What Is Your Team Afraid to Tell You? | A Bit of Optimism: Feelings at Work | PART 3

Giving and receiving feedback is one of the hardest things we do at work and most of us just... avoid it.

But avoiding feedback has a cost. Everything you need to grow is already in the room and it's just sitting in your blind spot. Your colleagues can see it. Your boss can see it. And nobody will tell you, unless you learn to ask.

Feelings at Work is a special five-part series from A Bit of Optimism, where Simon Sinek and Alex Simon, founder of LifeShop, explore the human skills that shape how we work, lead, and build relationships. Together, they unpack the emotional challenges most of us face every day—from people pleasing and listening to giving feedback, taking accountability, and having difficult conversations.

In this episode, Alex and Simon take on feedback: how to give it, how to take it, and how to ask for it.

You’ll discover ways to give feedback people can actually hear, receive criticism without taking it personally, and build a feedback culture on any team. Alex and Simon share practical techniques like the one-word ritual Simon borrowed from the Air Force that made his whole company crave critiques, the “FBI” method for delivering hard feedback without blowing up relationships, and questions Alex asks her team to surface everything left unsaid, like "What are you afraid to tell me?"

In this episode you'll learn:

➡️ Why we avoid giving feedback + what that avoidance quietly costs our teams

➡️ "Spears": the Air Force ritual that turns criticism into something people actually want

➡️ The “FBI” (Feelings, Behavior, Impact) method for giving feedback people can actually hear

➡️ The Army Rangers' peer assessment’s "foxhole question" + what it reveals about character

➡️ How to think of feedback as preventative care and build that muscle

➡️ Why everyone receives feedback differently (+ how to give people what they need)