"The feedback you didn’t know you were giving"
We tend to think of feedback as a formal thing. We prepare, pick our moment, get our words right. It’s a thing you give, deliberately, intentionally, like handing someone a parcel. But that’s not how the majority of feedback situations really work, is it? Feedback happens in the micro-moments. In a pull request comment. A quick Slack message. A check-in that was supposed to be casual. It happens when you speak and when you don’t. And the people you work with? They’re not just hearing your words. They’re reading whether they feel seen, respected, safe, dismissed, backed, or judged. I’ve seen teams where “feedback culture” meant always being honest, but the honesty came with sharp edges. Ideas got tied to egos. Trust frayed. People stopped speaking up. Not because anyone meant harm. But because no one was paying attention to how feedback lands. Here’s the messy bit: Feedback doesn’t just shape the work, it shapes the relationship. And that relationship? It’s what holds everything together when things get hard. This series is about that. Not frameworks to follow. Not scripts to memorise. But ways of noticing. Of being more thoughtful in the moments that matter. Because the strongest teams don’t avoid hard conversations, they get better at having them without breaking each other. Until next time, ✉️ Enjoying The Messy Middle? If someone sent this email your way and you’d like to get it direct, you can sign up here. |