The subtle art of feedback
Although feedback now holds a central place in companies, its results remain uneven. How can you refine your practices and anchor a truly beneficial culture of feedback within your teams?
Forward College, founded in 2021 in partnership with the London School of Economics and King’s College London, aspires to be a new model for a leading European institute of higher learning. Its mission: to train tomorrow’s leaders by intertwining human and social sciences, digital technology and high-level interpersonal skills. And what do students learn from their very first week? The art of giving and receiving feedback—the most important skill of all, as it is “the key to progress” for its president, Boris Walbaum.
This pedagogical stance illustrates a fundamental trend: in a growing number of organizations, feedback now occupies a central place. Long confined to the annual performance review, it has become a daily lever of performance, motivation and synchronization.
But while the practice is becoming more widespread, its effects remain very uneven. Some feedback leads to real changes in practice or behavior, while other feedback has no effect on the recipient, or even hurts them unnecessarily and creates antagonisms. Approaches vary: at Netflix and Bridgewater, feedback is continuous, formalized, and integrated into the culture; within other organizations, its practice remains marginal, often left to intuition. Between radical transparency and caution in expression, managers are stumbling along. And even the most seasoned acknowledge it: formulating good feedback continues to be a delicate exercise, the impact of which is difficult to anticipate.
This is because feedback activates cognitive and emotional mechanisms that are more subtle than they appear. It can enlighten, reinforce, and energize—or, conversely, disrupt, block, push toward disengagement. Hence the importance of returning to the teachings of pedagogy, cognitive sciences and neurosciences, not to seek out a systematically winning formula—which surely does not exist—, but to enable each individual to establish their bearings and feel more at ease in their practice.
This synopsis thus does not offer a miracle method, nor universal operating instructions. But it does aim to help managers refine their practices and disseminate a more effective approach to feedback among their teams, based on three proven levers: defusing self-protective reflexes, activating commitment and reinforcing learnings.
In this synopsis:
– Feedback: four destabilizing reactions to prepare for
– The art of feedback informed by science
– Supporting your top performers thanks to feedback
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