Feedback: why it does not always improve performance
Feedback is often presented as an always-beneficial lever. Research invites a finer question: what does the feedback address, and where does it direct the recipient's attention?
An unsettling result
Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi (1996, Psychological Bulletin) analyse more than six hundred effects from feedback interventions. The average effect is positive but modest, and roughly one third of the observed effects are negative: performance drops after the feedback.
The proposed mechanism
According to their theory, feedback helps when it directs attention to the task and to ways of improving. It more often harms when it shifts attention to the self — self-image, worth, comparison with others.
What later work clarifies
John Hattie and Helen Timperley (2007, Review of Educational Research) distinguish levels of feedback: task, process, self-regulation, self. Feedback about the person (“you're brilliant”) appears least useful. This work comes mainly from education; transferring it to organisations is reasoned, not proven. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What follows for a manager
The question is not how often feedback is given but what it targets. Precise feedback on a deliverable and the next step is more likely to help than a global judgement, even a positive one. Good intentions do not guarantee the effect.
A practical implication, verifiable in-house
Reread three recent written pieces of feedback and underline every sentence about the person rather than the work. If they dominate, rephrase toward the task and the next action. It is a starting point we use with Zurich managers in workshops. To go further: explore the The Art of Feedback training in Zurich, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: The Art of Feedback in Zurich
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