’t:

Example: I'd prefer the slides to have more white space.

Example: The text is too dense and jargon-filled for our audience.

Example: This doesn't follow our brand guidelines.

Example: You need to update me on your progress more regularly, otherwise I'm left wondering where the project is up to.

Example: You made some decisions without speaking to the people it would affect. I'd like to see you be more collaborative with the team.

Many feedback problems come from managers giving opinion-based feedback like it’s rule-based feedback, and the receiver knows it doesn’t really matter, so they resent doing it. When you receive feedback, identify which category it falls into and decide how important it is to you, the work, and the person giving it.

What goes wrong: Your manager doesn’t want to hurt your feelings so they disguise and soften the feedback they really want to give. You’re left trying to decode what they really mean. 

How to fix it: Unclear feedback is unkind feedback, so ask your manager to be more direct and give specific examples.

Example: If they say, “You need to communicate better.” 

Ask, “Can you give an example about when my communication caused an issue? I’d like to pinpoint what I’m doing wrong so I can improve.”

Should your manager give clear, honest, specific feedback without you prompting them?

Yes. Yes, they should.

But when they don’t, you have two options: you can either get annoyed by it and not action the feedback, or you can use it as an opportunity to get to the heart of what’s being said, evaluate whether it’s fair and important, then decide what to do with it. 

What goes wrong: Your manager gives feedback out of the blue and it makes no sense to you. It’s not that they’re being deliberately vague, they’re just privy to wider organisational context that makes the feedback relevant, and it hasn’t occurred to them that you don’t have that information. You’re left confused about why the feedback matters or what prompted it.

How to fix it: Ask questions to get the information you need for the feedback to make sense. There's often context you're not aware of that would help you understand where it’s coming from.

Example: “Can you help me understand what's driving this? Is there something happening at a higher level I'm not aware of?”

Think of some feedback you’ve received recently. Go through it point by point and categorise each piece of feedback. You might find that what felt like a lot of feedback was actually one or two outcome-based points wrapped up in several pieces of opinion-based feedback.

We help you do this in three ways:

1. Human Skill School: Our 7-week programme where you learn all seven human skills and create personalised toolkits to implement them at work. Cohort 2 will run from Monday 1 June - Friday 17 July.
Join the waitlist

2. Let’s Talk events: Our career-focussed conversation series brings people together to practise the human connection we’re all craving.
Sign up to event alerts

3. Workplace training: For teams to work better together and become more connected, productive and impactful.
Book a call with Hayley