If someone chooses to share feedback, listen to understand the person, not the work. People will tell you more about themselves than about the art when giving feedback. We each see a unique world. Ocassionally, a comment will strike home. It will resonate with something we feel, either in our awareness or just behind it, and we may discover room for improvement.

One thing that helps is to remember that feedback, like truth, is not absolute. Feedback is an opinion, grounded in observations and experiences, which allows us to know what impression we make on others. The information is revealing and potentially uncomfortable, which is why all of us would rather offer feedback to those who welcome it.

Feedback is an opinion, grounded in observations and experiences, which allows us to know what impression we make on others.

One thing that helps is to remember that feedback, like truth, is not absolute. Feedback is an opinion, grounded in observations and experiences, which allows us to know what impression we make on others. (p.83)

Get a feedback loop and listen to it. … When people give you feedback, cherish it and use it.

Feed back often, good and bad: Get into the habit of providing feedback regularly, so you both get used to it. You are on the same team: Check your feedback style and assumptions. Are you being adversarial or collaborative? Address the method, not the madness: Don’t use feedback to try and fix aspects of his character. That attacks a person’s sense of self-worth. Stick to tactics, knowledge, tips, and work routines. Disrupt patterns of generalities: Vague and evasive language can undermine feedback; learn to spot and challenge it. Offer suggestions instead of criticising: Instead of using the feedback sandwich to sweeten criticism, make a suggestion and offer two reasons why it might work. Everything is feedback: You’re always communicating, so take control and give the feedback you have chosen to give.

The more open you are to feedback, the more feedback you will get ... and the faster you will grow.
Signaling you are open to feedback is the first key step

Seek feedback on a spontaneous basis. After you have completed a particular task do get into the habit of asking colleagues for feedback about how you performed. The best feedback is the instantaneous kind where feedback is given as soon as something has happened

The first step in evaluating feedback is sizing up who it came from.

Pushing past what’s comfortable, however, is only one part of the deliberate-practice story; the other part is embracing honest feedback — even if it destroys what you thought was good. As Colvin explains in his Fortune article, “You may think that your rehearsal of a job interview was flawless, but your opinion isn’t what counts.” It’s so tempting to just assume what you’ve done is good enough and check it off your to-do list, but it’s in honest, sometimes harsh feedback that you learn where to retrain your focus in order to continue to make progress.

Always be alert to feedback that doesn’t come from the usual suspects. Some of the most useful feedback is unsolicited, even unintentional. Temper the ego by paying close attention to how people react to you nonverbally. Do their expressions show intrigue or boredom? Are they irritated, agitated, tired? Here, again, it’s worth looking for alignment. Do many different people drift off when you’re talking about a subject? It might be time to pull back on that one. When people offer their reflections, we must pick and choose what we follow carefully and wisely.

Many of us tend to have too much invested in our opinions of ourselves to see the world’s feedback — the feedback we need to update our beliefs about reality. This creates a profound

I only accept and pay attention to feedback from people who are also in the arena. If you're occasionally getting your butt kicked as you respond, and if you're also figuring out how to stay open to feedback without getting pummeled by insults, I'm more likely to pay attention to your thought about my work. If, on the other hand, you're not helping, contributing, or wrestling with your own gremlins, I'm not at all interested in your commentary.

As CEO, you should have an opinion on absolutely everything. You should have an opinion on every forecast, every product plan, every presentation, and even every comment. Let people know what you think. If you like someone’s comment, give her the feedback. If you disagree, give her the feedback. Say what you think. Express yourself. This will have two critically important positive effects: Feedback won’t be personal in your company. If the CEO constantly gives feedback, then everyone she interacts with will just get used to it. Nobody will think, “Gee, what did she really mean by that comment? Does she not like me?” Everybody will naturally focus on the issues, not an implicit random performance evaluation. People will become comfortable discussing bad news. If people get comfortable talking about what each other are doing wrong, then it will be very easy to talk about what the company is doing wrong. High-quality company cultures get their cue from data networking routing protocols: Bad news travels fast and good news travels slowly. Low-quality company cultures take on the personality of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wiz: “Don’t nobody bring me no bad news.