The New Facts About Feedback

Delivering great feedback is inexpensive, easy to learn, and there’s no shortage of expert advice out there on how to do it well. Nearly 3/4 of employees want more feedback than they are currently getting. So it’s clear that there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

Before any feedback will be effective, the recipient must see the source as credible for developmental advice. Critically, the person you’re giving feedback to must believe you have their interests at heart. If not, your feedback won’t be effective in driving behavioral change, no matter how well intentioned.

More often, it’s not that employees aren’t aware of the issue, it’s that they don’t know how to respond. So just pointing out that they have a problem isn’t enough to be helpful. To improve performance, constructive feedback must go one step further and provide specific feedback around potential causes and solutions.

From the Harvard Business Review, most employees prefer corrective feedback to praise and recognition. A majority of employees prefer corrective feedback to praise and recognition. In this survey of 900 global employees, 57% of respondents stated that they prefer corrective, negative or constructive feedback, while only 43% stated that they prefer praise or recognition.

Though older workers have a preference for both more positive and negative feedback than younger generations. While this is interesting and provides a strong counterpoint to the millennial feedback myth, it’s worth noting that the research didn’t control for rank or role, so some of this effect is likely to be explained by seniority.

A recent study by the London Business School shows that outstanding performers need more positive affirmation after setbacks. The researchers looked at the performance of top talent after they’ve had a major setback that involves loss of status. The findings show that when previously high performers lose status, their performance suffers. And the very best performers suffer the most. The mediocre performers, by contrast, barely suffer at all.

The research also shows that it was possible to mitigate the effects of this performance drop with targeted affirmation. The academics suggest that this reinforces just how important it is to give your star a break after they’ve bungled something or lost face. As their manager, you have a critical role here in helping your top talent regain their status by letting them know how much you value their work.

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