Knowledge at Wharton: Giving Feedback That Works: Plant the Seeds of Confidence

From Knowledge at Wharton:  Most managers dread giving feedback. Offering a blend of praise and criticism is supposed to help your team members do more of what they’re good at and improve in areas where they’ve missed the mark. But research shows it rarely works that way (see the Nano Tool, “The Annual Performance Review: Should You Eliminate It?”). In her book How to Change, Wharton professor Katy Milkman shares a different idea: work to build people’s confidence if you want them to achieve a goal. In Virgil’s words from around 20 BCE, “they can because they think they can.” Scientists like Alia Crum, associate professor of psychology at Stanford University, have shown that we can create expectations about what will happen, and that in turn can influence what actually happens in four key ways. Read the full story in Knowledge at Wharton.