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41 questions that get you an honest answer.

Ask someone “any feedback for me?” and you will almost always get “no, you’re doing great.” Not because they have nothing to say, but because the question makes politeness the easiest way out. These 41 are written the other way round, so that a specific, candid, useful answer is the path of least resistance. Take them, copy them, use them wherever you like. No sign-up.

Written by Victor Dumeige, an organizational psychologist with 15+ years in L&D and people analytics at Nike, Qualcomm and L’Oréal. At Nike he designed the company’s first systematic 360 process for its top 200 leaders worldwide.

Four rules that do most of the work

How you word the question decides the quality of the answer. Four things matter more than all the rest.

  • 1. Ask forward, not backward

    “How did I do?” asks someone to judge you, so they soften it. “What should I try next?” asks for an idea. That is easier to give, there is nothing to defend, and it arrives ready to act on. The practice has a name, feedforward, popularised by Marshall Goldsmith.

  • 2. Ask for words, not scores

    A 3.7 out of 5 cannot tell you what to do on Monday. One well-written sentence can. Numbers feel objective, but they flatten away the specifics that would actually change how you work.

  • 3. Ask for a moment, not a verdict

    “Are you a good listener?” gets you a generality. “Describe a moment when…” gets you a story, and stories carry the detail you can learn from. Several of the questions below are built this way on purpose.

  • 4. Make it safe, or none of it works

    When feedback also feeds pay and promotion decisions, people hold back. Every time. So ask outside the review cycle, say plainly that it goes nowhere near your file, and mean it. Candor is a function of consequences.

About the highlights: a chip like your name is where you drop in your own name. Questions land better in the third person, because it reads as a question about you rather than a demand of the person answering. the project, the event and the skill work the same way. Hit Copy on any question and you’ll get it with square-bracket placeholders ready to fill in.

General development

When you just want an honest read on how you’re doing and where to aim next.

  1. What is the most important thing your name could do differently to have greater impact?

  2. What does your name do that you wish more people on the team did?

  3. Describe a moment when you saw your name at their best. What were they doing?

Leadership

For how you lead, with or without a formal title.

  1. What is your name's greatest strength as a leader, and how does it show up for the team?

  2. What is the single most important thing your name could do to become a more effective leader?

  3. How does your name make the people around them feel: heard, valued, and able to do their best work?

Managing people

For managers: coaching, direction, and the hard calls.

  1. What does your name do best when it comes to coaching and developing their team, and where is the most room to grow?

  2. How well does your name set direction and clarify expectations, and what would make this even clearer or more consistent?

  3. How does your name handle underperformance on their team, and what would make those moments more honest or more useful for the person on the receiving end?

  4. Describe a moment when your name had to make a hard call about someone on the team (a difficult conversation, a role change, a parting). What did you notice, and what would you have done differently?

Collaboration & teamwork

For how you work alongside other people day to day.

  1. What does your name do best when it comes to collaborating with others, and how does it show up in practice?

  2. What is one change that would most improve how your name works with others, whether on this team or across the organization?

  3. How well does your name navigate disagreement or tension within the team, and what would make them even more effective in those moments?

One relationship

For a single working relationship you want to strengthen.

  1. What is one thing your name could do to make you feel more heard or understood in this relationship?

  2. What could your name do differently to better support you when things are hard?

  3. What does your name do that you genuinely appreciate, and what would it mean to you if it happened more often?

Clients & stakeholders

For consultants, freelancers, and anyone serving external partners.

  1. What is one thing your name could do to strengthen the working relationship?

  2. How does your name come across in the way they communicate with you, and what would you suggest they refine?

  3. What does your name do that you genuinely value, and what would it mean if they did it more consistently?

Career development

For the longer arc of where your work could go next.

  1. What skill, if your name developed it, would most expand the kind of work and opportunities available to them?

  2. If you were in your name's shoes, what is the first thing you would do to boost their career development?

  3. What do you see as your name's greatest untapped strength that they're not fully leveraging in their career?

A new role or transition

For the first months in a role, when course-correction is still cheap.

  1. What advice would you give your name about what it actually takes to thrive in this kind of role?

  2. Which relationships or stakeholders should your name prioritize investing in early in this transition?

  3. What do you most want your name to know going into this transition? Something they may not have heard yet.

A project or initiative

Tied to a specific piece of work, before or after it ships.

  1. What do you think are the biggest risks or challenges your name should anticipate in the project, and how would you suggest they approach them?

  2. What would a successful outcome for the project look like to you, and what do you think your name needs to prioritize to get there?

  3. What skills or strengths does your name have that you think will be most valuable in the project?

  4. Looking back at how your name has approached the project so far, what is one thing they've done that has most shaped how it's going, for better or worse?

An event or presentation

For a talk, workshop, or moment you want to get sharper at.

  1. What moment during the event stood out most to you, and what made it land the way it did?

  2. If you could give your name one piece of advice to try at their next the event, what would it be?

  3. What did your name do during the event that you would encourage them to do more of?

A specific skill or habit

When you’re working on one named thing and want focused input.

  1. What does your name do well when it comes to the skill, and how does it show up in practice?

  2. What is the single most impactful change your name could make to be more effective at the skill?

  3. Describe a specific moment when you saw your name's the skill in action, for better or worse.

Checking in on a commitment

For the second round, once you’ve been practising something.

  1. When have you seen your name try to follow through on this recently? What stood out?

  2. What's one thing your name could do differently that would make this stick?

  3. Where is your name already doing this well, and shouldn't change a thing?

  4. What might your name be missing or underestimating about what this commitment will take?

  5. Are there other skills or behaviors your name should be working on to make this commitment stick?

  6. What experiences, conversations, or resources could help your name make real progress?

Now try getting eight people to answer them.

That’s the part that quietly kills most feedback rounds. The sending. The reminding. The one person who is certain they already replied. And then a pile of long emails sitting in your inbox with no good way to make sense of any of it.

ZenFeedback takes that half off your hands. Everyone you ask gets their own private link and answers in their own words, with no account to create. We nudge the quiet ones so you don’t have to. And when the answers arrive, you get a calm place to read them, keep the lines worth keeping, and turn them into a plan you’ll actually follow.

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