Turning Criticism into Clarity: A Structured Approach to Negative Feedback
Thejas Sridhar
I build structured processes to solve business problems | Ex- Wingify, Zoho, Infosys |
Just to set expectations, this is not a productivity article. It is more of a "how to handle a professional situation" guide. I am sharing methods that I find effective, and I hope they help you navigate such situations in your professional life with grace.
Dealing with Negative Feedback in Your Career
When you have a long enough career, you will inevitably face negative feedback. In most cases, the input seems reasonable and logical and acts as an opportunity to grow. However, there are times when something doesn’t feel right. You could be the victim of bad management, the scapegoat for someone else’s mistakes, or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. While such scenarios are seldom discussed on LinkedIn, I thought it might be helpful to shed some light on how to handle them.
Validating the issue
In earlier days, sailors used to carry three compasses. With just one, they wouldn’t know if it was faulty. With two, they wouldn’t know which one was wrong. But with three, they could isolate the faulty one easily.
I suggest a similar approach to validate whether the feedback or criticism you’re receiving at work is valid. While this isn’t a perfect analogy, it provides a framework to gain clarity.
1. 1st Compass: Your job
If you start receiving negative feedback at work, seek clarity. Talk to your manager, peers, and trusted colleagues. Gather as much information as possible about why something you did was considered inadequate, how you could have done it better, and whether there are better examples to follow.
Often, this process will uncover the issue. If it doesn’t, there might be larger forces at play—organizational restructuring, mismatched expectations, or a senior leader’s opinion about your work style.
The key here is to remember: it’s NOT personal. Use this as your baseline. At this stage, you don’t know if the criticism is valid or not.
2. 2nd Compass: Freelance Work
Look for freelance opportunities in your domain, especially in the area where you’ve received criticism. Once you secure a credible freelance gig, treat it with the same seriousness as your job. Focus on understanding the requirements, goals, timelines, and common pitfalls to avoid.
After delivering the project, seek detailed feedback from stakeholders. Since you’ve already avoided generic mistakes, you can request specific, objective input.
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3. 3rd Compass: Another job at a higher designation
This step is challenging but rewarding. The goal here is to demonstrate to a set of strangers that you have the necessary skills and experience in your current job domain to make their lives easier. They should confidently feel this and be willing to bet big money on you aka rollout a job offer with a better designation. The process becomes slightly easier if you have spent a year or more in your current organization.
Start applying and interviewing for roles with higher responsibility. As you go through interviews, patterns will emerge. Pay close attention to the areas where you struggle, as well as the feedback you receive after rejections. Get to as much detail as possible, and of course, resist the temptation to get defensive. Probe a little more to find out how was this candidate "more suitable" at this moment. Their answers will let you know whether you have a skill gap or you were a victim of macro-official (yes, I just coined this term) changes.
If you land a new job offer, congratulations! You now have the option to:
Coming back to the initial goal: landing a better job or salary doesn’t automatically mean you don’t have areas for improvement. However, the structured process of multiple interviews across reputed companies helps identify substantial skill gaps.
If no consistent patterns of shortcomings emerge, it’s safe to deduce that your current workplace might be subjecting you to unnecessary criticism or undue pressure.
Conclusion
This three-compass approach—validating feedback through your job, freelance work, and new job opportunities—can help you separate valid criticism from undue negativity. By systematically evaluating feedback from multiple sources, you can decide whether to upskill, move on, or simply not take the criticism to heart.
Negative feedback, while tough to handle, can often be a stepping stone to professional growth—if handled with grace and a clear strategy.
In the next article, I'll write about how to handle workplace challenges once you’ve validated the feedback.
Do you have strategies or experiences to add? Share your thoughts in the comments and let’s discuss!