In the professional world, we will be working on a team where we interact and provide feedback. But, in reality, giving or receiving feedbacks isn’t as easy as we think. In this DNA Power UP session, we discussed with Donny Manik (Product Owner, Home Credit Indonesia) and M. Riza Abdillah (VP. Product Payment Platform, DOKU) about how they give/receive feedback, be it from co-workers or their managers, and tips that we can follow.

According to Donny and Riza, the meaning of feedback is:

Donny: Feedback is very important in anything be it for work or your daily life. What I got from it is improvement. Improvement in performance, the results we achieved, or on tasks. Having feedback is vital, especially for a product owner such as me to know if the things we do brings a positive result or the other way around. If the result is positive, we must know the way to improve more positively.

Riza: For me, feedback is a reaction towards certain situations. If we view it personally, it can branch into 2; giving feedback and receiving it. And both of them can be challenging, or even scary for some people.

Sometimes, we would get sensitive or heartbroken when receiving feedback. How do we take care of that?

Riza: We believe that it’s natural for us to receive feedback. So we have to first accept that there will be those moments.

So that we don’t feel hurt, trust in that feedback to be beneficial for you. Even though it feels negative, don’t reject it immediately, just accept it first. We then analyze that feedback and empathize on why that person gave it to us. We then try to learn from it and when we have accepted that it is valid, we then must improve ourselves. The most important is that when someone is giving feedback, they are doing it because they care for us.

Donny: Just act professionally and don’t take it to heart. Feedback can be our push to be even better. So don’t ever consider it as something personal.

And of course, feedback can bring a positive impact because it can motivate us more. When we receive feedback, whether it is positive or negative, consider it as our fuel to motivate us in doing something.

How about it? Are you ready to receive and give feedback?

For those of you who didn’t get a chance to join the session, you can watch the recording here.

See you on the next DNA Power-UP session!