Sometimes feedback is hard. Necessary, but hard.
I've just come off a chat with a colleague where we went over a few operational things from our last sprint. It had been a rough one, but successful, so there was plenty of positive to discuss. Among it, though, was one item about something I could have handled better.
That moment matters, because it has a few layers I needed to unpack at my own pace.
The first layer is how touchy I am about these things. I say that with an open heart. I genuinely value feedback and believe it's essential for growth. And yet the first, entirely irrational thing that happens with negative feedback is that I feel slightly offended by it. I'm not sure where it comes from. It passes quickly, but it's something I dislike about myself. I obviously hold no grudge, and I switch back to my rational brain almost immediately. But that initial flinch feels almost primal, and it makes me feel awful for having it.
Once that instinct fades, I see the wider point. Positive feedback is fine for building confidence, but it's the negative that actually moves you forward. It's only when you're confronted with what you're doing wrong that you get the chance to examine your processes, your skill gaps, your habits. And in that moment you have to be humble enough to look without excuses or filters, and ask honestly what you can do better.
Then there's the more delicate case: when you don't entirely agree with the feedback. Having sat with this one for a while, I do think it was partly unfair. My colleague didn't have full visibility into the issue or how we got there, and I suspect some of it was the accumulated stress of a hard sprint bleeding into the assessment. So I think the feedback is valid, but a little distorted. The question then becomes: what's the least productive response? Holding a grudge, launching an endless debate, hunting for excuses. None of those help. If it were something major or urgent, I'd go back and clarify. It isn't. I might raise it later if it comes up naturally, but otherwise I'm content to let it go.
The deepest layer is the other side of feedback entirely. I take to heart everything I can learn, and I probably over-focus on what I did wrong. But it would be a mistake to ignore the other half of the same coin. Constructive feedback rests on an assumption: that you're capable of doing better, that the person offering it believes you have the potential to operate at a higher level. That's a compliment. Reading it only as criticism would be unfair to them and to myself.
I've been turning this chat over for a couple of days now, and writing this is part of how I'm coming to terms with it. The funny thing is how I fixate on the single negative note in a conversation that was overwhelmingly positive, full of things I should be proud of.
What I keep coming back to is how glad I am to be surrounded by capable people. Real professionals and genuinely good human beings. Every interaction is a chance to learn something and grow, professionally, socially, as a person. I don't take that for granted. It's something to cultivate, and it feels good to be part of a culture like this.
Do I need to get better at taking feedback? Of course. And the only way I know to do that is to keep exposing myself to being wrong, to take on responsibilities that leave more room for mistakes. That's the only path I've ever found. And it's one I expect I'll be walking for a long time.