One of the most common forms of feedback in the workforce needs to disappear, says organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant.
“The feedback sandwich doesn’t work,” Grant tells CNBC Make It. That echoes his comments last week at The Collaborative, a conference he hosted in New York alongside performance coaching company BetterUp, where he suggested ditching the method entirely: “It does not taste as good as it looks.”
In a feedback sandwich, someone delivers a piece of criticism in between two positive observations, in an attempt to make the reprimand more palatable. You might start by complimenting your colleague’s work ethic, deliver a criticism about their tardiness and then praise their overall work quality.
Eighty-six percent of U.S. workers have received a feedback sandwich, and 95% have given one, according to a survey by performance management software company Perform Yard. They do lead to better performance in comparison to simple corrections or no feedback at all, research shows.
But Grant, a professor of management and psychology at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, advises against them. Here’s why, and what he recommends using instead.
Why the feedback sandwich doesn’t work
There are two main problems with the approach, Grant says. First: If the recipient focuses on the criticism, they’ll forget all about the praise.
That’s especially true for people who have gotten feedback sandwiches before, because the moment they hear the praise, they start anticipating the criticism. It makes the compliments feel insincere, like they’re only there to “soften the blow,” says Grant.
Second, and inversely: If your praise comes across as genuine, it can drown out the criticism. Humans tend to remember the first and last part of any conversation more than the middle — which, in psychological terms, is known as the “primacy effect” and “recency effect.”
If the point of your feedback sandwich is to convey a piece of negative feedback, the last thing you want is for the recipient to walk away having forgotten all about it, Grant notes.
The 1 sentence you should use instead
If you have some criticism to deliver, don’t try to hide or mask it, says Grant. Preface it with a single sentence: “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.”
It comes from Grant’s “favorite experiment,” a 2013 study conducted by researchers at Stanford, he said at The Collaborative. In the study, students who were given feedback with that one sentence were more likely to implement the suggested changes than any other students.
“The most important communication of information in your feedback happens before you give the content of the feedback,” Grant explained. You don’t have to use those exact words, he added — as long as you can show the other person that your intent is to help them improve, not to attack them.
Or, as he says now: “It’s surprisingly easy to hear a hard truth when it comes from someone who believes in your potential and cares about your success.”
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