Feedback Both Ways: Asking For It and Giving It

TL;DR Ask "any feedback?" and you get "looks fine", while the people who matter quietly decide your work is hard to follow. To give and receive feedback that helps, ask for one specific thing to change, take the answer without defending, and give feedback as situation, behaviour and impact, soon and in private.

Do this: Ask one person one narrow question this week: "What's one thing I should change in my...?"

Part 1 ended with the refund feature shipped and a sting: Pip overheard the Admiral tell Ollie, the product manager, that her updates were "hard to follow". Nobody told her what that meant. So she asks Brock, the senior engineer she trusts most.

"Any feedback on my updates?"

"Looks fine."

Dev Voyage: Open Ocean, in six parts:

1. Working With a Difficult Boss Without Losing Yourself
2. Feedback Both Ways: Asking For It and Giving It (you are here)
3. Say No Without Making Enemies, and Keep Your Energy
4. Keep Learning: Bringing New Tools (and AI) Into Real Work
5. Talk to the Business: Working With PMs and Non-Engineers
6. Ask for the Raise: Showing Your Value Without Bragging

"Looks fine" is an exit

Brock wasn't brushing her off. "Any feedback?" asks him to review everything she writes, pick what matters, and risk her feelings, on the spot. "Looks fine" is the easy way out, and most people take it.

So Pip narrowed the question.

Brock answered at once: "Start with the date. You bury it in paragraph three, after the tech."

A five-minute fix. The Admiral had been reading three paragraphs of detail to find out when things would ship.

Take it without defending

The instinct is to explain why you did it that way. Don't, at least not yet. An explanation sounds like a defence, and people stop telling you things they think you'll argue with.

1. Thank them, even if it stings. They took a risk.
2. Ask for an example: "Can you show me one?" turns an opinion into something you can act on.
3. Decide later. You don't have to agree on the spot.

Not all feedback is right. Sometimes it's taste, or missing context. The example tells you which. But if two or three people say the same thing independently, it's probably not wrong.

Give it with SBI

A week later Pip was on the other side. Minh, a developer on the Admiral's team, reviewed her pull request with three comments: "No.", "Wrong." and "Redo." She spent an hour guessing what he meant.

The Center for Creative Leadership's SBI model gives feedback three parts: the situation, the behaviour you observed, and its impact. The hard part is the B. Describe what a camera could record. "You were rude" is a judgement, and people defend themselves against judgements. "Three one-word comments" is a fact, so the only question left is what to do about it.

Situation: your review on PR #431 this morning.
Behaviour: three comments, "No.", "Wrong." and "Redo.", without saying what to change.
Impact:    I spent an hour guessing, and I may still have fixed the wrong thing.
Ask:       Could you add one line on what you'd like instead?

Minh replied in five minutes. He'd written the review on his phone between meetings. The CCL's later version, SBII, adds intent for exactly this reason: ask what the person meant before you decide what they meant.

Praise needs it too

"Great job!" is nice and tells nobody what to repeat. Pip tried SBI on Bun after an incident call:

In yesterday's incident call, you posted the timeline every 10 minutes.
The Admiral stopped asking us for updates, and we could just fix it.
Please do that every time.

Kim Scott's Radical Candor puts both halves into one line: care personally, challenge directly. Pip's message to Minh was the challenge. This one is the care.

Try it

This week:

1. Ask one person one narrow question: "What's one thing I should change in...?"
2. When they answer, say thanks and ask for an example. Decide later.
3. Give one piece of SBI feedback in private, within a day.
4. Give one piece of SBI praise.

Pip's updates now start with the date, Minh writes full sentences, and the Admiral called her last update "clear". Word gets around: Pip is helpful, and she says yes. Within a week Ollie wants a report, Bun wants test data, Brock wants a review and the Admiral wants "a quick look", and Pip says yes to all of them. Part 3, Say No Without Making Enemies, and Keep Your Energy, is what those yeses cost her.

Read this with your AI

Read the post "Feedback Both Ways: Asking For It and Giving It".
1. Turn my vague feedback request into three specific questions I could ask.
2. I'll describe something a colleague did. Help me write it as SBI, with a camera-true behaviour.
3. Rewrite one piece of praise I want to give, so it says exactly what to keep doing.