Feedback Is Your Career and Life Hack

A person holding a white card near a green plant.

Source: Photo by Celpax on Unsplash

You know you need feedback. You know that stumbling blindly along without data on how you might do things better or differently is no way to build a career or a life. You know that feedback is one of the best ways to level up, figure out your gaps, and assess your strength areas.

Yet, you probably have had feedback delivered to you in clumsy, unhelpful, and sometimes hurtful ways. That makes you turn away from these hard conversations, which is a shame because effective feedback is your number one shortcut to accomplish all the things you have set out to do in life.

You’ve been getting feedback your entire life. You just might not realize it. Every time your parents or an authority figure told you not to do something, that was feedback. Every time you received a grade on a paper or a test, that was feedback. When your car makes a funny noise or an appliance starts leaking or your body tells you it’s feeling run down and needs a break: that’s feedback. Do you listen to it? That’s up to you. You need to figure out what to do with what you’re being given to make feedback work.

Stop Ignoring Hard Conversations

We don’t like feedback conversations because they can be challenging. That’s for the person giving it (usually, but not always, your manager) and the person receiving it. If you’re a manager and you avoid having hard conversations, then you’re not doing the work of management. If you, an individual who needs feedback, are avoiding hard conversations because you don’t like to hear criticism, then you aren’t doing the work of being a human who needs to learn and to grow.

It’s never fun to tell someone they aren’t meeting expectations, their work could be better, or there is a problem with their attitude or behavior. These conversations feel so hard because we make them about feelings and not about behavior. There is a difference between, “Something you are doing is limiting your potential for growth within this organization, and because I care about you and your future here, I would like to share what I have observed and then help you make a plan to address it,” and “Man, you sure are a disappointment as a human being.”

Focus on the observed behavior and keep the other person in front of you, and these hard conversations become less hard. Don’t forget, feedback conversations should include sharing with people ways they are showing up and being great. They don’t always have to be critical.

We all need to learn how to deliver feedback effectively and be present in hard conversations. If you are shying away from asking for feedback, I encourage you to ask for it more. Not only will it make you more open to hearing what the other person has to say, learning how to sit in these conversations, listen and objectively assess what someone else is telling you, is essential skill development. These are the tools that are going to allow you to level up in your career and life.

5 Ways Feedback Improves Your Life

Ultimately, asking for and listening to feedback is as much about the process as the content of the conversation. Feedback isn’t just about identifying your strengths and growth areas. It’s a tool to build relationships, read culture, and set clear expectations.

Here are five reasons why feedback should be your number-one personal and professional development hack.

1. It tells you what you need to work on. No surprise here. Effective feedback identifies your gaps to more effectively develop growth areas. There is little point in spending all your time working on your communication skills if your manager thinks you need to build your analytical skills. Whether it’s in regular check-ins or annual performance review conversations, effective feedback gives you a critical window into strengths and learning gaps.
2. It gives you insight into what other people think about you. In this piece for First Round Review, Ascend founder and CEO Shivani Berry astutely noted that whether or not people are giving you feedback, they’re still thinking it. If your manager or co-workers think you need to pay more attention to detail and don’t tell you about it, they’re still probably frustrated with your work. Regularly make a practice of asking your colleagues and manager for feedback on what you do well and your growth opportunities. Not only will you learn important information, but you will also teach others that you are open to these conversations.
3. It gives you insight into how other people think, period. Part of learning to listen to feedback is learning which feedback has value and is worth pursuing. Even the most poorly delivered feedback can teach you something about what other people think is important, and how they manage work and relationships. These conversations are great ways to learn whether they are someone you want in your corner with you or not.
4. It lets you know what your opportunities and limitations are. Effective feedback conversations make it clear whether there is a future for you in your current organization or situation. While it may be frustrating to constantly hear that you are not ready for what’s next, that is good information to build your career path. Remember, no one will ever care about your career as much as you. If you continually hit roadblocks as you seek to advance, it’s time to look for opportunities elsewhere.
5. It builds effective relationships. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when feedback is delivered well it should build better relationships not destroy them. That’s because feedback should always be delivered with the goal of helping another person, not cutting them down. It still might be a hard conversation. If you’ve done the work to build a relationship based on trust, set clear expectations, and upheld accountability, then when you have to have the hard conversations the other person knows you do so from a place of care.

Feedback is a challenge because we don’t often train people on how to deliver it well, nor on how to seek it out. This is one of the most important skills you can master, more so than any technical or job-related skill.

Knowing how to use feedback to build relationships, gather information and input, and identify opportunities and limitations is the career and life hack you need to crush your goals and move forward with purpose.