---
title: Why feedback may fail - Linus Murphy
description: Feedback fizzles without permission, precision or follow-up. Most
  of that failure is set up before the conversation starts, and it can be fixed
  there.
url: https://linusmurphy.com/guide/feedback-and-difficult-personalities/why-feedback-may-fail/
language: en-GB
type: article
author: Linus Murphy
author_url: https://linusmurphy.com/about/
---

[The 30-part series · Part 28 of 30](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/#series)

# Why feedback may fail: it usually breaks before you open your mouth

By [Linus Murphy](https://linusmurphy.com/about/) • 9 min read

Focus area 28: Why feedback may fail. [Chapter 10: Feedback and difficult personalities](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/feedback-and-difficult-personalities/).

Part of the Executive Coaching Methodology: [Lead when it gets hard](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/#lead-when-it-gets-hard)

![A crumpled paper aeroplane on a wooden floor just short of a wastepaper basket](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/why-feedback-may-fail.webp)

The argument in brief

Most feedback fails before it is spoken: the giver has no standing with the receiver, no evidence that survives their own bias, and no plan to check what changes. Fix those three in advance and the delivery matters far less than leaders think.

A note has to pass permission, precision and follow-up; each gate has its own leak, and the receiver’s reaction tells you which one failed.

You prepared the conversation. You chose the words with care. You booked a quiet room. And it went nowhere. They nodded, or they argued, or they thanked you and changed nothing. A month later you are giving the same note again with less patience, and they are hearing it with less trust.

When feedback fails, most leaders reach for delivery. They try a softer opening, a better example, a different model from a workshop. Sometimes that helps. More often the problem was settled before they walked into the room.

My position: most feedback fails before it is spoken. The giver has no standing with the receiver, no evidence that survives their own bias, and no plan to check what changes. Fix those three in advance, and the delivery matters far less than you think.

## Feedback is an intervention, and interventions misfire

The focus area I coach on this is short: feedback fizzles without permission, precision or follow-up, so we frame it, specify it and close the loop. Behind that sentence sits a finding many leaders have never heard.

When Kluger and DeNisi pooled decades of studies, they found that feedback improved performance on average, but [more than one-third of feedback interventions decreased performance](https://cris.huji.ac.il/en/publications/the-effects-of-feedback-interventions-on-performance-a-historical/). Their explanation was that feedback moves attention. When it keeps attention on the task, it helps. When it pulls attention towards the self, effectiveness drops.

The organisational data is no kinder. In a Gallup article by Robert Sutton and Ben Wigert, [only 14% of employees strongly agreed that their performance reviews inspire them to improve](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/249332/harm-good-truth-performance-reviews.aspx), and nearly half said they receive feedback from their manager a few times a year or less. Stone and Heen, writing in HBR, reported that when senior HR executives were asked about their biggest performance management challenge, [63% cited managers’ inability or unwillingness to have difficult feedback discussions](https://web.archive.org/web/20161201014058/https://hbr.org/2014/01/find-the-coaching-in-criticism).

So the base rate is poor. Feedback is not automatically a gift. It is a bet, and you can shorten the odds before you place it.

## Listen to the receiver: three triggers, three gates

Stone and Heen spent years coaching executives on receiving feedback. They argue there are only three ways a note pushes someone’s buttons. A **truth trigger** fires when the content seems wrong or unfair. A **relationship trigger** fires because of who is giving it and how they have behaved before. An **identity trigger** fires when the note threatens the person’s sense of who they are.

I find it useful to turn those around and ask what the giver did, or failed to do, beforehand. Each trigger points to a gate the note did not pass.

| Gate | What the giver skipped | What the receiver feels | First words you hear |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Permission | Standing, timing, a named topic | Relationship trigger: who are you to say this? | *That is rich, coming from you* |
| Precision | Observed behaviour, checked against bias | Truth trigger: that is not what happened | *That is not fair* or *Which meeting?* |
| Precision | Staying on the task, not the person | Identity trigger: so I am a failure | Silence, or a long defence of their record |
| Follow-up | A next action, a date, a second look | Nothing; it felt fine | *Thanks, really useful*, then no change |

That last row is the one leaders miss. A warm conversation with no follow-up looks like success. It is the quietest failure of all.

### Gate one: permission is earned before the meeting

Permission is not a form. It is standing. Do I have a relationship with this person in which my notes are known to be in their interest? Have they seen me take notes as well as give them?

A pattern I see often: a CEO who is sparing with praise and slow to ask for feedback suddenly delivers a sharp, well-prepared correction. It fails on the relationship trigger, not on content. The receiver is not hearing the note; they are hearing a pattern of judgement from above.

Standing is [earning trust](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/trust-under-pressure/earning-trust/) applied to feedback: small promises kept, over time, before the hard note arrives. The reverse also holds. A leader whom nobody dares give notes to is on the road that [the fatal flaws of leaders](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/fatal-flaws-of-leaders/) describes, because the flaw grows where the feedback stopped.

Build standing in advance. Give specific praise when it is earned, ask for feedback yourself, and act on it where people can see. Then, when you need to give a hard note, name the topic and ask for the time. *I want 20 minutes on how the last board pack landed. Now, or first thing tomorrow?* That small question turns an ambush into an agreement.

If you lead a senior team, permission is also collective. A team that has agreed how it gives notes, in which forum and with what structure, has given every member standing in advance. That is part of what [psychological safety at the executive table](https://linusmurphy.com/articles/psychological-safety-at-the-executive-table/) means in practice.

### Gate two: precision has to survive your own bias

Here is the uncomfortable research. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, summarising decades of psychometric work, argue that people are unreliable raters of others: [more than half of your rating of someone reflects your characteristics, not theirs](https://web.archive.org/web/20201231133411/https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy). They call it the idiosyncratic rater effect.

Notice what is being rated in that research: abstract qualities such as business acumen or assertiveness. That is exactly the kind of feedback senior leaders like to give. *You need more executive presence. You are not strategic enough.* Those notes are more about the giver’s picture of good than about anything the receiver did.

Precision is the defence. Before you give a note, write it down and test it against three questions:

1.  **Would a camera have recorded it?** A date, a meeting, a sentence, a number. If not, you have an opinion about a trait.
2.  **Would another senior person who was there agree on the facts?** Not the interpretation, the facts. If you are not sure, ask one before you speak.
3.  **Is the next action about the task?** If the note invites the person to reflect on who they are, it will travel up towards identity, and Kluger and DeNisi tell you where that goes.

A note that passes all three is hard to dismiss on the truth trigger and unlikely to set off the identity trigger. That is where the time goes: in the preparation, not the phrasing.

### Gate three: follow-up is where the change happens

Feedback is not finished when the conversation ends. It is finished when the next instance of the behaviour has been seen and named.

Stone and Heen suggest that receivers treat feedback as a small experiment: try the advice and see what happens. As the giver, make the experiment explicit. Agree one action, one date and when you will look again. Then look. If it went well, say so specifically, because that praise is what makes the new behaviour stick. If it did not, you are back at precision, not at a second, louder version of the same note.

Frequency is part of follow-up. Gallup found that when managers provide weekly rather than annual feedback, team members are [5.2 times more likely to strongly agree that they receive meaningful feedback, 3.2 times more likely to strongly agree they are motivated to do outstanding work and 2.7 times more likely to be engaged](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/249332/harm-good-truth-performance-reviews.aspx). A weekly cadence is not hovering. It is what allows a note to become a habit before everyone has forgotten it.

## Arguments

### The case for

The research gives feedback a mixed record, and the reason is consistent: notes that drift from the task to the person backfire, and notes without a loop are forgotten. The receiver’s triggers explain why skilled delivery cannot rescue a note from someone without standing, built on a vague impression, with no plan to check. Shifting effort from the conversation to the preparation (standing, evidence, follow-up) addresses the causes rather than the symptoms.

### The case against

Buckingham and Goodall make the strongest objection: if raters are this unreliable, perhaps the answer is less feedback, not better feedback. They argue that excellence is individual, that criticism can inhibit learning, and that managers should spend more time pointing to what is working. Others would add that some environments simply need fast, unvarnished correction: a safety issue, a customer crisis, a deadline tonight. In those moments, asking permission and checking your bias can look like an indulgence.

### Where I stand

I agree with Buckingham and Goodall about ratings of abstract traits. That is why I do not let leaders give them. Precision about observed behaviour is a different thing from scoring someone on *strategic thinking*, and their objection is mostly an argument for precision. I also agree that noticing what works deserves more airtime; the sibling part on praise is about exactly that. And yes, in a genuine emergency, say what you see and stop the damage. But most failed feedback in senior teams was not urgent. It was unprepared. In the [7-step process](https://linusmurphy.com/services/impactful-leadership-7-step-executive-coaching-process/), permission and precision belong to Awareness (step 2) and Influence (step 4), and follow-up is the observe, adjust, advance loop of Improvement (step 5).

## Try this

Take the note you have been meaning to give, or the one you gave that went nowhere.

1.  Write it in one sentence. Underline every word that describes a trait rather than a behaviour, and replace it.
2.  Check one fact with someone else who was there.
3.  Ask yourself honestly: in the last month, have I praised this person specifically, and have I asked them for feedback? If not, do one of those first.
4.  Book the conversation with a named topic. Agree one next action and a date.
5.  Put a reminder in your diary to look for the next instance, and to name it, good or bad.

Reflection questions:

-   Which of my recent notes would a camera have recorded?
-   Whose feedback do I take visibly, and who knows it?
-   Where am I confusing a warm conversation with a successful one?
-   Which note have I given three times without changing anything about how I give it?

## Where to go next

This part completes the chapter on [feedback and difficult personalities](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/feedback-and-difficult-personalities/). The skill underneath it is in [give and receive praise and feedback](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/feedback-and-difficult-personalities/give-and-receive-praise-and-feedback/), and if the note concerns a high performer with sharp edges, read [lead difficult personalities](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/feedback-and-difficult-personalities/lead-difficult-personalities/). If your own blind spots are the issue, [remove leadership blind spots](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/leadership-blind-spots/remove-leadership-blind-spots/) shows how to make feedback to you safer to give.

Elite sport treats feedback as measurement and refuses to bluff; [Chris Boardman’s career](https://linusmurphy.com/peloton-to-boardroom/chris-boardman/) is a good example, and I write about the wider lesson on [from elite sport to the boardroom](https://linusmurphy.com/services/from-elite-sport-to-the-boardroom/). It is also the last of the 30 parts in [the series](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/) to be published: 30 focus areas, one standard underneath them all, which is to say the true thing precisely and then check what changed. If a note you keep giving is not landing, [executive coaching](https://linusmurphy.com/services/executive-coaching/) is where we prepare it properly, or you can [book a confidential 30-minute conversation](https://linusmurphy.com/contact/).

Where this came from

In 1996 Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi published a meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin covering 607 effect sizes and 23,663 observations. Feedback helped on average, but more than a third of feedback interventions made performance worse. Their explanation was about attention: feedback works when it keeps attention on the task and fails as attention moves towards the self. Nearly two decades later, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen looked at the same problem from the receiver’s side, naming three triggers that block feedback: truth, relationship and identity. Together they explain why good intentions are not enough.

Source: [The effects of feedback interventions on performance: a historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory](https://cris.huji.ac.il/en/publications/the-effects-of-feedback-interventions-on-performance-a-historical/)

## Questions I am asked

**How do I know which gate my feedback failed at?**

I listen to the first objection. If they question the facts, it was precision. If they question me, my motives or my right to say it, it was permission. If they agreed warmly and nothing changed, it was follow-up. The reaction is diagnostic. It is not an attack to win; it is information about which part of my preparation was thin.

**Is it ever right to give feedback without permission?**

Yes, when safety, ethics or a customer is at risk right now. Then I name what I see and stop it, and I explain afterwards. For everything else, I ask. Asking costs ten seconds and changes how the whole conversation is heard. Most of the feedback that blows up in senior teams was not urgent; it was simply unannounced.

**What if I am the one whose feedback keeps failing?**

Then I look at my own standing first. Do the people I give notes to also give notes to me, and have they seen me act on them? If not, my feedback probably sounds like judgement from above rather than help from someone in the work. The fastest repair is to ask for feedback publicly and change something visibly.

**Should we scrap formal performance reviews?**

That is a decision for each organisation, and the evidence on the alternatives is still mixed. What I am confident about is that a review cannot carry the whole job. If the review is the main place people hear the truth about their work, it will feel like an ambush, however well it is written. Frequent short notes make the review a summary rather than a surprise.

## Sources

1.  [The effects of feedback interventions on performance: a historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory](https://cris.huji.ac.il/en/publications/the-effects-of-feedback-interventions-on-performance-a-historical/) — Psychological Bulletin (Hebrew University of Jerusalem research portal), March 1996
2.  [Find the Coaching in Criticism](https://web.archive.org/web/20161201014058/https://hbr.org/2014/01/find-the-coaching-in-criticism) — Harvard Business Review, January 2014
3.  [More Harm Than Good: The Truth About Performance Reviews](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/249332/harm-good-truth-performance-reviews.aspx) — Gallup, 6 May 2019
4.  [The Feedback Fallacy](https://web.archive.org/web/20201231133411/https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy) — Harvard Business Review, March 2019

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![Portrait of Linus Murphy](https://linusmurphy.com/images/portraits/linus-headshot.jpg)

**[Linus Murphy](https://linusmurphy.com/about/)**

Elite executive coach. Linus spent 25+ years as a CEO in technology and services, where the businesses he led averaged 45% annual growth, and has coached hundreds of people from more than 20 countries. He is a former Irish National Cycling Champion.

[Book a 30-minute strategy call](https://calendly.com/linusmurphy-coaching/30min)

## Related parts

[![A wooden plank footbridge with rope handrails spanning a green ravine](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/earning-trust.webp)Part 21 of 30 · Chapter 9**Earning trust: the three proofs people check before they back you under stress**](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/trust-under-pressure/earning-trust/)[![A hairline crack across a pale concrete wall behind an empty executive desk and chair](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/fatal-flaws-of-leaders.webp)Part 9 of 30 · Chapter 4**Fatal flaws of leaders: ego, shortcuts and exhaustion, caught early**](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/fatal-flaws-of-leaders/)[![Blank cream index cards pinned with brass pins to a cork board](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/give-and-receive-praise-and-feedback.webp)Part 24 of 30 · Chapter 10**Give and receive praise and feedback: one card for good news and bad**](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/feedback-and-difficult-personalities/give-and-receive-praise-and-feedback/)[![A spiky cactus in a terracotta pot beside softer leafy plants on a sunny windowsill](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/lead-difficult-personalities.webp)Part 23 of 30 · Chapter 10**Lead difficult personalities: contract the behaviour, not the person**](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/feedback-and-difficult-personalities/lead-difficult-personalities/)

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