Tom is one of your strongest project leads. Clients like him, his projects land on budget, and he is on track for a bigger role.

For about three months, though, something has been slipping. Deadlines moved without the sales team hearing about it, and twice a client knew more about a project’s status than the sales rep did.

Yesterday the head of sales came to you. She was frustrated, she had examples, and she asked you to keep the complaint between the two of you.

Tom’s annual development conversation with you is in two weeks.

This case moves with you. Make your first call, and the story jumps ahead to show what your decision set in motion. Then you decide again, and your path leads to its own ending. Finally, compare your route with our AI’s and with the research.

You & AI · Case 2 · An interactive story

  1. 1Your call
  2. 2What happens next
  3. 3Your next move
  4. 4Our AI and the research

Your first decision: what do you do with the feedback?

Our AI replies to what you write. Please leave out personal details. Privacy

The story continues from your choice. Each path unfolds differently.

Your second decision: what do you do now?

The fix

One possible ending, written by our editors. Real teams vary.

Your path

Our AI replies

Reading your reasoning

Written live by Ati, our AI editor.

Our AI's call: A

"Short, specific and soon. Tom can act on an example from last week; an example from July mostly tells him that someone kept a file. The development conversation is the place to look ahead, and it works best when nothing in it comes as a surprise."

"Where I am unsure: the source. I would agree with the head of sales on what I may share before I talk to Tom. If she refuses, I would talk to him anyway, based on what I can verify myself."

What the research says

We underestimate how much people want to hear it. Psychologists Nicole Abi-Esber, Jennifer Abel, Juliana Schroeder and Francesca Gino ran a series of studies on constructive feedback. People consistently underestimated how much others wanted to hear it, and they gave more of it once they imagined themselves in the other person’s position.¹

Feedback can backfire. In a review of more than 600 effect sizes, Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi found that feedback improved performance on average, but in over a third of cases it made performance worse. It tended to backfire when it pulled attention away from the task and toward the person’s self-image.² A complaint from an unnamed source, months after the fact, is exactly that kind of message.

Timing matters most when the work is ongoing. Research on the timing of feedback is mixed: in some laboratory learning tasks, delayed feedback works as well or better. In real classrooms and real work, where people can still adjust what they are doing, immediate feedback has generally helped more.³ We read that as a strong case for talking to Tom while the projects are still running.

That makes A the strongest first move. B feels thorough and turns the development conversation into a trial. C passes the job to someone who may never do it. The studies above do not test anonymous complaints directly; our advice on naming sources comes from practice.

The AI's call and its replies are written by Ati, our AI editor, and published unedited. Answers are stored anonymously. How we use AI · Privacy

Talent Takeaway

Give feedback while the person can still use it: short, specific, and close to the event. Keep the development conversation for the future, and make sure nothing in it comes as a surprise. When someone else raises a concern, agree on what you may share before you promise to keep it quiet.

¹ Abi-Esber, N., Abel, J. E., Schroeder, J., & Gino, F. (2022). "Just letting you know…" Underestimating others' desire for constructive feedback. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 123(6), 1362–1385. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000393

² 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

³ Kulik, J. A., & Kulik, C.-L. C. (1988). Timing of feedback and verbal learning. Review of Educational Research, 58(1), 79–97. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543058001079

Further reading: Kim Scott, Radical Candor (St. Martin’s Press, 2017), on caring personally while challenging directly; Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, Thanks for the Feedback (Viking, 2014), on why feedback so often fails on the receiving end.