Feedback: should an individual error be discussed with the team?
In SHR — Swiss Human Resources' programme « L'art du feedback », choosing the setting deserves as much attention as choosing the words. The management question is specific: when an individual error affects collective work, what should be addressed with the team and what belongs in a private conversation?
What the literature establishes
Amy Edmondson (1999, Administrative Science Quarterly) identifies an association between team psychological safety and learning behaviours, including discussing errors and seeking help. Psychological safety refers to a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. This finding supports making problems discussable; it does not demonstrate that commenting publicly on an individual's performance promotes learning.
The mechanism: what observers also learn
Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison and Frances J. Milliken (2000, Academy of Management Review) propose a model of organisational silence in which management practices help establish the belief that speaking up is risky or pointless. This is a theoretical framework, not a trial comparing feedback formats. Applied to a team discussion of an error, the mechanism invites us to consider what observers might infer: will they, too, be able to report a difficulty without becoming the target of the meeting?
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that all corrective feedback should remain private. That would confuse protecting the individual with withholding information useful to the team. A more defensible distinction is to address the individual's evaluation privately and discuss the facts, interdependencies and necessary changes to work collectively, without unnecessary personal attribution. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these findings cannot settle
These articles do not directly compare identical feedback delivered privately or in front of colleagues, so they cannot establish a universally appropriate format. Removing a name does not make a case anonymous in a small team, and apparent agreement to discuss it does not guarantee freedom from hierarchical pressure. Requirements concerning traceability, safety or accountability must remain separate from the choice of a learning setting.
A practical check in Lausanne
For a Lausanne-based team in medtech, higher education, international sport or a scale-up in the Lake Geneva region, an exercise in « L'art du feedback » could involve reviewing every team discussion of an error over one month. Before each session, the manager specifies the intended learning and checks with the person concerned which information needs to be shared, without suggesting that reporting obligations are optional. After the session, the manager records whether a change to the work, an owner and a review date have been defined. The measure is the proportion of these discussions that produce all three elements: it checks whether sharing leads to operational action, without claiming to measure psychological safety on its own. To go further: explore the The Art of Feedback training in Lausanne in the canton of Vaud, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: The Art of Feedback in Lausanne
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