Episode 26: The Brain-Smart Feedback Loop: Your Operating System of High-Performing Teams
Hey there, and welcome back to The People-Forward Leadership™ Podcast.
So let me ask you, how do you feel about feedback? You know, when your boss says, "We need to talk?" Does your stomach drop a little? Does your brain hear danger or opportunity?
As a culture, we have a love-hate relationship with feedback. Intellectually, we know it helps us improve, but in the workplace, it can feel threatening and punitive.
And just to be clear, when I talk about feedback, I'm not talking the kind that shows up once a year in the form of your annual performance review. I mean the everyday conversations that help motivate people to do better and work faster.
And that's what I want to talk about today. Why feedback matters more than most leaders realize, why so many good intentions still go sideways, and what the recipient's brain is actually doing in those moments when they hear, "Can we talk?”
Early in my career as a labor and employment attorney, I was often called in after trust had been broken and the damage had already been done. It was one of the motivating factors for me to transition my career from the reactive end of employment issues to the proactive end. However, during that time, I realized that many legal disputes were simply escalations of fundamental issues, such as people failing to receive clear expectations, timely coaching, fair practices, or usable feedback. Instead, they often received either silence, unexpected feedback, or vague expectations and judgments. What could've been a fixable performance gap turned into a formal grievance or even a discrimination complaint. That season of my career taught me that the absence of specific, ongoing feedback doesn't just slow performance, it breeds conflict, legal risk, and turnover.
In our practice, we've watched brilliant leaders wrestle with the same core problem over and over again. While on the one hand, they say they want a culture where people grow, where truth shows up early, where performance is genuine, and where the good ones stay, their communication practices and lack of feedback loops keep getting in the way.
Feedback loops, however, are how strategy meets reality. It's where we learn what actually happened in the meeting, regarding the customer issue, the handoff of projects, or the execution of a policy. When that loop is active, productive, and alive, blind spots shrink, decisions get better, and people feel like their voice matters because they actually witness things changing and improving for the better. When the loop is inactive, ineffective, or dead, the organization gets rigid and bureaucratic, and the culture becomes stagnant and unsafe. People stop surfacing issues early; high performers start quietly looking around; and leaders confuse "no news" with "good performance" until a resignation or a blown project lands on their desk.
So what's the problem?
Well, from the leader's perspective, it comes down to never having been taught how to give effective feedback. Most believe no news is good news. In other words, if it's not broken, don't fix it. They learned you only need to talk to a team member to assign a project, review performance, or correct a mistake. I mean, that's how they received feedback, so that's what they learned to replicate. The result? Feedback becomes code for bad news. Leaders only show up when something's wrong, and people brace themselves the moment they hear "Can we talk?" They haven't been taught what feedback actually is or how to give it in a way that makes their team look forward to hearing from them (which we'll address later in this podcast).
Now, let's step into the recipient's shoes for a minute and talk about what the brain is doing when feedback arrives. Keep in mind that every brain is constantly running quick scans throughout the day. The brain is constantly checking for: Am I safe? Do I belong here? Is my future or current status at risk? Our brains are wired to avoid pain, seek reward and pleasure, and conserve energy (or maintain the status quo). It's called the Motivational Triad. So, when feedback shows up to point out something's wrong, or it arrives unexpectedly as a surprise, the brain starts to associate those words, "we need to talk," with a threat. You know that feeling. Palms sweat, heart races, focus narrows, and panic sets in. The part of the brain that helps with reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving goes blank because the body is busy protecting you, activating your fight, flight, or freeze response. And I'm not being dramatic, that's just biology doing what biology does. One of the reasons it's heightened is that feedback at work equates to a raise, promotion, livelihood, and security, which addresses the most basic needs on Maslow's hierarchy: food, shelter, clothing, and safety.
Some of this also happens with the giver of feedback, as it can be uncomfortable to provide "negative" feedback or critiques for some people.
Imagine if you could flip the experience to generate a different response. What if the feedback was specific, timely, hopeful, encouraging, supportive, and assuring? What if it focused on behaviors or activities you can actually control, repeat, or adjust, not vague things like "be different," or "show up stronger," or "tone it down," or "exude more presence?" The brain feels safe when it can identify things in its control. The threat response settles. You can hear it. You can use it. And when the next step feels small and doable—something you can try at the very next opportunity—you even get a little sense of progress. That's the feeling that fuels motivation.
Now, the point here is not to sugarcoat hard truths. The point is to create conditions where the person can actually hear the feedback and learn from it.
Let me show you what this looks like in practice. Deloitte examined its comprehensive annual review process, the kind where everyone gets scored and rated, and realized it was consuming nearly two million hours a year while achieving very little to help people actually improve. Most of the energy went into debating scores and defending labels, not coaching. And because pay and ratings were tied to those scores, employees walked in feeling judged, not developed.
Remember what I just said about the brain's threat response? That's precisely what was happening. People showed up to these reviews already in fight-or-flight mode. That's when the learning centers shut down, and you can't develop someone whose nervous system is bracing for impact.
So Deloitte rebuilt its system around what the brain actually needs to learn. They shifted to short, regular conversations. They focused on the strengths people could leverage. Instead of grading the past, managers asked forward-looking questions, and they separated development conversations from pay decisions whenever possible. In other words, they created ongoing feedback loops.
As a result, people's nervous systems calmed down, clearer thinking returned, and there was faster learning, earlier course corrections, and individuals who walked away knowing exactly what to do next—or better yet, what was within their control to do, correct, or improve.
That's the shift from our typical feedback process to more real conversations people actually welcome and can use.
Now, most of the damage I see isn't intentional, and it's entirely fixable if we don't use adjectives, are more strategic and proactive, and stop treating feedback like a monologue rather than a conversation. If you've been doing that, it doesn't make you a bad leader; it just means you need a different approach and a bit more precision.
So what does that precision look like? Let me give you a simple framework you can use. Since I like acronyms, I'll give you one.
I call it the CARES framework, and it stands for Context, Action, Result, Explore, and Support/Strengthen.
You start by naming the context: "In Tuesday's client meeting"
Then name the action you want to give feedback on, and without judgment: "You jumped in before Taylor completed her point."
Name the result of the action so it's clear: "The client got confused and we had to backtrack."
Then explore alternate options together: "What were you aiming to do there? Next time, how will you make space for Taylor to finish and then add your point?"
Then, finally, provide some assurances and support to calm the fight/flight response: "I know you can do this, you're great at reading the room. I'm confident this adjustment will make you even more effective in those meetings."
That's it. You're not delivering a verdict. You're making the picture clear, connecting it to impact, inviting them into a solution they can own, and affirming their capability. That keeps their brain online, their confidence intact, and the relationship strong.
Oh, and by the way, in case you're wondering where the CARES framework fits into the broader People-Forward Leadership™ picture, it resides squarely in the Empowered Ecosystem pillar. Remember, that's the pillar all about creating an environment where your team members develop their own leadership capacity. One of the most powerful ways to do that is through feedback conversations that actually build people up instead of shutting them down. CARES provides the structure for having those developmental conversations —those that help your team communicate effectively, make confident decisions, and take real ownership of their work. So, if you've been following along with the framework, you now have a practical tool to incorporate into the second pillar.
Let me illustrate this with a brief story. I worked with a VP—we'll call her Maya—who was respected, kind, and exhausted. In her world, feedback only surfaced when something had gone sideways, so her team began bracing whenever she messaged, "Got a minute?" We worked on changing just one thing. She started having ten-minute check-ins every Friday. She would ask everyone, 'What worked?' What would you change? And then she shared one observation to make their next week easier and asked what, if anything, they needed her to do for them. No speeches. No forms. Quick and to the point. A simple feedback loop.
And of course, if issues surfaced in between, she'd immediately pull them aside and work the CARES model. She didn't schedule a meeting or make it feel like a big deal; she just provided on-the-spot feedback and support. After about a month or two, the tone on her team started shifting. Issues surfaced earlier because people felt safe naming them. Meetings got lighter because the team understood what good looked like. People began asking for input instead of avoiding it. And she was able to get real-time feedback on ways she could be more supportive of her people.
The work wasn't simplified, but the relationship with feedback became safer.
Listen, the most expensive thing in your organization is not your coaching budget or software licenses. It's the hidden cost of poor feedback or non-existent feedback loops. If the loop is broken, you'll pay in turnover, slower execution, and missed opportunities you never even knew were there.
Now, leaders often ask me why something so straightforward feels so hard to change, and here's why. You're not just swapping a template. You're changing your relationship with feedback. That takes capability, modeling, measurement, and time. Capability means managers need to shift their thinking and start practicing differently. Modeling means the senior team goes first and does it openly. Measurement means counting what you care about, such as tracking the frequency of those quick developmental check-ins. And time means, give it time. Neural pathways change with repetition, so give yourselves a year to eighteen months. Start, learn, and iterate. Early stumbles are not failure; they're just information.
If you try the CARES model or those quick check-ins, you'll notice two things pretty quickly. First, the conversation feels shorter and cleaner because you've stripped out the judgments and the speeches. Second, the person across from you has more to say. They'll tell you what they were trying to do, and you'll find there was a good intention underneath the clumsy moment. And over time, that simple, consistent shift will change your entire workplace culture. Your people will stop treating feedback like a fire alarm and start treating it like oxygen.
I'll end with this. Feedback is not an HR ritual. It's the operating system of your culture. And when you make it safe, specific, regular, and aspirational, you don't just prevent problems; you also foster a culture of safety. You build capacity. And yes, retention and performance will follow, because people stay where they're seen, supported, and expected to grow.
Thank you so much for tuning in this week. Feel free to drop a note and let me know if you took a different approach to giving feedback and how it went.
Also, be sure to leave a comment and a five-star review so that others can find and learn from what we share in this podcast.
Thanks again for tuning in, and remember to keep leading people forward. I'll see you next time.
