On Giving and Receiving Feedback
By Kate Kruizenga
As a people leader, I've often had the privilege and responsibility of helping design career frameworks and performance cycles. As I write that, I imagine your reaction. You cringe. You sigh. You remember that unhelpful performance review, that one-on-one with your manager that made you feel undervalued or misunderstood.
And yet, we all need feedback to learn and improve. How do we give and receive feedback in the spirit of edification and encouragement?
As a Christian, I believe two things are key to giving and receiving feedback well.
Delivering feedback: Relationship before challenge
As Christians, we are called to have right relationships with people, not transactional or superficial ones. Jesus cared deeply about his disciples as whole human beings beyond the success they could help him achieve for his ministry. The early church sought the welfare and prosperity of all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or class. The Body of Christ thrives when we identify and unleash the gifts of each member, the hand working with the foot working with the eyes and the nose.
Deep, cooperative relationships like these require “doing life” with folks—covering when they are sick or out on a parental leave, celebrating when they get married, lamenting when they lose a parent, supporting reasonable flexibility, and cheering on “losing” them to their next career step.
If we have this kind of holistic, supportive relationship with our colleagues, we have the relational trust to offer challenging feedback. When someone you barely know says you’re technically weak and the points you made in the presentation don't hold up, even if it's true, it's hard to receive and harder to implement. Who is this person throwing daggers?
But when your trusted peer pulls you aside and shows you that you botched a critical calculation, or failed to account for a component, and offers to help you fix it, you're grateful for the feedback, and trust it's delivered with helpful intent. It strengthens your bond as you work through next steps together. May we develop strong relationships with our colleagues so that when we offer developmental feedback, we are positioned to offer that challenge with care and support, and it can be received as such!
Receiving feedback: Confident humility
In the Bay Area, you'll often get advice to “fake it until you make it.” This looks like putting your blinders on, ignoring distractions and detractors, and grinding until you get to the goal. While focus and ability to tune out noise can help us achieve the unexpected, often we need feedback and counsel to do our best work. The Gospel uniquely addresses our ability to blend confidence and humility as Christians.
First, we should believe ourselves worthy, capable, called, and given the power of the Holy Spirit to complete the good works God has prepared for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). Moreover, we are united to Christ (Romans 6:5) and declared righteous through faith in Him (Romans 3:21-25), so we can have confidence that God delights in us. Our core sense of acceptance and worth does not come from a unicorn valuation. Through Christ, the God of the universe loves us just as we are, and will continue to use us to achieve His purposes. That is enough.
Second, we should stay humble, ready to receive correction and feedback. We are not perfect; we need our Savior, Jesus Christ, for our salvation, and our sanctification. Jesus tells us that God will prune us (John 15:1-5) so that we can produce better fruit, taking care to stay rooted in the vine that is Jesus. Pruning can be painful! But if feedback and correction leads to honoring God, doing good work, and enhanced collaboration with our colleagues, we should welcome it. We need pruning throughout our careers to produce good fruit, and run the race of our calling and vocation to its completion in a way that honors God (2 Timothy 4:7-8).
Even if you're not the one designing the performance cycle, you have the power to adopt these principles in the reviews you write and deliver, and in how you receive feedback. Here's to more real-time feedback and performance cycles that feel good and fuel our best work.
Kate Kruizinga is a people and operations leader who helps build and scale companies.
