“You ask a bunch of questions, get a data dump on your desk, and don’t know what to do with it.”

That single quote from Joyous COO Katy Davies during their boardroom at UNLEASH America 2026 captures a frustration most HR leaders know too well.

For years, organizations have invested heavily in listening, through engagement surveys, pulse checks, and feedback tools, but many are still struggling to translate insight into meaningful change.

We are now experiencing a shift in thinking. Employee feedback is NOT the end of the process. Listening is just the start. Organizations need to create movement from the insights. For many, the struggle is that there is no consistent way to surface and act on ideas in real time.

Speaking during the same boardroom, Harvard Business School’s Amy Edmondson stated: “Learning involves stretch, risk, and failure – but we have to create environments where that’s possible.”

This is where many feedback strategies break down. Organizations ask for input, but the systems that support it are not designed to enable experimentation that drives action. In essence, feedback is shared but not operationalized.

Creating an environment for learning includes building practical mechanisms that allow teams to take small, informed risks – quickly, safely, and visibly.

For HR leaders, the actions they need to take are:

• Replacing broad feedback cycles with targeted, ongoing listening tied to specific challenges.
• Moving from asking “What’s wrong?” to “What should we try next?”
• Building simple frameworks for teams to run small and safe experiments around feedback and change.

Redefining psychological safety

One of the most important (and misunderstood) concepts in this conversation was psychological safety.

Too often, it’s been interpreted as comfort. In practice, it’s something much more demanding and intimidating. As Edmondson put it, “Being nice is easy. Being kind is harder – and it’s more respectful.”

That reframing shifts how leaders need to approach feedback. Avoiding difficult conversations erodes trust over time. When necessary feedback is softened or delayed, employees are left to fill in the gaps themselves, often assuming the worst or missing opportunities to improve.

Creating space for psychological safety at work includes an environment where honesty is expected as part of how work gets better. In practice, this requires a more intentional approach to how and when feedback is delivered.

The actions for HR leaders are:

• Training managers to normalize feedback timing and consent.
• Redesigning 1:1s to include two-way feedback, not just updates.
• Reinforcing that candor is a form of respect.

Read the full article here.