What’s Better than Critical Feedback?

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Feedback is often seen as the holy grail of the workplace. Leaders are constantly told they need to give it and employees are consistently asking for more of it.

So, leaders should just give more feedback, right?

The thing is, not all feedback is created equal.

When we talk about feedback, most people immediately think of constructive feedback. People need to know what they've done wrong so they can correct it.

However, critical feedback has a tendency to set off our threat system, creating anxiety and narrowing the brain's activity. Research by psychology and business professor Richard Boyatzis found that the strong negative emotion produced by such criticism, "inhibits access to existing neural circuits and invokes cognitive, emotional, and perceptual impairment."

Focusing on team members’ shortcomings or gaps doesn't enable learning and better performance. It impairs it.

Rather than focusing feedback on what people are doing wrong, feedback should lean heavily towards what people are doing right, and how to achieve more of it.

Research by Martin Seligman and Michelle McQuaid found that focusing on weaknesses reduces productivity by 27%. When the focus is on strengths, they found a 36% improvement.

Positive reinforcement beats criticism.

And it boosts engagement.

Research by Brian Brim and Jim Asplund found that positive feedback was 30x more powerful than negative feedback. When given only negative feedback, there are two engaged employees for every one disengaged. This number skyrockets to 60 engaged employees for every one disengaged with positive feedback.

Brim and Asplund summarize their findings in their article, "Driving Engagement by Focusing on Strengths," in the Gallup Business Journal, by saying, "People don't need feedback. They need attention, and moreover, attention to what they do best. And they become more engaged and therefore more productive when we give it to them."

Rather than focusing on what's wrong or broken and what needs to be done to fix it, a positive, strengths-based approach to feedback focuses on what's working and is right, and how you can build upon it.

It creates change by focusing on what you want instead of what you don't.

Here are 4 ways to give more of this type of feedback as a leader:

• Find the best in your people and let them know - focus on what they do well.

• Understand what winning behaviour looks like, talk about it, and highlight it when you see it.

• Celebrate successes - big and small.

• Be positive and focus on the future, not the past.

In the workplace, focusing on positive feedback boosts morale, keeps people motivated, and creates a culture of appreciation and growth.