Career advice

Feedback

Hear how your work is landing while you can still use it, and say the honest thing to someone else without dreading it.

Start here · 10 minutesLearn from one small piece of workSwap “any feedback?” for a question someone can actually answer
Start here · 10 minutesAsk for advice before you startHear the best idea before you've built around the wrong one
Start here · 5 minutesTell someone what their feedback changedThe two-sentence note that keeps honest people honest with you

What to understand about feedback at work

Most workplaces run on far less feedback than people need. It's rarely that nobody has a view of your work. They usually do. It's that saying it out loud is a small risk for them, and staying quiet costs nothing. You might take it badly, they might be wrong, and it's on nobody's list for this week. So honest views tend to get saved for review season, told to someone else, or softened until you can't tell a suggestion from a warning.

The room to move is in how easy you make it. "Any feedback?" asks someone to grade you on the spot, and the usual answer is "looks good." A narrow question about one piece of work, asked while it can still change, is easier to answer. Asking for advice is often easier again, because advice looks forward and puts the other person on your side of the table. Then the step people tend to skip: tell them what you did with it. People stay honest with those who make it worth the trouble.

The hard part is that some of it will sting and some of it will be wrong, and the sting doesn't tell you which. Feedback is one person's view from where they sit, shaped by what they need from you and the week they're having. You're allowed to weigh it, take a piece, and leave the rest. The same holds when you're the one giving it. Kind and clear are harder to hold together than either one alone, and early attempts often come out clumsy. They tend to beat saying nothing.

What people often get wrong about feedback

You might think“If there were a problem with my work, someone would have told me by now.”
More oftenQuiet tends to mean nobody has been asked, more than it means there's nothing to say. People can hold a view of your work for a long time without raising it, and that view is as likely to be something you'd be glad to hear as something you'd dread. One small, direct question usually tells you more than a long stretch of silence does.One thing to try: Ask your manager for one thing to change →
You might think“Praise is just being nice. The real feedback is the critical kind.”
More oftenMany people don't know which of their habits are working, so they drop good ones by accident. A specific sentence about what someone did right is information, and it's often the feedback that changes the most.One thing to try: Say what worked →
You might think“The more feedback I collect, the faster I'll get better.”
More oftenPast a certain point, more opinions mostly add noise and a longer list to feel behind on. Improvement tends to come from picking one thing and practicing it, and sometimes the useful move is to stop asking for a while.One thing to try: Take a break from asking for feedback →

Things to do when you want to know how you're really doing

“Everyone says it's fine. I have no idea if it's fine.”

Each of these swaps a big, vague question for a small one a busy person can answer honestly. They start with one piece of work and one person, and widen from there.

Things to do before the work is finished

“I'd rather hear it now than after I've spent two more weeks on this.”

Input is cheapest when little has been built yet, and it gets more expensive for everyone with each day of polish. These follow a piece of work from first idea to nearly done, and the last one is for when the moment has already passed.

Dealing with something else at work?

Things to do after something you heard has stung

“I keep replaying what they said, and I can't tell if they're right.”

A slow path on purpose. Settle first, then separate what was said from what you added to it, then find out how much it matters, and only then decide what to say back.

Things to do when you have something to tell someone else

“I've been dropping hints for a month and nothing has changed.”

The other side of the table, from easiest to hardest. Most of the skill is describing what you saw instead of what you concluded, and staying curious about what you might have missed. That holds whether the person is a peer or your manager.

Things to do when you want honesty to become normal

“I don't want this to be a big event twice a year.”

Small agreements that take the drama out of it. Once people know how you like to hear things, and have seen that telling you leads somewhere, the next honest comment takes less courage on both sides.

What feedback at work depends on

Your manager
Some managers say what they think every week. Others find it uncomfortable and wait to be asked, and a few need to be asked more than once. Which kind you have decides how much of the asking falls to you.
Your team's habits
On teams that review each other's work as a matter of routine, a comment is just Tuesday. Where that habit is missing, the same comment can feel like an event, and it helps to go smaller and more privately at first.
How direct people were raised to be
What counts as plain speaking in one country, company or family can sound harsh in another, and what one person means as a clear warning can reach another as a mild suggestion. With someone whose style differs from yours, it's worth checking what they heard.
Remote or in person
In an office a lot of feedback arrives sideways: a face in a meeting, a word in the corridor. Working remotely, most of that disappears, so you tend to hear less unless you ask, and written comments can read colder than they were meant.
How long you've been there
New people often get a grace period in which nobody wants to discourage them. Long-tenured people can get the opposite problem: colleagues assume someone told them years ago.

How feedback changes through your career

Starting out
You tend to get a lot of correction on tasks and very little on how you're doing overall. Asking early is normal and usually welcome at this point, and it's the easiest time in a career to say you don't know something.
A few years in
The comments shift from what you produced to how you work with people, which is harder to hear and harder to act on. This is also when colleagues start wanting your honest view, and giving it well becomes part of the job.
Senior
People tell you less. Your title makes honesty feel riskier to them, and your work is harder to judge from outside. Much of what you hear will be what you went looking for, from people you've shown it's safe to tell.
Later on
You're more often the one whose word carries weight, and a passing remark from you can land harder than you intended. The honest view of your own work may now come mostly from peers, from people outside the company, or from someone much earlier in their career whom you've invited to say it.

Feedback terms worth knowing

Three-sixty review: A round of feedback collected from people all around you: your manager, your peers, anyone who reports to you. Usually gathered in writing and often anonymous.
Upward feedback: Feedback you give to your manager or someone above you.
Constructive feedback: The polite name for criticism. At its best it comes with something you could do differently. Sometimes it's just the polite name.
Feedback sandwich: A criticism placed between two compliments. Well meant, though people often remember only the bread, or learn to brace whenever they're praised.
Blind spot: Something about how you work that others can see and you can't.
Psychological safety: Whether people on a team believe they can say something awkward, admit a mistake or disagree without paying for it later.
Retro: Short for retrospective. A team conversation after a stretch of work about what to keep doing and what to change.

When you have more time

Questions people ask about feedback at work

I'm new and nobody has told me how I'm doing. Should I be worried?

Probably not. Early quiet is common, since people are giving you room and may assume someone else is checking in. You don't have to wait for a first review to find out. A short, specific question to your manager after a few weeks is a normal thing to ask.

Ask for your first real piece of feedback →

I've been asked to write feedback on a colleague for their review. What do I put?

The most useful thing is usually one or two concrete examples of what they did and what it made possible, in words their manager could repeat in a room you're not in. If there's something they could do better, say it as plainly and as fairly as you'd want it said about you.

Write peer feedback that actually helps →

Someone on my team is slipping and I've been putting off telling them. How long can I leave it?

Usually less time than feels comfortable. A small concern raised early is a conversation. The same concern raised months later tends to arrive as a surprise, and by then they've lost the time they could have used to fix it.

Raise a performance concern early →

I keep getting the same feedback and I can't seem to change. What's going on?

Often it isn't a lack of effort. The habit may be protecting something you care about, like being seen as thorough or not letting anyone down, so part of you is working against the change. It can help to look for what the old habit is doing for you before trying harder.

Immunity to Change →

Is it worth asking for feedback after a job rejection?

It can be, with low expectations. Many companies give little or nothing, often for legal caution, and that says nothing about you. A brief, gracious note asking for one thing you could strengthen sometimes gets a real answer, and the people who interviewed you may remember the grace either way.

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What to understand about feedback at work

What people often get wrong about feedback

Things to do when you want to know how you're really doing

Things to do before the work is finished

Dealing with something else at work?

Things to do after something you heard has stung

Things to do when you have something to tell someone else

Things to do when you want honesty to become normal

What feedback at work depends on

Your manager

Your team's habits

How direct people were raised to be

Remote or in person

How long you've been there

How feedback changes through your career

Starting out

A few years in

Senior

Later on