Many people who went to work the day before the hurricane hit were likely worrying about their next promotion, how to give some tough feedback on an upcoming performance review, or what they really wanted to be when they grew up.

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And one academic review of more than 600 employee-feedback studies found that two-thirds of appraisals had zero or even negative effects on employee performance after the feedback was given.

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In one field study, researchers Chhokar and Wallin found that fortnightly feedback on progress against goals raised performance.

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The foundation and others have estimated that it could cost between 1.5% and 2% of the overall budget for teacher compensation and benefits to implement a feedback and evaluation system based on multiple measures of teaching performance.

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Next, reach out to people who have observed your performance and are willing to give you candid feedback on how you are perceived.

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Sequenom recently released data suggesting its real-world performance tracked with trial results, based on physician feedback.

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Although there is currently a twice-a-year official performance review process at Twitter, the emphasis is increasingly on giving continuous feedback up, down, and across.

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Consistent feedback has been shown to be critical to performance, as it provides a personal GPS to help correct behavior on a regular basis.

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