You've poured your heart into a project. How do you navigate through negative feedback and come out stronger?

It’s natural to feel defensive or upset when your product receives negative feedback. Initially, we felt crushed by the critiques of our MVP in 2017. But remember, feeling strongly shows your commitment to your work. Allow yourself to feel these emotions, but don’t let them cloud your judgment. This isn’t about suppressing your feelings, it’s about acknowledging them as the first step in moving forward.

Take a deep breath and remember, even the best chefs get criticism! Embrace the feedback as a recipe for improvement—extract the useful ingredients and discard the rest. Stay positive, refine your project, and come back stronger. After all, every great dish needs a little seasoning to reach perfection!

Navigating negative feedback after investing heavily in a project involves approaching it constructively. Start by taking a step back to acknowledge and manage your initial emotional response. Separate the feedback from personal feelings and focus on understanding the specific concerns or criticisms raised. Use the feedback as a learning opportunity to identify areas for improvement and consider different perspectives. Engage in open dialogue with stakeholders to clarify expectations and discuss potential solutions. Implement constructive changes based on the feedback, demonstrating resilience and a commitment to continuous improvement.

Er well, embracing emotion sounds a lot like you should let it out. I disagree with that. I would suggest acknowledging the emotions you feel, and asking yourself "will it help or hurt to share those at this time?". Often the best course of action is to feel the feelings and lean into your curiosity.

Paraphrasing Nelson Mandela, either we learn or we succeed. Receiving negative feedbacks is part of the journey. When it happens, especially when emotions seem to take over, it is important to remind ourselves that this is not the end of the world. Indeed we can still take many actions to find a way to transform the negative feedback into a positive one. It may require to step out of the situation for a while, calm down, reflect, come up with a plan and confront with the counterpart again with a learning mindset.

The best approach here is to lean into your curiosity. Sometimes we need the ability to distance ourselves from the feedback we receive. It's very easy to immediately react to negative feedback. Instead, seek to understand the feedback (whether you agree with it or not). Remember that everyone has something to teach us (even if that thing is patience).

Embrace the discomfort of the feedback by approaching it with curiosity and taking a proactive approach. How? Don’t just listen; interrogate the feedback. See things from another perspective, this can be just the piece you're missing to find real growth in the project.

Once you’ve managed your initial emotional response, seek to understand the feedback in detail. Ask for specific examples to pinpoint issues. When our MVP was criticized, we requested more detailed insights from our clients and stakeholders. This isn’t just about gathering data, it’s about understanding the perspectives behind the feedback.

Look at the feedback from an objective standpoint. Separate your personal feelings from the facts. For our MVP, we had to step back and critically assess which criticisms were valid and which were perhaps exaggerated. This process isn’t about diminishing your efforts, it’s about identifying real opportunities for improvement.

Before trying to analyze the feedback, take some time! It's nearly impossible to objectively analyze negative feedback in that very moment. Instead, take detailed notes that you can return to later. Get outside, take a walk, have dinner, and get into a welcoming state of mind. At that point, revisit the feedback. If a colleague received this feedback and asked for your advice, what would you tell them? Focus on that messaging.

Develop a plan to address the valid feedback. This plan should include specific, measurable actions. In response to the 2017 feedback, we revised features that were not meeting user needs and enhanced our testing processes. Responding with action shows your resilience and commitment to excellence.

Before devising a plan I'd recommend noting what themes of feedback you hear & from whom. Each person has a currency of things they care about. Negative feedback can shine a light on that currency. Learn what the currency is for each person that gives you feedback.

See challenges as opportunities to grow rather than obstacles to success. Remember that negative feedback is about your work, not about you as a person. This separation helps maintain self-esteem. Stay persistent and determined. Understand that improvement often involves a series of trials and errors. Commit to continuous learning and self-improvement. Seek out resources, courses, or mentors that can help you develop the skills highlighted in the feedback. Be willing to adapt your approach based on what you learn from both the feedback and your own reflection. Use failure as an opportunity to iterate and improve. Each iteration brings you closer to success.

Adopt a mindset that views challenges as opportunities to grow. Negative feedback is a chance to refine your project and enhance your skills. We embraced this mindset after our initial MVP failure, which eventually led to significant improvements in the product. This isn’t about finding comfort in failure; it’s about leveraging it for growth.

When you pour your heart into a project, receiving negative feedback can be draining and demotivating. However, if you find a way to use that feedback to improve your work, it can become an opportunity to help you grow and take your skills to new heights. Not all negative feedback is given constructively, so it's important to be patient with others as well as yourself, as there could be much to learn once emotions are settled. Keep in mind that you can still find value in feedback, regardless of how it is delivered. Take the time to understand it, and think about how it can offer a new perspective and how it would make sense to use the takeaways for your future projects.

IF the feedback has come from a good place and from someone you trust, know that feedback is intended to help you. Receiving negative feedback can be difficult to hear, but if you can contextualize that feedback as a means to help you improve your performance, you can learn a lot from it. Consider these questions to help you process that negative feedback. 1. What did you learn? 2. What would you do differently next time? 3. What do you need to learn? 4. Who do you need to engage? 5. How will you measure success?

Ignore it if in your heart you believe that they are wrong. I've seen such crap feedback from people who don't know better. If you have a Masters, or higher, most of the feedback is fluff