A manager wraps up a project review: "You're just not a detail person." She means well. Her colleague spends the next week double-checking everything, and misses the deadline. Most of us believe that more feedback always means better performance. A classic review of 131 studies shows that it depends on what the feedback is about.
It is a lovely idea, and often true: feedback is quick, cheap and usually helpful. So organizations add more of it, from pulse surveys to weekly check-ins.
In 1996, psychologists Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi looked at 131 studies with more than 600 feedback results. On average, feedback did help. In about a third of the cases, though, people performed worse afterward. The difference lay in the focus. Feedback about the person ("you're careless") often backfired. Feedback about the task ("these three figures don't match") usually helped.¹ Research since then keeps confirming this simple pattern.
The practical answer is refreshingly easy: talk about the work. What happened, what it caused, what to try next time.
Talent Takeaway
It reminds us how much the first sentence matters. Before our next feedback conversation, it helps to say it out loud once. A first sentence about the work (these three figures, that deadline) gives the conversation a good place to go.
¹ Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254–284. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254