# Why Your Feedback Culture is Creating Psychological Casualties (And What Rugby Taught Me About Real Growth) [Other Blogs of Interest:](https://skillcoaching.bigcartel.com/blog) • [Further Reading](https://angevinepromotions.com/blog) • [More Insights](https://ethiofarmers.com/blog) Three months ago, I watched a perfectly competent marketing coordinator dissolve into tears during what her manager called "constructive feedback." The session had started with the classic corporate opener: "We need to talk about your performance." What followed was twenty-three minutes of death by a thousand paper cuts, disguised as professional development. That's when it hit me. We've created a feedback culture that's systematically destroying the very people it's supposed to help. I've been training workplace communication skills for fifteen years now, and I can tell you that 90% of Australian businesses have turned feedback into a weapon of psychological warfare. They've bought into this Silicon Valley mythology that constant feedback creates high-performing teams. What they've actually created are workplaces where people spend more energy managing their anxiety than doing their actual jobs. ## The Brutal Truth About Feedback Frequency Here's something your HR department won't tell you: daily feedback is torture for most human beings. The research is crystal clear on this—people need psychological safety before they can process criticism effectively. But instead of creating that safety first, we've decided to [bombard employees with constant micro-corrections](https://www.alkhazana.net/2025/07/16/why-firms-ought-to-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/). I learned this the hard way during my rugby days at Sydney University. Our coach, "Bloody" Bill Morrison, was notorious for his feedback style. Every mistake was immediately called out, every weakness exposed in front of the team. We thought this was building character. What it actually built was a group of players so focused on avoiding criticism that we stopped taking risks entirely. The irony? Our best season came under a different coach who gave feedback privately, strategically, and always with a clear path forward. Same players, completely different results. Yet corporate Australia continues to worship at the altar of "transparency" and "real-time feedback." Companies are implementing systems that track employee performance minute by minute, sending automated suggestions for improvement based on email response times and keyboard activity patterns. It's madness. ## The Neuroscience Nobody Talks About The thing about feedback that most managers don't understand is that criticism triggers the same neural pathways as physical threat. When you tell someone their presentation skills need work, their amygdala doesn't distinguish between that and being chased by a predator. This isn't touchy-feely psychology. This is hard neuroscience. Dr. Matthew Lieberman's work at UCLA demonstrates that social rejection activates the anterior cingulate cortex—the same region that lights up when you touch a hot stove. Feedback, especially frequent or poorly delivered feedback, literally hurts. But here's where it gets interesting. The people who benefit most from frequent feedback are also the people who need it least—high performers with strong emotional regulation skills. The people who struggle with frequent feedback are often the ones who need the most support, but they're getting it in exactly the wrong way. I've seen this pattern [repeated across dozens of organisations](https://last2u.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/). The confident employees get more confident. The anxious employees get more anxious. We're not creating growth; we're amplifying existing patterns. ## The Manager's Catch-22 Of course, managers aren't evil. They're trapped in their own impossible situation. They're told to provide regular feedback, but they're never taught how to do it effectively. So they default to the sandwich method (positive, negative, positive) or worse—they avoid difficult conversations entirely until performance review season. I once worked with a team leader in Perth who hadn't given substantive feedback to any of her team members in eighteen months. When I asked why, she said, "I don't want to upset anyone." This is the other extreme of our broken feedback culture—paralysis through good intentions. The sandwich method, by the way, is complete rubbish. It was invented by some consultant in the 1980s who clearly never had to deliver actual feedback to real human beings. What happens in practice is that people only remember the negative part, and they learn to distrust any positive feedback because they're waiting for the "but" that inevitably follows. Real feedback requires courage, timing, and emotional intelligence. It requires understanding that different people need different approaches. Some people thrive on direct, immediate feedback. Others need time to process and reflect. Most need a combination of both, delivered by someone who has earned their trust. ## The Australian Way Forward Here's what I've learned works, based on years of watching teams succeed and fail: feedback should be like good wine—aged appropriately and served at the right temperature. First, establish psychological safety before you establish feedback frequency. This means creating an environment where people can admit mistakes without career consequences, where asking for help is seen as strength, and where learning is valued over perfection. Second, [match your feedback style to the individual](https://www.bhattitherapy.com/2025/07/why-firms-should-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/). Some people need detailed written feedback they can review multiple times. Others prefer quick verbal check-ins. The one-size-fits-all approach is lazy management disguised as fairness. Third, separate feedback from evaluation. The human brain cannot simultaneously be open to learning and focused on self-preservation. If someone thinks their job is on the line, they won't hear your suggestions for improvement—they'll be crafting their defense strategy. ## What Actually Works (From the Trenches) The most effective feedback culture I've encountered was at a small engineering firm in Adelaide. They had three simple rules: 1. Feedback flows both ways—managers received as much feedback as they gave 2. All developmental feedback happened in private, one-on-one sessions 3. Public feedback was exclusively positive recognition Revolutionary, right? They also had the lowest turnover rate in their industry and consistently won awards for workplace culture. Compare this to a major retailer I worked with (I won't name names, but let's just say they're known for their red logo) where feedback was delivered through a digital platform that rated employee performance in real-time. Customers could provide instant feedback that was immediately visible to managers. The result? Staff who were more focused on managing their scores than serving customers. The irony is that [effective communication training](https://mauiwear.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) actually exists. We know how to teach people to give and receive feedback effectively. But most organisations are too busy implementing the latest management fad to invest in fundamental communication skills. ## The Hidden Cost of Feedback Fatigue What kills me is the opportunity cost. While employees are recovering from poorly delivered feedback sessions, while managers are agonising over how to have difficult conversations, while HR is designing new feedback systems—actual work isn't getting done. I estimate that the average knowledge worker spends 2-3 hours per week thinking about, preparing for, or recovering from feedback-related interactions. That's 15% of their productive time consumed by a process that's supposed to make them more productive. And don't get me started on the feedback forms. Sweet mother of pearl, the feedback forms. I've seen feedback systems with 47 different rating categories. Forty-seven! As if you can capture the complexity of human performance with a numerical score for "demonstrates initiative" and "collaborates effectively." ## The Uncomfortable Truth About Growth Here's something that might upset the learning and development crowd: not everyone wants to grow in the way you think they should grow. Some people are perfectly happy being competent at their current level. Some people have growth goals that don't align with your corporate objectives. This doesn't make them bad employees. It makes them human beings with their own priorities, limitations, and life circumstances. The assumption that everyone should be constantly improving, constantly pushing beyond their comfort zone, constantly seeking feedback for development—it's exhausting and, frankly, a bit arrogant. The best feedback culture I've seen acknowledges this. It provides intensive support for people who want to grow rapidly, maintenance-level support for people who want to stay excellent at their current role, and transition support for people who want to change direction entirely. ## What This Means for Leaders Right Now If you're a manager reading this (and statistically, 73% of people reading workplace articles are managers or aspiring managers), here's what you can do tomorrow: Stop scheduling regular feedback meetings unless there's a specific reason. Replace them with regular check-ins focused on support and problem-solving. Ask "What do you need from me?" instead of "Here's what you need to improve." When you do need to give corrective feedback, do it privately, specifically, and with a clear plan for support. And for the love of all that's holy, stop making people rate themselves on a scale of 1-10 for arbitrary competencies. [Build systems that reward honest self-reflection](https://submityourpr.com/why-companies-ought-to-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/) rather than punish vulnerability. Create space for people to discuss their mistakes and challenges without it being used against them in performance reviews. Most importantly, remember that feedback is a tool, not a goal. The goal is helping people do their best work while maintaining their dignity and psychological wellbeing. If your feedback culture isn't achieving that, it's not working—regardless of what your employee engagement surveys say. ## The Bottom Line We've turned feedback into a religion instead of treating it like the simple communication tool it actually is. We've convinced ourselves that more feedback equals better performance, when the evidence suggests that better feedback—delivered thoughtfully, strategically, and with genuine care for the person receiving it—creates sustainable improvement. Your people don't need more feedback. They need better feedback, delivered by managers who understand the difference between criticism and coaching, between transparency and psychological safety. And maybe, just maybe, they need you to occasionally leave them alone to do the work you hired them to do. That marketing coordinator I mentioned at the beginning? She quit two weeks after that feedback session. Not because she couldn't handle criticism, but because she realised she was working in a culture that valued feedback delivery over actual human development. The replacement they hired cost 40% more and took six months to reach the same productivity level. That's the real cost of getting feedback culture wrong.