What if the feedback you’re most proud of giving is actually doing more harm than good? In this episode of Speaking with Confidence, I dive into why so much of the feedback we give ends up bouncing right off people or worse, making things even less effective and what to do instead.
As a recovering college professor turned communication coach, I’ve seen firsthand how even the most well-intentioned feedback can sometimes make no difference at all. You know that feeling you have a tough conversation that feels like it really landed. There’s eye contact, nodding, even a grateful “thank you.” But fast forward a few weeks and you’re back in the same conversation, just more frustrated. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
There’s no guest joining me for this solo episode. Instead, I’m sharing the research-backed reason why feedback often fails, plus a simple, actionable framework—the Game Film Method—that you can use immediately with your team, your peers, or even on yourself.
During the episode, I break down why feedback can actually make performance worse more than a third of the time, based on decades of research. I’ll walk you through the two main reasons it fails (vagueness and poor aim), explain why focusing too much on the past kills motivation, and show you how sports teams have perfected a better approach in the film room.
Here’s what I cover in this episode:
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Why feedback often backfires, according to research by Kluger and DeNisi
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The two habits that sabotage effective feedback: vagueness and making it personal rather than task-focused
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The problem with rehashing past mistakes and how it hurts motivation
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How the Game Film Method borrowed from sports coaching helps shift feedback from personal critique to actionable improvement
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The three-step process: watch the play, name one thing, and run it again with real-life examples
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The importance of focusing on behaviors and their immediate impact, instead of guessing motives or stacking corrections
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How to ask for “game film” feedback on yourself to accelerate your own growth
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The power of being timely and specific and why annual reviews are a missed opportunity
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Using the method not just for correction, but to reinforce what’s working, too
By the end of this episode, you’ll have a simple framework that transforms feedback from something people dread into a collaborative conversation that actually leads to change. Remember: It’s not about getting it perfect; it’s about aiming for progress with each conversation.
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Transcript
Tim Newman [00:00:09]: What if the feedback you feel best about giving is the feedback that's doing the most damage? I know that one kind of stings a little, but stay with me because the fix isn't in a leadership seminar. It's in a film room. Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence. The podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results: communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on a journey to becoming a powerful communicator. All right, so let me ask you something. Have you ever sat somebody down and said the thing and felt like it really landed? You had really good eye contact, lots of nodding, and maybe even a, thanks, that's really helpful. And then nothing changed. Tim Newman [00:01:01]: 3 weeks later, you're having the exact same conversation, just in a slightly worse mood. That sound familiar? Yeah. And as a recovering college professor, I have to confess, I've handed out my fair share of feedback that went absolutely nowhere. So today I'm going to show you why so much feedback bounces right off people and a simple 3-step method borrowed straight from the world of sports that fixes it. I call it the Game Film Method. Let's get into it. So why does your feedback just bounce off? Here's the uncomfortable truth. It's not a you problem and it's not a them problem. Tim Newman [00:01:40]: Feedback the way most of us deliver it is just an unreliable tool. In one of the most widely cited reviews of feedback research, 2 researchers, Abraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi, pulled together hundreds of studies to show how feedback affects performance. And here's what they found: more than a third of the time, feedback made performance worse. Not better. Not the same. Worse. You can walk in with the best intentions in the world, And still leave someone worse off. So what's going wrong? There are 2 things. Tim Newman [00:02:18]: The first problem is vagueness. When we say things like, be more confident, that meeting was rough, or just tighten it up, that's not feedback. That's a mood you're sharing with someone who has no idea what to do with it. They nod, they walk away, you know, they give you that look, and then they show up Monday morning with nothing to act on. The second problem is aim. Kluger and DeNisi found that feedback tends to help when it keeps attention on the task and tends to backfire when it pulls attention onto the person— for example, onto how they look, whether they seem competent, or who they are. That's why you were rude in that meeting lands so badly. The person stops thinking about the meeting and starts defending their character. Tim Newman [00:03:05]: You asked for a behavior change and you handed them a courtroom. Now, if you've been listening to the show for a while, this should sound familiar. It's the Velvet Brick, a framework I learned from Tim Elmore. Soft on the person, hard on the problem. And bad feedback flips that completely. It's hard on the person and soft or totally silent on the problem. There's one more piece of research that shapes everything we're about to do. A team of researchers led by Jackie Nepp ran a set of studies where managers role-played performance reviews, and they tracked how motivated people were to actually improve afterward, after that. Tim Newman [00:03:46]: But guess what? The more the conversation dug into what went wrong in the past, the less motivated people were to change. When the conversation focused on what to do next, motivation actually went up. In other words, the longer everyone argued about why last quarter went sideways, the less anyone wants to touch next quarter. So the fix isn't to be nicer, and it isn't to be harsher. It's to change what your feedback points at and then keep it aimed forward. And sports teams figured that out a long, long time ago. You know, I spent a good part of my career around athletes and coaches, and here's one thing I can tell you for sure. No coach has ever fixed a team by yelling, want it more! They fix it in the film room. Tim Newman [00:04:30]: The point of watching film is never to relive the loss. It's to find the one play that explains it. The process is pretty simple. Coaches capture the game. They break it down by pulling out specific moments. Then they sit down with the team or the athlete and review those exact moments together. They set a target. They practice it, and then they play the next game. Tim Newman [00:04:54]: Then they watch the film again to see if the fix actually showed up. Now, notice what the camera does. It points at the play and not the person. The film never tells an athlete, you're not a good leader. It says, here's the 3rd quarter, here's the play, and here's the gap between what we wanted and what actually happened. And athletes will tell you there's something powerful about watching yourself from the outside. You see the mistake from a different angle, and it stops feeling like criticism and starts to feel like information. And here's the part most managers skip. Tim Newman [00:05:30]: The team doesn't hand out notes and walk away. They come back. They check. They watch the next game to see if the fix held. That's what turns feedback into actual change. So the film gives us 3 moves: watch the play, name one thing, and run it again. And they work just as well on a client call or a project plan as they do on a football field. Step 1 is to watch the play. Tim Newman [00:05:57]: Now that sounds easy, but it's really not because it asks you to point at one specific moment. Here's the difference. If you say you need to be more organized, That's a label. It's a verdict about their whole week. Now try this. In yesterday's client call, you promised a delivery date in the first 2 minutes, and then you had to walk it back. That's a moment. That's a play you can both pull up and look at together. Tim Newman [00:06:26]: So get the moment in front of both of you. If it happened in email, open the email. If it happened on a call, Describe the 10 seconds that mattered. If it happened in a meeting, say exactly what was said, the way a coach cues up a clip. The most common mistake here is describing a feeling instead of a moment. For example, I felt like you weren't prepared. That tells the person about your mood, and nobody can act on your mood. They can act on a specific moment. Tim Newman [00:06:57]: And here's a line worth memorizing. Can I walk you through one specific moment from yesterday? And that one sentence quietly tells the other person the conversation is about the play and not about them. And it drops everyone's guard a notch before you get anywhere near the hard part, which is step 2. Now, step 2 is to name the one thing. Here's the instruction: name one behavior, name one cost, then stop talking. I know that last part is a hard one, because when you finally have someone's attention, the temptation is to clean house. The late report, the tone in the standup, that thing from last month that still bugs you. But don't do it. Tim Newman [00:07:40]: If you stack 3 corrections on someone, they don't fix 3 things. They defend 3 things and they fix none of them. So keep the formula simple. Here's the behavior. Here's what it costs. For example, you cut the client off twice on that call. The cost was that she stopped asking questions and we still don't know her budget. That's it. Tim Newman [00:08:03]: One behavior, one consequence, a clear stopping point. Now listen to the difference between these 2 versions of the same moment. You cut her off. You were rude. The first one describes the play. The second one describes the person. And you were rude fails on every count. It's vague, it's about character, and it practically guarantees a defensive response because the behavior on its own is a nitpick. Tim Newman [00:08:30]: But behavior attached to a consequence becomes a reason. When you show someone that the client stopped talking, you're not attacking who they are. You're showing them a result that they already care about, and that's what turns a correction into something they actually want to fix. There's one more trap to watch for here, and that's inventing a motive. If you say something like, you clearly didn't care, that's a guess about someone's heart, and it's usually the wrong guess. Stick with what you can see— what they did and what it cost. But here's the catch: a named cost with nothing to try next is just a complaint, and that's the gap that step 3 actually closes. Step 3 is the shortest of the 3, and it's the one that actually creates the change. Tim Newman [00:09:17]: You agree on one next step, and then you set a check-in. Remember that research on looking forward? People were most motivated to improve when the conversation was aimed at what comes next. So this step isn't a nice little bow that you tie on the end. It's the actual engine. Keep the next step to a single rep. When you next client call, ask one question before you propose anything. That's not a personality overhaul. It's not supposed to be. Tim Newman [00:09:47]: It's one move. It's small enough to actually happen and specific enough that you'll both notice when it does. Then set the check-in, such as, let's listen back to that call together on Thursday. And without a check-in, feedback is just a conversation that felt productive. With one, it becomes a loop. Now, here's a move for anyone who isn't a manager yet, or anyone who just wants to get better faster. Ask for game film on yourself. For example, hey, when you, when you get a minute, can I get some game film on the pitch I gave yesterday? Most people will take that request seriously because it's specific and it's clearly not a complaint in disguise. Tim Newman [00:10:29]: And it flips the whole dynamic. Feedback stops being something done to you and becomes something the two of you can do together. And when they give it to you, this is where you can listen like your own. You're not there to defend the play. You're there to see it clearly. There's one easy mistake that can undo all 3 steps. It's turning game film into a review of the person's month, their quarter, or their character. Game film is one play One fix and one check-in. Tim Newman [00:11:00]: That narrowness is the entire point. The moment you widen it, the person stops hearing about a play and starts hearing a verdict on who they are. And once they start defending, you've lost them. There are 2 habits here that will protect you here. First, stay close to the moment. Feedback has an expiration date. Gallup's workplace research has pointed in this direction for years. Feedback tends to work best when it's frequent and close to the action. Tim Newman [00:11:29]: If you wait for the annual review, you're coaching a game from 6 months ago. And second, say the expectation out loud before you get into the play. If trust is thin, take one extra beat for clarity. Say what good looks like. Then look at the film together. And don't only run it on the mistakes. Film sessions aren't just for corrections. Point at the moments that work too. Tim Newman [00:11:54]: That tells people what to repeat, not just what to stop. And that's how you build a team that looks forward to film session instead of dreading it. Because the camera doesn't care about anyone's feelings. It just shows you the play. Let's bring it home. Feedback doesn't change behavior because you said it kindly. It doesn't change behavior because you said it cleverly. It changes behavior when you watch the play. Tim Newman [00:12:18]: Name one thing and run it again. One moment, one behavior and its cost, one next rep with a check-in. So here's your challenge this week. Pick one conversation, a one-on-one with a direct report, a debrief with a colleague, or if you're feeling brave, a request for game film on yourself. Run all 3 steps, then show up for the check-in, because that's the difference between a talk that felt good and a team that actually gets better. That's all for today. Remember, we're looking for progress, not perfection. Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free ebook, The Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. Tim Newman [00:12:58]: You can also register for the Forming for Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change the world. We'll talk to you next time. Take care.