Guidance on receiving feedback
Learning Objectives
After considering this resource, you should feel more confident about developing an open and positive approach to receiving feedback.
Feedback offers rich learning and development opportunities. Whether it comes from your supervisor, your peers or from service users, it allows you to compare your own intentions and perceptions of what you're doing with the wishes and perceptions of others.
Giving and receiving feedback can feel challenging at times. But reacting in a closed manner, or allowing your emotions to get in the way, can prevent you from making positive changes to the way in which you work.
This quick guide offers advice on how to maintain an open attitude to receiving feedback, in order to make the most of the opportunity to enhance your practice.
Reflective Questions
- Think about a piece of feedback which made a positive difference to you in the past. Can you identify what made it helpful? Think not just about how it was communicated but also what you did in response and why.
- Imagine yourself in the position of giving someone you know (perhaps a fellow student or work colleague) some critical feedback. How would you structure it and what words would you use? Now think about how they might react. What ideas could you take from the Quick Guide to make the conversation easier?
- Pause for a moment to think about how and when you reflect on feedback. Write down what strategies you could use to get the most from it.