Withheld feedback costs you your best people

It's not difficult. It's uncomfortable. There is a difference.

“Feedback is hard!”

“Feedback is simple. It is a learnable, semi-scripted process.”

There’s an enduring myth that providing feedback is difficult. That it requires specialist training, the right conditions and a particular temperament. That some people are inherently “better at it” than others.

This is nonsense.

Feedback is simple. It’s a learnable, semi-scripted process that, if followed in almost any situation, will lead to behavioural change, personal and professional development, and enhanced outputs. To suggest otherwise is to confuse the sentiment surrounding feedback with feedback itself: the lack of time, the lack of will to deliver or receive it, the discomfort of asserting yet-unknown truths to another, and the unwillingness to adapt and deliver effective feedback to people who are dissimilar or unfamiliar.

The complexity of feedback is not the problem. Constructing curated, tailored feedback to people you are not connected to or do not care about feels more effort than it is worth. That is the problem.

And if you’re a leader who has decided that feedback is simply too hard, I have some uncomfortable news: your best people are already looking for the door.

Your high performers are data-hungry

High performers are not fragile creatures requiring protection from criticism. They have what researchers call an “intrinsic drive… to develop new skills”. They are driven by achievement and continuous improvement, and feedback is the fuel that powers their motivation. Without it, they cannot calibrate their efforts, understand their trajectory, or connect their work to larger organisational outcomes.

Yet here is the paradox: high performers consistently receive the lowest quality feedback of anyone in the organisation. Textio’s 2024 analysis of over 23,000 performance reviews found that while high performers receive more feedback overall, the feedback they get is significantly more vague, less actionable, and more likely to contain problematic language than the feedback given to average performers. High-performing women fare worst of all, receiving 38% more problematic feedback than their peers.

The cost? Thirty per cent of high performers leave their organisations within their first year.

The problem compounds further. Employees who receive low-quality feedback are 63% more likely to leave within 12 months than those who receive actionable, specific feedback. Seventeen per cent of departing employees explicitly name insufficient feedback as their primary reason for leaving. When employees receive meaningful feedback within the past week, 80% report being fully engaged; however, when feedback becomes sporadic, engagement declines.

These aren’t soft metrics. These are retention numbers, productivity figures, and recruitment costs.

The collateral damage you are not seeing

Even if you are giving objective, granular feedback to your high performers, they can still be damaged by the feedback you aren’t giving to everyone else.

“Steady contributors” (those who just do their job well!) and new colleagues who operate without feedback create “organisational noise”: inefficiency, redundant activity, and the anxiety that comes from people operating without essential performance context. High performers hear this noise. They observe colleagues who appear unfocused or disoriented within their scope of role or essential output standards, as well as those who arrive late to meetings, miss deadlines, or produce substandard work, and wonder why nothing is said. They watch managers say nothing and tolerate mediocrity, and draw conclusions about what this organisation actually values. Often, that sparks a sense of incongruence between their standards and expectations and those of their organisation.

Then there are the “Friendly or Familiar Coasters” (let’s call them FFCs, though less politely, I sometimes use a different acronym). These FFCs are the individuals who exist in organisations based on an unearned sense of permanence and almost never receive feedback. New managers seem to develop an innate benevolence toward these people, who are sometimes referred to as “part of the furniture” or, less charitably, as the “marzipan” or “permafrost” layer of the organisation. The first naming convention conveys the comfort they wish you to feel about them - that helps make them invisible. The second captures their relentlessly sweet and one-dimensional methodology for maintaining their position. The third describes the glacial pace of movement you can expect from them during any change, transformation, or performance improvement process.

When feedback becomes an everyday behavioural norm, engagement rises across the organisation. Research from Quantum Workplace indicates that employees who receive frequent feedback are twice as likely to be highly engaged and three times less likely to be actively seeking other jobs. The reason is simple: feedback signals that performance matters, that leaders are paying attention, and that growth is expected, which tells colleagues that they matter.

When feedback is absent or inconsistent, the opposite signals are sent.

Stop calling them “difficult conversations”

We need to abandon the phrase “difficult conversations.” It acts as a false and convenient deterrent from necessary action.

As a ten-year-old boy, I watched my mother, a GP in the UK, tell children my age that their parents were going to die from their illness. That is a difficult conversation. Telling Aisha that she needs to show up on time for meetings is not difficult. Letting Chris know that he has body odour is not difficult. These conversations are uncomfortable, and that distinction matters.

Difficulty implies the task is beyond ordinary capability. Discomfort is something every leader must simply embrace.

The issue is also not time. Providing effective feedback, even in highly consequential moments, takes minutes when you have a structure to follow. If you claim you don’t have time for feedback, what you are actually saying is that you have decided not to prioritise it.

A framework that works: The five Cs

In my book The Promises of Giants, I introduced the Five Cs of Feedback. I return to it here because it remains the most reliable structure I know for turning feedback from an abstract burden into a concrete practice.

Courtesy: Assume positive intent to avoid escalation. Approach the conversation with mutual harm reduction in mind, rather than vengeance or judgment. This should be the singular focus of a dedicated meeting, not one element buried within a broader conversation.

Clarity: Be objective, structured, and concise. Describe specific behaviour and language. Do not assume motives. Be curious. Speak with conviction, not emotion.

Consequence: This is the “why” that high performers need. Describe the human impact of the behaviour on the target individual or objective. Describe the risks to the team and organisation. Describe the risk to the person themselves if there is no change in behaviour.

Commitment: Ask for a commitment to change behaviour. Ask for a commitment to mitigate harm if it’s been caused (at the very least, an apology). Ask for a commitment to a follow-up conversation.

Collaboration: Offer any solutions you know of or have tried. Suggest someone who may have additional solutions. Offer time to create a more bespoke or complex solution if required.

This is a template. It is customisable over time, though I recommend adhering to it strictly until the structure becomes habituated.

Micro-appraisals: Use what you already notice

Most leaders already have a sonar for notable actions, events, or interactions. They observe something significant, positive or negative (too often only negative) and mentally “log” it for future follow-up. The problem is that the follow-up never happens.

Instead of logging, find the nearest possible time to:

Inform the person concerned about what you witnessed. Describe your response: your thoughts, questions, or insights. These can be positive or constructively critical.

Be genuinely curious.

• Ask why: why did they do this? (Ensure this is not rhetorical. Let them know you genuinely want to understand.)

• Ask how: how did they know to do what they did, or how did they know it would work?

• Ask when: why did they choose that moment? Or perhaps when did they learn this approach or skill?

Share what you noticed with your team. Where you noticed something non-optimal, depersonalise and, where possible, anonymise the insight. Where anonymity isn’t possible, seek permission and guidance on how to share the insight and the solutions with the team. When the observation is positive, don’t just generically praise the individual; share specific context on why what they did matters.

These must be genuine curiosity and a genuine desire to understand. When what you witnessed is positive, this becomes an opportunity for that individual to share a new best practice with the team by later describing what you observed at a suitable team gathering, and allowing the colleague concerned to explain the what, how, and when for others to learn from.

A quick feedback tool: WWW/EBI/L&A

My team at APS Intelligence uses a rapid feedback tool after every consequential external meeting, client call, or proposal. Since I’m always keen to give attribution, I should say that this particular gem came courtesy of our CEO, Dr Peter Carroll:

What Went Well: Describe in granular detail what went well. No caveats, no qualifications.

Even Better If: Describe what could have made the event or outcomes even better. These must be factors within the team's control.

Learnings and Actions: What will be encoded into best practice as learnings or actions for the future? Critically: who owns each action, who is responsible for disseminating or encoding learnings, and how will this happen?

This sounds lengthy. It’s not. It is often three to four minutes. It’s extraordinarily well-spent time after any consequential client interaction.

Feedback is a kindness

Giving feedback is a kindness. It lets people know where they stand and what they must do to thrive within your team, and it reduces uncertainty, which in turn reduces anxiety. Additionally, it’s simply a leader’s responsibility to retain and enable the flourishing of not just your high performers, but your entire team.

Here is the self-reflection required:

If, after reading this, you still choose not to consistently deliver effective feedback, even as time and structure are debunked as indesputable excuses. Perhaps winning in your context is less important than your personal comfort?

Organisations that receive feedback effectively experience 40% higher colleague engagement and a 26% improvement in performance compared to those that rely on sporadic annual reviews. Employees who receive actionable feedback are twice as likely to say their reviews were effective and to remain engaged.

Your best people need feedback and want it more than anyone else. They are hungry for it. And if you do not provide it, to clarify their understanding and reduce unnecessary noise, they will find someone who will.

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References

Ashford, S.J. and Cummings, L.L. (1983) ‘Feedback as an Individual Resource: Personal Strategies of Creating Information’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 32(3), pp. 370–398. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(83)90156-3

Betterworks (2023) 2023 State of Performance Enablement Report. Menlo Park, CA: Betterworks. Available at: https://www.betterworks.com/press/betterworks-state-of-performance-enablement-report-2023/

Gallup (2022) ‘Fast Feedback Fuels Performance’, Gallup Workplace. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/357764/fast-feedback-fuels-performance.aspx

Pop.work (2023) ‘From Annual Reviews to Continuous Feedback, a Much Needed Change’, citing Gartner research. Available at: https://blog.pop.work/popwork-management-thoughts-and-trends/from-annual-reviews-to-continuous-feedback-a-much-needed-change/

Quantum Workplace (2023) Feedback and Recognition at Work. Omaha, NE: Quantum Workplace. Available at: https://www.quantumworkplace.com/future-of-work/10-tips-for-building-a-feedback-culture

Quantum Workplace (2024) ‘Quantum Workplace Reimagines Performance Reviews to be More Accurate, Easy, and Actionable’, Press Release, 1 October. Available at: https://www.quantumworkplace.com/press-releases/quantum-workplace-reimagines-performance-reviews

Textio (2023) Language Bias in Performance Feedback: 2023 Report. Seattle, WA: Textio. Available at: https://textio.com/feedback-bias-2023

Textio (2024) Language Bias in Performance Feedback: 2024 Report. Seattle, WA: Textio. Available at: https://textio.com/feedback-bias-2024

Westover, J.H. (2024) ‘High Performers Need Feedback, Too: A Research-Backed Approach to Leveraging Feedback for Exceptional Talent’, Human Capital Leadership Review, 16(1). Available at: https://www.innovativehumancapital.com/article/high-performers-need-feedback-too-a-research-backed-approach-to-leveraging-feedback-for-exceptiona