But it turns out that telling people what we think of their performance and how they can do better is not the best way to help them excel and, in fact, can hinder development.

Managers today are bombarded with calls to give feedback-constantly, directly, and critically. Learning rests on our grasp of what we’re doing well, not what we’re doing poorly, and certainly not on someone else’s sense of what we’re doing poorly. Neuroscience shows that we grow most when people focus on our strengths. Instead, when managers see a great outcome, they should turn to the person who created it, say, “Yes! That!,” and share their impression of why it was a success.

Managers will never produce great performance by identifying what they think is failure and telling people how to correct it. Last, excellence looks different for each individual, so it can’t be defined in advance and transferred from one person to another. Second, neuroscience reveals that criticism provokes the brain’s “fight or flight” response and inhibits learning.

First, research shows that people can’t reliably rate the performance of others: More than 50% of your rating of someone reflects your characteristics, not hers. But it turns out that feedback does not help employees thrive. For years managers have been encouraged to candidly praise and criticize just about everything workers do.

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