Imagine your salary being delayed by 5 months. That would be upsetting, wouldn’t it?
Now imagine something even more valuable being delayed: feedback that could transform your team’s performance.
You think you’re being kind by waiting for the ‘right moment’ to give feedback. But what if your silence is actually cruel? Many organisations are moving away from annual reviews because they recognise just how outdated they are.
I learned this the hard way. In a January review years ago, my manager told me “Your team lost focus back in August.”
Five months had passed.
Five months of lost opportunity to course-correct, to support my team, to improve outcomes. I felt furious.
This moment crystallised for me why delayed feedback is more than just a missed opportunity – it’s a leadership failure.
Take 30 seconds now. When was the last time you gave meaningful feedback to each member of your team?
The Hidden Cost of Silence
Leaders often postpone feedback, waiting for the “right moment” or annual review cycle. This delay creates what I call Feedback Debt – a deficit that compounds daily, exactly like an unpaid loan accumulating interest. Every day without feedback adds to this debt through:
- Lost improvement opportunities
- Deepening team frustration
- Stagnating performance
- Crumbling trust
According to Gallup, 85% of employees say they want more frequent feedback from their managers. Yet many receive meaningful feedback just once a year (and some never get any!) – Imagine getting paid annually and trying to budget effectively.
Picture this: Your top performer is sitting in their exit interview. They’re leaving because they never knew how valued they were or never received any feedback on how to improve even more – you kept that feedback locked away, accumulating debt.
The Time-Value of Feedback
The Feedback Time-Value Principle works exactly like compound interest. Just as money grows through regular investment, feedback’s impact multiplies through consistent delivery. Each conversation builds upon the last, creating exponential growth in trust and performance.
Research from Gallup shows that employees who receive daily feedback are three times more likely to be engaged than those who receive feedback annually. Meanwhile, CEB research reveals that 90% of HR leaders acknowledge annual reviews fail to deliver accurate information.
Stop now and calculate: How many feedback opportunities have you missed this week alone? Each one represents compound interest lost forever.
Common Pitfalls to Demolish
- Stockpiling feedback for reviews
- Deploying the ineffective “feedback sandwich”
- Resorting to vague generalisations without any specific examples.
- Overwhelming with too much feedback
- Hiding behind digital-only communication
The Three Pillars of Effective Feedback
- Timeliness
Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor, insists that “Feedback should happen immediately after you observe something.” When Adobe transformed their feedback system from annual reviews to real-time check-ins, they slashed voluntary turnover by 30%.
- Regularity
Consider feedback as your leadership bank account. Each positive observation shared represents a deposit. Regular deposits build the trust needed for those crucial moments when you must make a withdrawal through constructive feedback to hep team members improve. Organisations practising regular feedback witness engagement levels soar up to 3x higher. - Actionability
Vague praise or criticism serves no one. Microsoft revolutionised their performance culture by abandoning generic annual rankings in favour of specific, actionable, continuous feedback. Every piece of feedback should point clearly towards future improvement.
Rate yourself: How many of these pillars are you actively practising already?
Making Feedback a Regular Habit: The Feedback Transformation
- Identify how often you ask for feedback on yourself – Role modelling is critical
- Gather upward feedback courageously
- Identify how often you give others feedback.
- Block out time weekly to capture what you see others doing well and where they could improve
- Choose when and how you give more challenging feedback
- Launch “micro-feedback” sessions (2-3 minutes)
- Master the “I noticed when you…” format
- Encourage peer feedback discussions
- Fine-tune your feedback frequency
- Establish some clear team feedback protocols
Your Journey Mapped
First Month:
Embrace the awkward. As Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety shows, initial discomfort paves the way for psychological safety and growth.
3 Months:
Watch feedback evolve from forced to flowing. Conversations become natural, insights flow freely.
6 Months:
Witness your feedback culture bloom. Engagement metrics climb. Performance visibly improves. What started as conscious effort becomes team DNA.
12 Months:
Celebrate a transformed organisation. Experience improved team performance, dramatically reduced turnover (matching Adobe’s 30% improvement), and a culture where feedback flows as naturally as conversation.
Your Next 24 Hours
- Block your first 10-minute feedback window for tomorrow morning
- Identify one specific, positive observation with a team member before you close this article
- Share the feedback with your team members before the end of the day
- Commit: No feedback will age past 48 hours on your watch
What’s your team’s feedback temperature right now? Imagine taking their temperature again in 30 days.
I regularly think about what I heard in that January review, wishing my manager had told me about August’s issues when they happened.
Today, I take a different approach to the one I experienced… And because of that I see my team grow faster, perform stronger, with trust that runs deeper.
Make sure your team knows exactly where they stand – not annually, not quarterly, but daily.
Don’t let another day of potential growth evaporate. Your team deserves to know how they’re doing – not in their next review, but now.
The best time for feedback was yesterday. The second-best time is today.
Want to master the art of transformative feedback?
Get in touch with our team today – it’s a big part of what we’ve been helping businesses do for 5 decades now.
