Advice

Why Your Company's Feedback Culture is Toxic: A Veteran's Guide to Getting It Right

Three months ago, I watched a promising graduate quit during her third week because her supervisor told her she "needed to be more proactive" without explaining what that actually meant. The same supervisor spent the next staff meeting complaining about "kids these days" not being able to handle feedback.

That's not feedback culture. That's workplace bullying dressed up in corporate speak.

After seventeen years of training managers across Australia - from mining companies in Perth to tech startups in Melbourne - I've seen the same toxic patterns destroy more talent than I care to count. The problem isn't that we give too much feedback or too little. It's that most organisations have built feedback systems that serve management egos rather than employee development.

The Sandwich Method is Stale Bread

Let's start with the elephant in the room: whoever invented the "feedback sandwich" should have their business degree revoked. You know the drill - compliment, criticism, compliment. It's psychological manipulation masquerading as kindness.

Real humans don't communicate in sandwiches. When your partner asks if you like their new haircut, you don't say "I love your eyes, your hair looks terrible, but your smile is lovely." Yet we expect this artificial formula to somehow create meaningful workplace conversations.

I stopped using the sandwich method in 2019 after realising my team had started tuning out everything except the middle bit anyway. They'd sit there waiting for the "but" like they were watching a game show. Now I just say what needs saying directly and respectfully. Revolutionary concept, apparently.

The worst part? The sandwich method teaches managers to find something - anything - positive to say, even when it's completely unrelated to the issue at hand. "Your punctuality is excellent, but your reports need work, and you make great coffee." What does punctuality have to do with report writing? Nothing. You've just confused your message and insulted their intelligence.

Performance Reviews: The Annual Charade

Performance reviews might be the most pointless exercise in modern business. Once a year, managers scramble to remember what their team members did twelve months ago, employees stress about conversations that should have happened quarterly, and HR pretends the whole thing drives performance improvement.

It doesn't.

Research from Melbourne University showed that 67% of employees reported learning nothing new about their performance during their annual review. They already knew their strengths and weaknesses. The review just formalised what everyone had been dancing around for months.

I've replaced annual reviews with monthly conversations. Not formal sit-downs with forms and ratings - just conversations. "How's the project going? What's frustrating you? What do you need from me?" Takes fifteen minutes. Gets better results than a two-hour annual ordeal that everyone dreads.

The obsession with numerical ratings is particularly absurd. When you tell someone they're a "7 out of 10" at communication, what does that even mean? How do they become an 8? What does a 10 look like? It's meaningless precision that creates artificial competition and kills collaboration.

Some companies have figured this out. Netflix ditched performance ratings years ago. So did Microsoft. They focus on having regular conversations about growth and development instead of pretending you can reduce human performance to a spreadsheet.

The Feedback Addiction

Here's an unpopular opinion: some managers are addicted to giving feedback. They've convinced themselves that constant correction equals good leadership. They pride themselves on being "direct" when they're actually being destructive.

I worked with a sales director in Brisbane who gave her team "feedback" multiple times daily. She'd interrupt phone calls to suggest better language, rewrite emails before they were sent, and hold impromptu coaching sessions after every client meeting. Her team's performance plummeted.

Why? Because she wasn't giving feedback - she was micromanaging. Real feedback helps people improve independently. What she was doing created dependency and killed confidence.

There's a time and place for immediate correction. If someone's about to make a dangerous mistake or upset a major client, step in. But if they're 80% of the way to a good solution, let them get there themselves. The learning happens in that final 20%, not in your premature intervention.

The best managers I know give feedback sparingly but powerfully. When they speak, people listen because they know it matters. When you're constantly commenting on everything, your voice becomes background noise.

Cultural Mismatch: When Feedback Styles Clash

Australian workplaces are beautifully diverse, but our feedback approaches remain stubbornly monocultural. We've built systems around direct, immediate communication that works brilliantly for some people and terribly for others.

I learned this the hard way training a multicultural team at a logistics company. My typically blunt Australian approach was destroying confidence among team members from cultures where direct criticism felt like personal attacks. Meanwhile, my attempts to soften the message confused others who preferred clear, immediate direction.

The solution isn't to abandon direct communication - it's to match your approach to what each person needs. Some people want the emotional intelligence training approach where we explore the emotional impact first. Others prefer straightforward problem-solving conversations.

This isn't about being soft or hard. It's about being effective. If your feedback isn't landing, the problem isn't with the receiver - it's with your delivery.

The Compliment Crisis

We've swung so far toward "positive feedback" that we've created a compliment inflation crisis. "Great job" has lost all meaning because we say it about everything from making coffee to landing major contracts.

Specific praise is powerful. Generic praise is insulting. When you tell someone they did "great work" without explaining what was great about it, you're essentially patting them on the head like a golden retriever. They know you're just making noise.

I keep a feedback journal - yes, really - where I note specific observations about my team's work. Not for performance reviews, just so I can give meaningful recognition when it's deserved. "The way you handled that difficult client call yesterday - staying calm when they started shouting and then finding that creative solution with the delivery schedule - that's exactly the kind of problem-solving we need more of."

That's feedback that actually means something.

The flip side is equally important: we've become terrified of saying when something isn't working. Avoiding difficult conversations doesn't protect people - it abandons them. If someone's struggling and you say nothing, you're not being kind. You're being cowardly.

Digital Feedback: Where Nuance Goes to Die

Email feedback is almost always a terrible idea. Slack feedback is worse. Video call feedback is marginally better but still misses half the human elements that make these conversations work.

Yet somehow, we've convinced ourselves that remote work means remote feedback. Wrong. The more distributed your team becomes, the more intentional you need to be about creating space for real conversations.

I see managers firing off feedback emails at 11 PM like they're clearing their to-do lists. The recipient reads it first thing Monday morning without context, tone, or the ability to ask clarifying questions. By the time they connect for their weekly catch-up, the feedback has festered into resentment or anxiety.

If it's important enough to give feedback about, it's important enough to have a real conversation about. Pick up the phone. Book a coffee. Don't hide behind technology because you're uncomfortable with human interaction.

The one exception: positive recognition works brilliantly in public digital channels. A thoughtful acknowledgment in the team Slack channel or a specific thank-you email copied to relevant stakeholders can be incredibly powerful. But criticism? Keep that private and personal.

Solutions That Actually Work

Here's what I've learned actually creates healthy feedback cultures:

First, timing matters more than technique. The best feedback happens in the moment or not at all. If you wait until Friday to discuss something that happened on Monday, you've lost most of the impact. People can't improve from feedback about situations they can barely remember.

Second, make feedback two-directional by default. Don't just tell people what you observed - ask what they observed. "How do you think that presentation went?" often reveals self-awareness that makes your input more relevant and actionable.

Third, focus on the next action, not the past mistake. "Next time, try opening with the budget implications instead of the technical details" is infinitely more useful than "You lost their attention in the first five minutes."

Fourth, separate feedback from consequences. If someone's job is at risk, that's a performance management conversation, not a feedback session. Don't pretend you're just trying to help when you're actually documenting problems for HR purposes.

Finally, teach your people to ask for feedback effectively. Most people request it poorly - "How did I do?" is useless. "What should I focus on improving for next quarter?" gets you actionable insights.

The Real Problem

The deeper issue isn't our feedback techniques - it's our feedback motivations. Too many managers give feedback to feel productive rather than to help people grow. They confuse activity with impact.

Good feedback serves the recipient, not the giver. It helps people understand their impact, recognise their growth, and identify their next development opportunities. It builds capability rather than dependency.

Bad feedback serves the manager's need to feel useful, important, or in control. It's often more about the giver's discomfort with imperfection than the receiver's need for growth.

Before you give feedback, ask yourself: "Is this for them or for me?" If you're honest about the answer, you'll give less feedback but have more impact.

The companies that get this right don't have better feedback systems - they have better relationships. The time management training I deliver often touches on this: when people trust that you genuinely want to help them succeed, they'll seek your input rather than avoid it.

That's when feedback becomes a superpower instead of a weapon.

Final Thoughts

Your feedback culture isn't broken because your techniques are wrong. It's broken because you've prioritised systems over relationships, process over purpose, and comfort over growth.

The best feedback I ever received came from a mentor who said, "You're incredibly good at solving problems, but you're terrible at letting other people solve them first." Seventeen words that changed how I lead.

That's the standard we should aim for. Not more feedback - better feedback. Not perfect delivery - genuine intent.

And maybe, just maybe, we'll stop losing good people to bad conversations.

Want to improve how your team communicates? Check out these resources: