What I Know About Feedback that Actually Helps

An essential ingredient that most of us leave out of the feedback "sandwich"

(Photo by Francis Odeyemi for Unsplash)

I‘ve sat through a lot of feedback in my life. Some of it helped me evolve. Much of it washed off. The difference wasn’t delivery style or sandwich technique. It was whether, in setting their boundaries around what they need and what they see, the person giving it actually believed I could do better. What about you? Have you received feedback in a way that changed you?

Example: Long ago, before “quiet quitting” was in our vernacular, I was temping at Barclay’s Bank in New York. It was a long term assignment - but banking was not my professional focus, I was just there to make enough money to pay the bills.

Then, one day…”Gregory” called me into his office on my return from lunch and asked me to sit down. In my mind, I started rifling through the various projects he had assigned me, thinking I must have done something very wrong, as our exchanges in the three weeks I’d worked for him were pretty perfunctory. He hunched over his desk and gestured to the piles of paperwork that covered every surface in his office, and exclaimed “I hate all of this”. He shook his head and sighed. Then he looked at me and smiled ruefully, “And I can only imagine how you must feel.”

My mouth . . . may have dropped open.

He then asked me “What would it take for you to become a little more committed to the work you do here?” I didn’t know how to answer. I honestly had never thought about it. And it’s a question no one had ever asked me. “Uhm . . . I’m not sure I know what you mean . . . ?” may have been all I managed.

He gestured again at the piles on his desk. “It’s obvious that it’s going to take a lot of work to clean this mess out, and I can’t do it alone. I need your focus and commitment. You do everything I ask you to do correctly and on time, but I feel like you are phoning it in, and I need you to dig in and take more initiative, so I don’t always have to be giving you instructions. I know this job is not what you want to do with your life. But I need you to commit more of yourself to it, while you’re here.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

And in the weeks that followed that single conversation, my entire demeanor changed. I did dig in. I began trusting myself with more complex projects and found ways to help Gregory sort through his pile of obligations. The work at Barclay’s actually became more enjoyable and rewarding. All it took was someone being honest with me about where I was falling short - because they had faith that I could deliver more. And I did.

Feedback Is a Vote of Confidence

When someone tells you the truth about your work or your behavior, they’re implicitly saying: you’re capable of more than this, and I think you can handle knowing it. In failing to clarify boundaries around what you need, explore what it means to withhold this essential feedback - is it protection, or is it a quiet form of writing someone off?

What Makes Feedback Land vs. Bounce

It’s not about timing, though timing matters. It’s not about tone, though tone helps. The thing that makes feedback usable is whether the receiver senses it comes from someone who is genuinely on their side. Boundaries around how you give feedback - the relational container you’ve built - determine whether the words get through.

The Feedback You’ve Never Asked For (But Need)

Turn the lens inward. What’s the feedback you’ve been avoiding asking for? What boundary around your own ego is keeping useful information out? Real growth requires actively seeking the truth about yourself - not waiting for it to arrive diplomatically.

Think of one person in your life whose growth matters to you. What honest thing have you been sitting on? Consider what it might mean to them if you said it - clearly, with care, in a way that lets them know that you have faith in them.