In the fast-paced world of modern engineering, it’s easy to treat feedback as a bureaucratic hurdle — a box to tick during performance reviews. Many of us find feedback difficult to give and even harder to receive.
Despite our move toward automated workflows and AI-driven metrics, the need for human-to-human feedback has never been higher. It is the primary tool we have for continuous improvement and the betterment of ourselves and others.
So, how do we move from "awkward conversations" to a genuine culture of learning?
A) Solving the "Blind Spot" Problem
As individuals, it takes deep humility and introspection to spot our own gaps. Feedback is essential for personal and professional growth because it illuminates these blind spots.
Establishing a feedback culture from early on, that goes beyond managerial 1-o-1s and permeates into daily routines keeps us eager and open to give and receive feedback.
Some practices we use regularly are:
- Pluses & Deltas, as a post-pairing wash-up to get feedback on the little things
- Roman Vote, as a temperature check in meetings, to provide un-biased sentiment, and trigger an honest round-robin right away
- Speedback, as a team bonding exercise when we need 360 feedback from peers to build a better understanding on our profile
B) Building Culture Through Radical Candor
Organizations have a fundamental need to foster a culture of learning to improve retention, performance, and profitability.
The "secret sauce" here is what the Radical Candor framework calls "Caring Personally". This means having pure intentions and wanting the best for the other person. It’s about celebrating the good, and genuinely wanting to improve the things that need work. But also, it is about building enough trust so that when hard truths are shared, they are heard and they are welcome.
C) Using Frameworks to Overcome Bias
We at points default to labels like "you are lazy," which not only are useless generalizations, but also trigger defensiveness. As Søren Kierkegaard famously quoted, "Once you label me, you negate me".
Frameworks like Kim Scott's CORE (Context, Observation, Result, nExt steps) or Marshall Rosenberg's Non-violent Communication (NVC) help us stay focused on behaviors rather than personality:
- CORE is a great action-oriented framework to master feedback delivery in the professional world.
- NVC is an incredible general-purpose communication tool, that helps us transition from demands to requests by connecting observations to universal needs.
These frameworks are an easy way to go through the motions and help us avoid falling into common pitfalls and keep all hearts and ears open.
D) Feedback as a Two-Way Street
The best feedback isn't a monologue; it’s a dialogue. This involves asking for permission before delivering a critique and being humble enough to realize that together, you know more than you do alone. When receiving feedback, the goal is to listen without reacting defensively, treat it as a "gift," and always take a minute to appreciate your colleague.
The most respected practitioners are not those with quick wit or retorts, but those who calmly take time to process, filter, and plan. And later, circle back after a session to show a thoughtful course-change. It leads to personal growth, it strengths trust, and encourages future input.
Conclusion
Feedback needs to be interwoven in the mundane to root and shape high-performing teams. It needs to be thoughtful, and part of a caring and trusting environment. And when we struggle to put our ducks in a row, we can think of some tools & frameworks to ground our feedback constructively. Keep your eyes open for the growth of others, and keep your ears open for your own.
Feedback was never about "fixing" others, or sharing our frustration; it was always about unlocking the right growth at the right time. It takes trust to give, and trust grows with every honest exchange.