Start Giving More Feed-Forward

It's time to stop harming relationships with "feedback"

Leaders master all sorts of communications: announcing new strategies, motivating change and having difficult conversations. Then there’s the humble but dreaded “feedback,” which starts constructive but often ends up destructive to morale and relationships.

It’s time to learn a better way.

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It’s Time to End Feedback

It’s time to get rid of feedback, the outdated form of “constructive criticism” offered to colleagues and friends. Think about the last time you gave feedback — trying to tip-toe around someone’s feelings while providing honest insights. Now think back to the last time you received feedback — especially from someone who didn’t tip-toe around.

They both felt pretty bad, didn’t they?

Interestingly, feedback fails not because the person offering has bad intentions; they often genuinely have your best interests in mind. Nor did you become defensive or offended because you’re close-minded. It’s simply not in anyone’s nature to take criticism lightly.

And yet honest assessment is critical to our long-term success!

Early in my career, I hosted a talk radio show. After each program, I’d listen to a recording in the car, cringing at every little mistake. Yet each tape helped me target something to improve during the next show. Over time, I fixed a lot of issues and strengthened my abilities. When I began speaking on big stages, I repeated the process, watching videos of myself immediately after the programs, making notes while things were fresh in my mind, and prioritizing improvements for the next event.

We’d certainly feel better if we could simply review ourselves, rather than ask a colleague or survey an audience. But we’d miss a lot of insights we need to grow.

I learned something by watching my own tapes all those years: What made the process helpful wasn’t looking back at every mistake, but looking forward to the next time I planned to improve it.

So when I discovered feed-forward during a professional certification years later, I immediately adopted the practice.

The Critical Difference in Criticism Style

The #1 reason feedback is hard to take isn’t bad intentions or unvarnished honesty. It’s time. When it took place.

By its very nature, feedback is about something that happened in the past. Since we can’t travel back in time and change it, receiving criticism about it evokes strong negative emotions, including embarrassment, failure, self-disparagement and even anger at the messenger.

That’s because most feedback sounds like this:

When you said this, you goofed up because…
When you acted that way, you made the mistake of….
When you didn’t do it right, it caused a problem …..

Look at all that past tense. All creating tension in the mind of the receiver, who cannot ever go back and fix it.

That’s where feed-forward comes into play

We take feedback poorly not because we made a mistake, but because we feel powerless to change. To somehow do criticism or feedback better, it must empower the receiver.

The difference is small but significant. But how do we do it?

Try this:

The next time you give an honest assessment of someone’s performance, use language about the next time they will perform the task.

(See what I did there?)

Feed-forward gives the receiver power, possibility and control over their performance, because it focuses on how they will do it successfully in the future.

And that positive positioning keeps the receiver open, receptive and engaged.

Here’s how to do great Feed-Forward

When providing feed-forward, don’t discuss the past at all. Start in the future, by using vocabulary that engages the imagination.

When you do that (activity) the next time…
When you (respond in some way) on the next call…
When something (happens similarly) during a future meeting …

Feed-forward statements happen in imagination, not memory.

Isn’t that what constructive feedback does anyway? Don’t people say, “When you do it again…” and provide instructions? Yes — and no.

The problem is that by the time constructive feedback gets around to “what someone should do instead” it’s too late. The first part of the conversation did the emotional damage of pointing out what went wrong in the past.

With feedforward, your job is to skip the past entirely.

Here’s an example plus four more reasons why Feed-forward works wonders

Suppose you’re watching a salesperson’s presentation to potential customers. You quietly notice they don’t ask many questions — only make statements, rush through a laundry list of tasks, to-dos, and tools, and don’t confirm the customer’s understanding of their offer. The customer decides they need to think about it and leave without signing a contract.

After the presentation, the salesperson asks for your thoughts.