A critique that does not change the next iteration is not a critique. It is a comment.
I have given thousands of comments. The pattern of failure is depressingly stable. Critiques fail for one of three reasons, and each has a specific fix.
The first failure is the relayed critique. The senior designer or PM says something to me, I carry it to the designer, and by the time it lands the meaning has shifted just enough to send her in the wrong direction. The fix is to never relay. If the feedback matters, the person who has it gives it directly, in the file, with the screen visible. If it is not worth a ten-minute call, it was not worth relaying. I have watched a week of work get rebuilt because feedback travelled through me and I softened it into uselessness.
The second failure is the unsigned critique. “This could be cleaner.” “I think the IA is off.” The designer cannot do anything with that. She does not know if the speaker means the typographic hierarchy, the spacing rhythm, the row affordance, or the entire information model. The fix is to name the level. Three options: this is about the pixel, this is about the flow, this is about the strategy. State the level before the note. The designer will fix the right thing on the first try.
The third failure is the praise-sandwich critique. “I love what you have done here, also have you considered, but really nice job.” The middle gets lost. The fix is to drop the bread. State the position. State the reason. Move on. The designer is an adult. Praise is for performance reviews, not for design files.
The counter-view is that direct critique without warmth corrodes a team. I have seen this happen, and the corrosion is real. The mitigation is not to soften the critique. The mitigation is to be the same person in non-critique time. If the team trusts that you also see the good work, the critique does not have to carry warmth as an apology. It can carry information.
The shift is to treat critique as a signal-bearing transmission, not as a social act. The social act is the relationship outside the file. Inside the file, ship the signal.