What it argues
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Giving Feedback is an anthology collecting some of the most cited Harvard Business Review articles on feedback, including pieces by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, and others. The collection reflects a genuine tension in the field: on one side, advocates for honest, direct performance feedback; on the other, researchers who argue that most feedback is more about the giver's perception than the receiver's actual behavior.
The standout piece is Buckingham and Goodall's "The Feedback Fallacy," which argues that feedback is unreliable because we can only describe our own reactions, not objective truth. Their alternative is "feed-forward" — telling people what you noticed when they were at their best — rather than cataloging deficits. Stone and Heen's contribution draws on their book Thanks for the Feedback, exploring why smart people reject useful criticism and how givers can structure feedback to get past defensiveness.
What it gets right
- 1.
Feedback reflects the giver's perceptions and wiring more than it describes objective reality. This is the core of the 'feedback fallacy' argument.
- 2.
Feed-forward focuses on strengths and conditions where someone performs at their best, rather than on deficits to be corrected.
- 3.
Receivers of feedback have more control over what they do with it than givers typically assume. Giving better doesn't guarantee receiving better.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Harvard Business Review is the editorial and publishing arm of Harvard Business School. Founded in 1922, it publishes research-based articles on management, leadership, strategy, and organizational behavior, drawing on both academic researchers and practicing executives. The HBR 10 Must Reads series distills the most frequently cited and assigned articles from HBR's archive into topical collections. The series has produced volumes on leadership, strategy, emotional intelligence, managing yourself, and dozens of other topics.
