What Managers Get Wrong About Feedback

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

Marcus Buckingham, head of people and performance research at the ADP Research Institute, and Ashley Goodall, senior vice president of leadership and team intelligence at Cisco Systems, say that managers and organizations are overestimating the importance of critical feedback. They argue that, in focusing our efforts on correcting weaknesses and rounding people out, we lose the ability to get exceptional performance from them. Instead, we should focus on strengths and push everyone to shine in their own areas. To do that, companies need to rethink the way they review, pay, and promote their employees. Buckingham and Goodall are the authors of the book "Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader's Guide to the Real World" and the HBR article "The Feedback Fallacy."

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone it's Kurt we need your help with our annual survey this is your last chance to help us get to know you so we can make idea cast even better for you
0:09.8	it's easy just go to HBR.org
0:13.0	podcast survey.
0:15.0	Again, that's HBR.org.
0:17.0	And thanks for listening. Welcome to the HBR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard.
0:50.0	Feedback. It's something good leaders provide to their employees and solicit from others so everyone can improve.
0:55.0	It's supposed to help us develop into better, more well-rounded workers and managers,
1:00.0	and our performance review systems are structured around it to make sure we're always paying and promoting the best people.
1:05.6	Our guests today say we're doing this all wrong. They say the feedback that's delivered in today's corporate world isn't doing us all that much good.
1:15.0	They think that constructive criticism actually prevents people from reaching their full potential,
1:20.0	and they'd like us to reimagine employee development accordingly.
1:24.0	Marcus Buckingham is a head of research at the ADP Research Institute and Ashley Goodall is the head of
1:28.8	Cisco leadership and team intelligence.
1:31.1	Together they're the authors of the book Nine Lies About Work, a free-thinking
1:35.1	leaders guide to the real world and the HBO article The Feedback Follacy.
1:39.9	Marcus and Ashley, thanks so much for coming in. Our pleasure.
1:44.0	Thanks for having you. So as someone who thrives on positive feedback myself I really love your premise but I am struggling a bit
2:05.2	with the practicality of it you know don't bosses sometimes need to point out when
2:10.5	their people aren't performing well and push them to do better?
2:14.8	So I think the first thing you say yes and then you have to understand what you get from that.
2:20.4	So if you help people fix their mistakes you get fewer mistakes.
2:25.0	Mistake-free isn't the same as great and it's not the same as excellence.
	...

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