Receiving Feedback at Work: Why Criticism Weighs So Much in ADHD

I hand in a piece of work. A few hours later a message comes: "Very good overall, could we just make this one section a little clearer?"

Most of the message is positive. I read what comes after the word "just." Then I read it again. By evening I do not even remember the part of the work that was liked; the only thing left in my mind is a section that was not clear and a story I have attached behind it: so he didn't actually like it, so he found me inadequate, so he will give the next job to someone else.

I smile a little as I write this, because once it is put into words you can see how disproportionate it is. In the moment you cannot.

This article is about receiving feedback at work. I described the general side of rejection sensitivity in a separate article; here I want to look at the work itself, that is, the performance review meeting, the revision note, the "do you have a minute?" message.

Why it weighs so much

Two things stack on top of each other.

The first is the emotion itself. A meta-analysis that brought together thirteen studies shows that difficulty regulating emotions is higher in adults with ADHD than in control groups and that the difference reaches an effect size that counts as large; the most marked side is emotional lability (Beheshti et al., 2020). Shaw and colleagues also argue that this difficulty may be less a side feature added to ADHD later than a central piece that explains a significant part of the difficulty in daily life (Shaw et al., 2014). So the reaction to criticism really does rise faster and come down more slowly.

The second is the past. Sometimes when a person reacts to a sentence, they are actually reacting to the years-long repetition of that sentence. For someone who has heard "if only you were more careful," "you left it to the last minute again," "you have potential but" since childhood, a new correction is not new. One more page is added on top of an old file.

Criticism is not heavy on its own. What is heavy is that the shelf I put it on is already full.

In me there was a quiet version of this. No one ever openly told me "you're hopeless." But a child who does the homework on the last night, hands it in and then asks herself why she did not do better learns very early to merge every note from outside with her own inner voice. In the glossary this is called self-criticism.

The feedback itself is not innocent either

Here I want to say that the problem is not only with us, because this part did me a lot of good.

In one of the most cited meta-analyses of feedback research, Kluger and DeNisi found that feedback improved performance on average but lowered it in more than a third of the situations examined (Kluger and DeNisi, 1996). The explanation they proposed is very close to my experience: when feedback takes attention away from the work itself and directs it to the person's self, that is, when the sentence "this section is lacking" calls up the question "what kind of person are you," its effect weakens or reverses.

This finding applies to everyone. But it suggests something: for someone whose attention already slips easily to the self, how feedback is given makes twice the difference.

There is also timing. A review of twenty-two studies with children summarizes that reward and loss increase performance in both children with ADHD and other children, that this effect is somewhat more marked in children with ADHD, and that children with ADHD prefer an immediate reward to a delayed one (Luman et al., 2005). Since most of these studies were done with children, it would not be right to carry them over one to one to adult working life. Still, it explains why a review meeting held every six months always comes to me "all of a sudden": months of silence, then a pile of notes in one sitting. This is why I read the glossary entry immediate feedback for working life too.

What I do in that moment

I am not trying to like criticism, and I do not think that will happen. What I tried is to separate the moment I receive the criticism from the moment I answer it.

I put it in writing first. After verbal feedback, what stays in my mind is often what I felt. I remember the facial expression and forget the sentence. So I note down what was said, as close to word for word as I can, in the meeting or right after. I write my own interpretation on a separate line. Seeing the two lines side by side is often enough: "The introduction is long" and "he didn't like my work" are not the same sentence.

I postpone the answer. "Thank you, I'll look into it and get back to you" is the sentence I use most. I do not defend, I do not give a long explanation, I do not apologize. The answers I give in the first wave are either too defensive or too self-diminishing; both create work that has to be cleaned up later.

I turn the vague into the concrete. When the feedback is vague ("it could be a bit more strategic"), my mind fills that gap with the worst possibility. Instead I ask a question: "What exactly would you like to see differently in the next version?" This question gives me a job to do and moves the other person from a general verdict to a concrete request.

Asking for feedback differently from the start

The real change came before receiving the criticism.

I build digital strategy in my own company, and much of this work is the labor of thinking. When I show a strategy document for the first time, the other person sees the result and I see all the possibilities that were eliminated behind it. This makes feedback heavier, because a single objection feels as if it were made to that whole invisible effort.

A few things I find worth trying for this:

• Showing early and in pieces. A draft shared at the start of the work hurts far less than a job shown when it is nearly finished. The correction stays small, and there is no feeling of having an objection raised to something "finished." I wrote about the perfectionism side of this here.
• Saying what kind of feedback I want. Saying "right now I only want you to look at the direction, language and format later" prevents the comments from scattering and me from taking everything at the same weight.
• Asking for it in writing. I can read written feedback again. The tone of voice drops out, the words stay, and I can go through it item by item.
• Asking often. Feedback that comes rarely turns into an exam every time. Short and regular feedback feels like an ordinary workflow.

If you work with a manager, it is possible to ask for all of these without disclosing your diagnosis; I collected how they can be put into words in the accommodations article.

A feedback file. Collect the feedback you receive in a single document in three columns: what was said, what I did, what happened next. A few months later, seeing whether the same criticism repeats and, if it does, on what subject, changes the weight of individual criticisms. Write the positive ones down too; they are the first to be forgotten.

Praise is hard too

I cannot write this without mentioning it, because in me it is at least as marked as criticism.

When I hear the sentence "that turned out very well," a correction immediately comes from inside: actually I did it on the last night, actually this part is missing, actually it was a bit of luck. Shrinking success and magnifying criticism look like two ends of the same mechanism. In both, the information coming from outside is bent and twisted to fit the verdict already waiting inside.

Now I try to do the same with praise: I put it in writing, and after saying "thank you" I add nothing. Not putting a "but" at the end of that sentence feels harder to me than not answering criticism right away.

Where the limit is

Not all feedback is constructive. Taking a humiliating criticism, one given in front of everyone or aimed at your personality, entirely onto yourself as "my sensitivity" is also a trap. Difficulty regulating emotions may magnify the reaction; this does not mean the other person's behavior is appropriate.

The question I ask myself is this: is this sentence touching my work or me? If it touches my work, even if it stings, I draw a task out of it. If it touches me, that conversation is now a conversation about a boundary.

If the heaviness after criticism lasts for days and opening the work or going to work becomes hard, talking with a specialist about it would not be an overreaction. I told at greater length how this inner voice can soften in the article shame and self-compassion.

Criticism is still heavy for me. What has changed is that I know I do not have to lift that weight in that moment.