Feedback: does improvement last when the manager is no longer there?
An employee corrects their work after receiving specific feedback, and the manager readily sees this as evidence of learning. The more demanding management question is whether that employee will recognise and correct a comparable discrepancy without another intervention.
What the literature establishes
Nicholas C. Soderstrom and Robert A. Bjork (2015, Perspectives on Psychological Science) distinguish observable performance during learning from a lasting change in capability. Their review shows that immediate success can be a misleading indicator of what will be retained or transferred to another situation. Applied to feedback, this distinction cautions against equating corrected work with an acquired skill.
When feedback becomes an execution aid
Alan W. Salmoni, Richard A. Schmidt and Charles B. Walter (1984, Psychological Bulletin) examine the role of knowledge of results in motor learning. They discuss a guidance hypothesis: external feedback can support execution while fostering dependence on that information. Improvement observed while feedback is available therefore does not establish that someone can regulate their activity independently.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that a good manager should leave employees to work things out for themselves. That would confuse a test of independence with a withdrawal of support: the cited research justifies neither withholding essential information nor allowing a dangerous error to pass. The useful distinction is between two functions of feedback: ensuring that current work is carried out safely and correctly, and preparing people to regulate future work. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What common practices do not measure
Approving a revised document or a corrected movement primarily tells us about the result achieved with assistance. A substantial part of the research discussed involves experimental tasks, particularly motor tasks, whose applicability to management activities still requires verification. Neither satisfaction after a feedback conversation nor immediate compliance replaces a later observation of a comparable task performed without further corrective guidance.
A practical check in Fribourg
As part of SHR's « L'art du feedback » programme, a practical check could be proposed in Fribourg using a risk-free exercise: a fictional traceability file in food processing, a simulated instruction in bilingual industry, or a training file in the university sector. Before feedback, and again one week later on an equivalent case, record the proportion of discrepancies correctly identified and corrected without managerial guidance, using the same assessment grid with aligned French and German versions. Record requests for help separately and retain all mandatory checks on actual work. The change in this proportion provides a local indicator of independence, without being sufficient to attribute the change causally to the training. To go further: explore the The Art of Feedback training in Fribourg in the canton of Fribourg, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: The Art of Feedback in Fribourg
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