Feedback usually helps. In more than a third of the cases studied, people performed worse afterward.
A manager wraps up a project review: "You're just not a detail person." She means to help. Her report spends the next week double-checking everything — and misses the deadline.
The myth. More feedback means better performance.
Why it sticks. Feedback often works, and it's cheap. So organizations keep adding more: pulse surveys, 360s, weekly check-ins.
What the research shows. In 1996, Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi analyzed 131 studies covering more than 600 feedback effects. On average, feedback improved performance. But in over a third of cases, performance dropped. The pattern: feedback aimed at the person ("you're careless") tended to backfire; feedback aimed at the task ("these three figures don't match") tended to help.¹ The field has moved on since, but that core finding has held.
Try this instead. Talk about the work: what happened, what it caused, what to try next time.
Talent Takeaway: Before your next tough conversation, read your first sentence aloud. If it starts with "You are…," rewrite it so it starts with the work.
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