Receiving Feedback is a Superpower

I wish I had received this career advice earlier. Sure, giving feedback in a way that it can be heard and absorbed is important. Receiving feedback is a superpower.

There are plenty of books, courses, and articles about how to give feedback. (My favourites are Lara Hogan's feedback equation, https://larahogan.me/blog/feedback-equation/ and Jacob Kaplan-Moss's writings, https://jacobian.org/2021/apr/22/three-feedback-models/). As a manager or leader, there are lots of opportunities to give feedback and hopefully help people improve. And yes, giving feedback perfectly gives you a better chance of making an impact.

But what about when the feedback is delivered poorly? What about when someone gives you feedback in a way that hurts your feelings, or worse, you think it's wrong?

Being able to tame your inner voice when you are receiving feedback can help you hear through the clutter. Instead of being offended, try to pick out the important kernel of truth.

Say for example you've been working on a project, and it didn't have a good outcome. If someone on your team tells you that you've screwed up, it's not going to feel good. If you allow your feelings to take over, you get to feel bad, and nothing changes.

However, if you can suppress your initial reaction, you can dig into the feedback some more. What does the person think you did? Could you have done something differently? Was there a decision that should have been thought through more?

By being better at receiving feedback, you've turned "you screwed up" into something productive.

Not everyone is good at giving feedback, but being better at receiving feedback can help you get more out of each opportunity.