It's a Gift, Not a Weapon: Changing How You Give and Get Feedback

Many years ago I had an extremely frustrating performance review. By and large, I was doing great: my work was high quality, I stepped up when people needed help, and I was being considered for a promotion. But there was one area that needed improvement: during some meetings, I spoke in a way that a few people found frustrating.

Yes, the feedback was that vague.

I’m a detail-oriented person, so naturally, I asked for more specifics, and perhaps a few examples. I was not trying to be defensive or defiant. I take feedback seriously, and have always sought to improve however I can.

Was I wording my questions or answers in a way that was unclear?

Was my tone or body language conveying negativity?

Did the people who found it frustrating say what bothered them?

To this day, I have no idea. That was all the information I got. This was more than 15 years ago, yet I remember it clearly.

Why Is Giving and Receiving Feedback So Hard?

For many of us, just hearing the word elevates our heart rates a bit.

Just about everyone who has ever had a job has stories about unhelpful feedback, whether it was too vague or general to be helpful, phrased as pure personal criticism with no suggestions for growth, or purely nonexistent. Stories about helpful feedback - positive or negative - are pretty rare.

Why is that?

Let’s start with the receiving end.

At work, we want our contributions to be recognized and appreciated by those around us.

When we receive feedback that is purely critical (or overly personal), with no advice, suggestions, nor even a point toward resources that can help us improve, it makes us feel as if no one cares if we succeed, and that we’re not expected to produce anything of value. In our Pressure Matrix, this is the dimension of culture we call Value and Appreciation.

In order to stay engaged, focused, and motivated, we need to feel like we have the tools and information we need to succeed and evolve, what we call Growth and Development.

What turns criticism into feedback is the “now what” component that tells us what we can do to get better. We depend on our leaders and managers, as well as colleagues who have been around longer than us, to show us where we can improve so that we not only get better at our current job, but that we position ourselves for our next role within the company. We need evidence that our employer wants us to stay in the long run.

From the giving end, feedback is largely a challenge of communication with two facets.

First, when we give feedback, we need to make sure that we are delivering it in a way that is clear and actionable: this is the dimension of culture we call Clarity and Complexity.

Successful feedback is worded in a way that incentivizes positive change, whether the change is to continue striving for higher levels of performance or to overcome existing obstacles and weaknesses. The recipient needs to understand why the current way of doing things is not sufficient, what is expected of them instead, and how they make the shift. Like my unhelpful feedback story from above, vague is not helpful.

The other key challenge with communicating feedback is Alignment and Focus, which is all about ensuring each individual on a team is driven by, and committed to, a sense of shared purpose and mission.

To do this, the feedback recipient has to understand how they will benefit from making the change both individually (in terms of their own success) and collectively (how team or company success is in their best interest).

Changing How We Think about Feedback

Whether we are on the giving or receiving side, we should think about feedback as advice for achieving shared goals. It’s not about telling someone specifically what they are doing right or wrong, it’s about understanding how and why the current way of doing things is getting in the way of success.

For most of us, we need to work on thickening our skin on both sides. When giving feedback, we should take time to word it in a way that is specific to the work and actionable, taking care not to make it sound like personal criticism. When getting feedback, we should assume generous intent, and receive the message as a gift to help us grow more competent and confident.

All of this takes practice, which is where Barometer XP comes in.

Are You Ready to Level Up Your Feedback Skills?

We have two workshops coming up this summer, one in-person and one virtual:

• June 11, 2026, 1:00 - 5:00 pm, Washington DC

• August 18, 2026, 1:00 - 5:00 pm, Zoom

Learn more and register here.