Earlier today, Maurizio and I went live to talk about something most of us know intimately and handle badly: what to do when someone senior tells you your work isn’t good enough. This was inspired by our experience as consultants, ever immersed in feedback, and by some of the stories in Maurizio’s book Beyond Slides.
The conversation drew on two pieces we’ve published together, one on running meaningful 1:1s, and one on turning feedback into data rather than carrying it as a wound.
Our key argument is that feedback is data, not a verdict.
Treating it as data doesn’t mean indifference: it means caring enough to actually use what was said, rather than spending your energy protecting how you feel about it.
On paper this is trivially simple. In practice, it is one of the harder pieces of professional self-discipline, because every instinct in your body wants to defend, explain or reassure.
We also talked about what we’ve been calling the movie scene: the specific, concrete moment that sits behind a vague critique. When a manager says “be more strategic,” the movie scene is the meeting last Tuesday where they wished you’d pushed back on the client’s framing and you didn’t. Without it, you’re left holding a mood. With it, you have something to work with. A surprising amount of feedback dies for want of someone asking, gently, “Could you give me an example?”
Read more about vague critique, buzzwords and everything that’s wrong with how we communicate at work:
A few other threads from the conversation that I think are worth flagging:
Drain the tank. Once feedback starts, deliberately invite the rest of it. It feels counterintuitive, as you’re asking for more criticism at the moment you least want any, but partial feedback is the most dangerous kind, because you fix the wrong thing.
The 24-hour quarantine. No defensive email, no venting to colleagues, no half-polished CV suddenly looking appealing. The day after hard feedback is where most people make their real mistakes. We talked about what to do with that time instead (which includes venting to Claude, which will help you sort your feelings into gut reactions and valid resistance).
The three gaps. Genuine, usable feedback almost always points at one of three things: a skill gap, a perception gap or a style gap. The diagnosis determines what you should do next, and getting the diagnosis wrong is how people end up working hard on the wrong problem for months.
When tone is the data. We were careful to flag the exception. If every feedback conversation feels like an attack regardless of substance, the filtering advice stops applying. In those cases, the question shifts from “how do I use this?” to “is this environment right for me?”
That last point is the one we closed on, and it’s the one we find people get the least help with. Repeated critical feedback can be a growth signal. It can also be a signal that the fit is wrong, the manager is wrong or the organisation has already written a story about you that no amount of counter-evidence will overwrite. Telling those situations apart, without flattering your own ego, is genuinely hard. We talked about how to make that call.
Critical feedback is a map of your current blind spots, and like any map, it’s only useful if you’re willing to look at it. The conversation today was, in many ways, about what it takes to hold that gaze without flinching.
The full recording is at the top, and the original pieces are linked below:
Thanks for joining, and let us know what you think!
In the recording, we briefly mention the topic of senior leadership communications. That’s covered in an article that Claire Barrett and I wrote! Take a look below:
