Grow with FeedFORWARD (without the baggage of feedback)

Marshall Goldsmith created Feedforward. It’s name is a play on words with feedback. You’ll see when you practice it. It’s quick, easy to learn, and simple (Although not always easy), and, most importantly, it works. You can use it your whole life, learning from it each time you use it.

Dr. Goldsmith built his executive coaching practice on it over decades. As a testament to its ease of use, applicability, and effectiveness, his client Alan Mulally, as an executive at Boeing, used the technique enough that Marshall barely had to coach him. He soon became CEO of Ford and soon after that he was named CEO and person of the Year.

You will master Feedforward as well. It only takes a few times practicing to get the basics.

The Feedforward Exercise

The person you can never see from another perspective is yourself, yet you wish you could the most. After all, everybody else sees you from another perspective.

Others’ views are indispensable to improving your life and leadership skills. Most people get them through feedback. At work they get reviews from their managers. Athletes, actors, and other performers get feedback from coaches.

As much as feedback helps, it has limits, mainly that it evaluates the past.

Asking someone to evaluate creates communication issues. People often hold back what they think you won’t like hearing or if you might react in a way they might not like. If you ask someone how well you did on a project and they say, “You did part X great, Part Y great, and Part Z great,” does that mean you did everything great or that they didn’t want to tell you what you did poorly? You’ll never know, not because he or she isn’t a great friend, but because of inherent issues with communicating evaluation.

When you ask about the past, you’re asking about something you can’t change. To act on feedback, you have to translate information about the past into something you can do now.

Feedforward gets usable information and advice without the baggage of feedback. It looks forward instead of backward. It’s a simple, two-minute practice that can get you more useful information than feedback.  We’ll give some background and then outline the practice in a simple script.

What to Do

Follow the Feedforward script 10 times for one behavior you want to improve.

Like you learn piano scales by playing do re mi fa so la ti do, not in other orders, you learn Feedforward by following the script. If you want to improvise, you can, but you’ll do so more effectively after you master the basics. You get most of it after 5 or 10 tries.

1.     Identify something behavior-related you want to improve.

2.     Identify a person who can help and why he or she would be helpful.

3.     Say to him or her, I’d like to improve [X]. You’ve seen me [do X] and others who are great at it. I wonder if you could give me two or three pieces of advice that could help me improve at it.”

4.     Write the advice down. Clarify if necessary. Do not evaluate.

5.     Say, “Thank you.”

6.     Optional: Ask for accountability.

For example, as frequent public speaker, I might do it as follows:

1.     I would identify public speaking as something to improve.

2.     I’d identify people who saw me speak in public.

3.     I’d say to each of them, one-on-one, in turn, “I’d like to improve my public speaking. You’ve seen me speak in public and others are great at it. I wonder if you could give me two or three pieces of advice that could help improve at it.”

4.     I’d record their answers, asking clarification if necessary.

5.     I’d say, “Thank you.”

6.     Say that they recommended that I slow down after making key points. I might ask them to review a future presentation to make sure I slow down after making key points.

You do steps 1 and 2 on your own. You can pick any behavior you want to improve—punctuality, sleeping better, interrupting less, losing weight, quitting smoking, saving money, and so on.

Tips

What you want to improve will determine whom you ask. If you want to improve something at work, you might ask colleagues, or a mentor. If you want to lose weight, you might approach someone you know who lost weight. If you want to improve your relations with a family member, you might approach another family or someone you know with great family relations. If you want to improve your first impressions, you could ask random strangers on the street.

The person you ask the advice from will feel like an expert, important, honored, and flattered.

Note that the wording of the exercise is precise. Marshall Goldsmith cut out many counterproductive things people say and included only what’s necessary. Feedfoward doesn’t benefit from deviating from the script, at least not until you’ve mastered following it. For example, adding judgment, which beginners often do, will undermine it.

For example people often say, “That’s great advice,” thinking it’s encouraging. It still judges. How do you feel when you help someone and they judge your help? Even if they judge you positively this time, you know it may turn negative, so you feel motivated to avoid next time.

Step 3 asks for advice, not evaluation or judgment. In Feedforward, you don’t ask, “How did I do?” If you phrase your question to be about the past, people will evaluate your past, which creates the problems Feedfoward is designed to avoid.

This exercise, done properly, gets the value of the feedback without its discomfort or limitations. If I ask people for Feedforward about public speaking and three people tell me I need to slow down at key points in a presentation, I can figure out that they think I rush through parts of my presentations, even though they would not likely have told me had I asked for feedback. Asking for feedback almost never get you information like that. Asking for clarification encourages them, as does taking notes.

In Feedforward, Quantity Creates Quality.

Feedforward won’t always result in advice you want or can use. When you get useless or unhelpful advice, still say “Thank you,” since however unusable, the person still gave you advice. Then move on.

What do you do if you want to make sure you get advice you can use?

Do Feedforward with more people. Since it costs no money, takes little time, makes the other person feels good, and builds relationships, there’s almost no downside to do Feedfoward with as many people as you like. Keeping track of all the advice you get lets you rank it. Act on the most valuable advice first and you’ll generally improve before reaching the lower-value advice and never have to act on it.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

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Interested in learning how Smart Development your managers improve their ability to give and receive Feedforward. We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

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