A colleague tells the practice owner, “Your instruction asks me to do something my role cannot do.” This is feedback about the owner's work. The useful response is not simply to thank the person for being honest. It is to understand the mismatch, check it and take responsibility for any correction you owe.

Receiving criticism does not mean accepting every statement as established fact or approving every proposed remedy. It means allowing the information to change your account and your decision when the check supports it. The resulting instruction must also reach the people who need it.

1. Ask which instruction does not fit the work

Consider a wholly fictional administrative exercise. The owner has told staff, “Enter all routine office-supply requests directly in the shared list.” A colleague privately replies, “I can read the list, but I cannot add an entry with the access assigned to my role. Your instruction says we should all enter requests ourselves.” This involves invented office stationery only, not clinical materials, actual orders, purchases or patient information.

The employee has identified a contradiction to check. The owner might respond: “Thank you for pointing that out. Which instruction and list are you using, and what does your role allow you to do?” Avoid answering with “Everyone else manages” or explaining how busy you were when you wrote the instruction.

Arrange a private conversation during feasible working time. A written note or another appropriate person may be preferable. The colleague need not retell the concern publicly or disclose private reasons for hesitating.

You can invite feedback with a specific question: “Is there an instruction I have given that does not match the work you can actually do?” Respect an answer of nothing to raise. Concerns about the owner that need another responsible person or a formal process must retain that route.

2. Check the mismatch before choosing the repair

In the exercise, separate the written instruction, the colleague's account of access and any proposed solution. “The instruction says everyone should enter requests” is a statement about the document. “My role can only read the list” is an account to verify through the appropriate method. “Give everyone editing access” would be one possible suggestion, not a conclusion established by either statement.

Arrange an authorised check of the relevant list and role with the person responsible. Do not ask for passwords, borrow accounts or infer the colleague's access from your own higher permissions.

For this branch, suppose the responsible person confirms that the staff role has viewing access, while the office coordinator maintains entries. The owner's instruction really does require an action that role cannot perform. This is a supplied finding in the fictional exercise, not a report of an actual permissions check.

Another finding would require another response. If the colleague had been sent a link to an old list, the immediate issue might be the reference they were given. That would not justify dismissing the report as a failure to follow instructions. If access cannot yet be confirmed, record that uncertainty and arrange the next check.

The colleague can help identify where the work stops. Management owns the investigation and decision; raising a concern does not assign the employee an extra repair project.

3. Correct your instruction without automatically adopting the suggestion

Under the confirmed viewing-only condition, the owner can be direct: “I told everyone to enter requests themselves without checking whether their roles allowed that. That instruction was wrong for this role. I am withdrawing that part and will confirm the route you can use.” Name the specific instruction you are correcting.

Suppose the colleague suggests making every user an editor. The owner should consider the idea without treating agreement as the reward for speaking up. The person responsible for the list needs to assess who should enter information and what arrangement can be maintained. Thanking a colleague does not authorise wider access or remove necessary checks.

Continue the fictional example only after another supplied check: the responsible people confirm an existing, documented internal route for staff to pass routine office requests to the coordinator. They also confirm that the coordinator is authorised to maintain the list and can handle that work in the arranged working time. Those conditions make this a usable option in the exercise; they must not be presumed in a real practice.

The owner can then explain: “The coordinator has the authority and arranged time for entries, so we will use that confirmed route. I have corrected the instruction asking everyone to edit directly. We considered your access suggestion but are not making that change.” Explain the operational reason, not merely that the owner has the final say.

If no workable route is confirmed, do not announce that the matter is solved. Withdraw the unsupported instruction, identify who must settle the arrangement and decide how any pending work will be handled within actual authority. A promise to check a route is not a route. Necessary work and current commitments still require a management response; staff should not have to invent access, approvals or off-duty coverage.

4. Report back without turning the employee into the announcement

For routine feedback, give the colleague an accurate account of what was checked, what changed and what remains open. In the confirmed branch: “The access check supported the point you raised. I have corrected my instruction; the coordinator route has been confirmed. I will let the relevant staff know how to submit these requests.” If a part remains pending, say so rather than offering reassurance in place of an answer.

Ask whether your summary misrepresents anything they reported. This is an opportunity to correct the account, not a request to approve your leadership. The colleague may still disagree with the chosen arrangement. Record a practical unresolved concern without writing that everyone is satisfied simply because the conversation ended.

Before a routine wider update, discuss what needs to be shared and any concerns about identifying detail. A possible explanation is: “The team needs the corrected instruction. I do not plan to name you or quote this conversation. Are there details I should consider before sharing the work change?” Keep responsibility for deciding an appropriate message with the owner rather than making the employee write or defend it.

A name-free message can still identify someone through familiar circumstances. Do not guarantee anonymity or absolute secrecy. Share only the work information needed, explaining any appropriate additional handling of the concern.

Public praise is optional, not the price of having an instruction corrected. Someone may welcome a private thank-you without wanting a named story about challenging the owner. The practice can explain a change and own its mistake without turning the person who raised it into a demonstration of the culture.

5. Tell the team the changed work, not the private conversation

In the fictional confirmed branch, the operational update might read: “The instruction asking every staff member to enter office requests directly has been withdrawn. Staff in the viewing role should use the confirmed coordinator request route described in the current instruction. The coordinator maintains the list. This change does not grant editing access.” Add the actual location of that instruction and when it applies once those details are settled.

This message says what to do differently. It does not need the employee's name, shift, quoted objection or a story about how reluctant they were to speak. “Someone complained, so we have changed the rule” both exposes the conversation and obscures the owner's responsibility. A clearer explanation is that the original instruction did not match the assigned roles.

Send the update only to people who need the revised arrangement, through a suitable work channel. Include colleagues who use the instruction but were not present at the discussion. Handle obsolete working copies through the established process, while preserving records that should be retained. A private feedback note and a current task instruction serve different purposes and need not be circulated together.

Check how the change affects work already waiting. Does the coordinator need to confirm which requests have been received? Are any responsibilities or timing still unresolved? Establish the actual state rather than asking everyone to resubmit everything automatically. An instruction correction should not create duplicate tasks or quietly treat existing requests as completed.

If someone asks who prompted the change, return to the reason people need to know: the instruction and access arrangement did not match. Do not speculate about other staff or invite a search for the speaker.

6. Verify the correction and leave room for a further concern

At the agreed review, check whether the relevant staff role can identify the confirmed request route and the coordinator can perform the entry work under the agreed conditions. Use suitable dummy material or another authorised check; this exercise requires no real order.

Keep the result limited. An instruction made available is not proof that every colleague has read it. A successful check with one role does not establish that every arrangement works. Nor does the absence of further complaints demonstrate trust, retention or a willingness to criticise the owner next time.

Follow up on management's commitments as well as staff actions. If the promised instruction was not distributed or the coordinator's working time was not provided, address that gap. Do not ask the person who raised the concern to compensate for support that management failed to arrange. Give them a suitable way to point out an unresolved or inaccurate part of the response.

This administrative example does not replace clinical oversight or the proper response to urgent, safety or serious workplace concerns. When instructions concern patients, the same discipline must preserve their options to ask about costs, take time, decline or reschedule. Correcting a process must not turn a patient's choice into a target for staff.

Hear the specific account, establish what it supports and take responsibility for correcting and communicating your instruction. That repair can be complete without public tribute, forced agreement or a claim that the team's culture has changed.