Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback
Adapted from Leader to Leader, Summer 2002
by Marshall Goldsmith
Providing feedback has long been considered to be an essential skill for leaders. As they strive to achieve the goals of the organization, employees need to know how they are doing. They need to know if their performance is in line with what their leaders expect. They need to learn what they have done well and what they need to change. Traditionally, this information has been communicated in the form of "downward feedback" from leaders to their employees. Just as employees need feedback from leaders, leaders can benefit from feedback from their employees. Employees can provide useful input on the effectiveness of procedures and processes and as well as input to managers on their leadership effectiveness. This "upward feedback" has become increasingly common with the advent of 360 degree multi-rater assessments.But there is a fundamental problem with all types of feedback: it focuses on a past, on what has already occurred - not on the infinite variety of opportunities that can happen in the future. As such, feedback can be limited and static, as opposed to expansive and dynamic.Over the past several years, I have observed more than ten thousand leaders as they participated in a fascinating experiential exercise. In the exercise, participants are each asked to play two roles. In one role, they are asked provide feedforward - that is, to give someone else suggestions for the future and help as much as they can. In the second role, they are asked to accept feedforward - that is, to listen to the suggestions for the future and learn as much as they can. The exercise typically lasts for 10-15 minutes, and the average participant has 6-7 dialogue sessions. In the exercise participants are asked to: - Pick one behavior that they would like to change. Change in this behavior should make a significant, positive difference in their lives.- Describe this behavior to randomly selected fellow participants. This is done in one-on-one dialogues. It can be done quite simply, such as, "I want to be a better listener."- Ask for feedforward - for two suggestions for the future that might help them achieve a positive change in their selected behavior. If participants have worked together in the past, they are not allowed to give ANY feedback about the past. They are only allowed to give ideas for the future. - Listen attentively to the suggestions and take notes. Participants are not allowed to comment on the suggestions in any way. They are not allowed to critique the suggestions or even to make positive judgmental statements, such as, "That's a good idea." - Thank the other participants for their suggestions.- Ask the other persons what they would like to change.- Provide feedforward - two suggestions aimed at helping the other person change.- Say, "You are welcome." when thanked for the suggestions. The entire process of both giving and receiving feedforward usually takes about two minutes.- Find another participant and keep repeating the process until the exercise is stopped.When the exercise is finished, I ask participants to provide one word that best describes their reaction to this experience. I ask them to complete the sentence, "This exercise was …". The words provided are almost always extremely positive, such as "great", "energizing", "useful" or "helpful." The most common word mentioned is "fun!"What is the last word that most of us think about when we receive feedback, coaching and developmental ideas? Fun!Eleven Reasons to Try FeedForwardParticipants are then asked why this exercise is seen as fun and helpful as opposed to painful, embarrassing or uncomfortable. Their answers provide a great explanation of why feedforward can often be more useful than feedback as a developmental tool.1. We can change the future. We can't change the past. Feedforward helps people envision and focus on a positive future, not a failed past. Athletes are often trained using feedforward. Racecar drivers are taught to, "Look at the road ahead, not at the wall." Basketball players are taught to envision the ball going in the hoop and to imagine the perfect shot. By giving people ideas on how they can be even more successful, we can increase their chances of achieving this success in the future.2. It can be more productive to help people be "right," than prove they were "wrong." Negative feedback often becomes an exercise in "let me prove you were wrong." This tends to produce defensiveness on the part of the receiver and discomfort on the part of the sender. Even constructively delivered feedback is often seen as negative as it necessarily involves a discussion of mistakes, shortfalls, and problems. Feedforward, on the other hand, is almost always seen as positive because it focuses on solutions - not problems.3. Feedforward is especially suited to successful people. Successful people like getting ideas that are aimed at helping them achieve their goals. They tend to resist negative judgment. We all tend to accept feedback that is consistent with the way we see ourselves. We also tend to reject or deny feedback that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves. Successful people tend to have a very positive self-image. I have observed many successful executives respond to (and even enjoy) feedforward. I am not sure that these same people would have had such a positive reaction to feedback. 4. Feedforward can come from anyone who knows about the task. It does not require personal experience with the individual. One very common positive reaction to the previously described exercise is that participants are amazed by how much they can learn from people that they don't know! For example, if you want to be a better listener, almost any fellow leader can give you ideas on how you can improve. They don't have to know you. Feedback requires knowing about the person. Feedforward just requires having good ideas for achieving the task.5. People do not take feedforward as personally as feedback. In theory, constructive feedback is supposed to "focus on the performance, not the person". In practice, almost all feedback is taken personally (no matter how it is delivered). Successful people's sense of identity is highly connected with their work. The more successful people are, the more this tends to be true. It is hard to give a dedicated professional feedback that is not taken personally. Feedforward cannot involve a personal critique, since it is discussing something that has not yet happened! Positive suggestions tend to be seen as objective advice - personal critiques are often viewed as personal attacks.6. Feedback can reinforce personal stereotyping and negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Feedforward can reinforce the possibility of change. Feedback can reinforce the feeling of failure. How many of us have been "helped" by a spouse, significant other or friend, who seems to have a near-photographic memory of our previous "sins" that they share with us in order to point out the history of our shortcomings. Negative feedback can be used to reinforce the message, "this is just the way you are". Feedforward is based on the assumption that the receiver of suggestions can make positive changes in the future.7. Face it! Most of us hate getting negative feedback, and we don't like to give it. I have reviewed summary 360 degree feedback reports for over 50 companies. The items, "provides developmental feedback in a timely manner" and "encourages and accepts constructive criticism" almost always score near the bottom on co-worker satisfaction with leaders. Traditional training does not seem to make a great deal of difference. If leaders got better at providing feedback every time the performance appraisal forms were "improved", most should be perfect by now! Leaders are not very good at giving or receiving negative feedback. It is unlikely that this will change in the near future.8. Feedforward can cover almost all of the same "material" as feedback. Imagine that you have just made a terrible presentation in front of the executive committee. Your manager is in the room. Rather than make you "relive" this humiliating experience, your manager might help you prepare for future presentations by giving you suggestions for the future. These suggestions can be very specific and still delivered in a positive way. In this way your manager can "cover the same points" without feeling embarrassed and without making you feel even more humiliated.9. Feedforward tends to be much faster and more efficient than feedback. An excellent technique for giving ideas to successful people is to say, "Here are four ideas for the future. Please accept these in the positive spirit that they are given. If you can only use two of the ideas, you are still two ahead. Just ignore what doesn't make sense for you." With this approach almost no time gets wasted on judging the quality of the ideas or "proving that the ideas are wrong". This "debate" time is usually negative; it can take up a lot of time, and it is often not very productive. By eliminating judgment of the ideas, the process becomes much more positive for the sender, as well as the receiver. Successful people tend to have a high need for self-determination and will tend to accept ideas that they "buy" while rejecting ideas that feel "forced" upon them.10. Feedforward can be a useful tool to apply with managers, peers and team members. Rightly or wrongly, feedback is associated with judgment. This can lead to very negative - or even career-limiting - unintended consequences when applied to managers or peers. Feedforward does not imply superiority of judgment. It is more focused on being a helpful "fellow traveler" than an "expert". As such it can be easier to hear from a person who is not in a position of power or authority. An excellent team building exercise is to have each team member ask, "How can I better help our team in the future?" and listen to feedforward from fellow team members (in one-on-one dialogues.) 11. People tend to listen more attentively to feedforward than feedback. One participant is the feedforward exercise noted, "I think that I listened more effectively in this exercise than I ever do at work!" When asked why, he responded, "Normally, when others are speaking, I am so busy composing a reply that will make sure that I sound smart - that I am not fully listening to what the other person is saying. In feedforward the only reply that I am allowed to make is ‘thank you'. Since I don't have to worry about composing a clever reply - I can focus all of my energy on listening to the other person!"In summary, the intent of this article is not to imply that leaders should never give feedback or that performance appraisals should be abandoned. The intent is to show how feedforward can often be preferable to feedback in day-to-day interactions. Aside from its effectiveness and efficiency, feedforward can make life a lot more enjoyable. When managers are asked, "How did you feel the last time you received feedback?" their most common responses are very negative. When managers are asked how they felt after receiving feedforward, they reply that feedforward was not only useful, it was also fun!Quality communication - between and among people at all levels and every department and division - is the glue that holds organizations together. By using feedforward - and by encouraging others to use it - leaders can dramatically improve the quality of communication in their organizations, ensuring that the right message is conveyed, and that those who receive it are receptive to its content. The result is a much more dynamic, much more open organization - one whose employees focus on the promise of the future rather than dwelling on the mistakes of the past.
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith's 28 books include: Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get It Back When You Lose It! - a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USA Today (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller, What Got You Here Won't Get You There - a New York Times best-seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. Succession: Are You Ready? is the newest edition to the Harvard Business 'Memo to the CEO' series. His personal website, www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com, contains hundreds of his articles and videos.

Freedom from Fear By Sheila DeButler
The greatest barrier to happiness in the world today is … fear.
Fear keeps us from living our lives fully; it locks us behind doors, too frightened to take chances, so afraid of losing what we covet that we can barely move at all.
Fear creeps into our lives in so many ways. We fear death, so we are afraid of living. We fear rejection so we are afraid of relationships. We fear failure so we hide from success.
Fear makes it impossible to enjoy what we have, to appreciate life, because we are afraid that our happiness, our successes, our possessions can be taken away from us. We can’t live in the present because the possible horrors of an imagined future paralyze us … with fear. But, what can we do about it?
We can begin by recognizing that fear has many forms, and that there is such a thing as healthy fear. We have a biological fear of fire, for example, which keeps us from getting burnt. A car comes careening toward you, you leap out of the way, your heart pounding in terror. Primal fears are hard-wired into us to keep us safe, so that we don’t act recklessly or take unnecessary risks.
But when fear blocks our very ability to live, it is supremely unhealthy.
Of course, fear – as a natural part of our human make-up – can never be banished forever. Circumstances change, life is in constant flow, and no matter how well we train ourselves to become free of fear, we will nevertheless face that challenge again and again.
The trick is to recognise this, and to not succumb to fear when it re-enters our lives.
One of our greatest fears is fear of change. And yet the world is constantly changing. The problem arises when we begin to identify with the changes – when we begin to define ourselves as a particular manifestation, rather than as a living being in a fluid state of existence.
Imagine looking in the mirror when you are very angry. You know this is a temporary state, but for the moment you identify with that state. You say, ‘I am angry,’ as if you are defining yourself as an angry person. But the anger – as something temporary caused by changing circumstances – is an illusion. Thus, the person you see in the mirror is also an illusion.
You are only seeing one facet of your complex self, and ignoring the deeper, spiritual you – the part of you that has nothing to do with circumstance. You see, once you identify with temporary feelings, you experience fear. Maybe you’re afraid you won’t get what you want – your next meal, a big promotion, love … whatever – and that fear begins to suffocate you.
But when you remember that you are a spiritual being, that you are separate from appearances, that you are eternal, you can begin to release the fear. By bringing your attention back to what already exists you can be in touch with your divine nature. And in that place, there is no place for fear.
At its core, fear is the ego’s fear of not existing. The ego – that part of us that thinks it is all of us – is constantly analyzing, intellectualizing, measuring and quantifying in its effort to dream its way into existence.
Many of us have had enlightening glimpses of our true nature. When it happens, it’s beautiful – a freeing and uplifting experience. However, the ego is very powerful, and it usually comes marching in again and tries to retake its position at the center of our existence.
But once you understand this, you can work to free yourself of the ego’s power. You have a choice, every moment of every day, to silence the chattering beast that is the ego and to focus your attention not on fear of what might be, but on the certainty of what is – your true nature.
We are all reborn every single moment. If you choose fear, it is fear you will experience, and you will find yourself surrounded by other fearful people.
But yes, you can choose to detach yourself from fear and focus instead on the higher truth of your spiritual reality. Life often seems to be a roller coaster ride, dipping from heights of good, down to troughs of bad … all the dualities: good/bad, happy/sad, rich/poor, loved/lonely, sick/well, etc.
But the trick is not to simply focus on the apparent high points which we call ‘good.’ Instead, the trick is to see it all as a wholeness, the flowing process of life, without judgement, without anger, without fear.
For most people, the greatest fear of all is the fear of death. It paralyze many of us to the extent that we are obsessed, incapable of appreciating the life we are currently living.
The great teacher Ramana Maranhi recommends practicing your own death. Check out this little story about facing death for the first time:
It was in 1896, about 6 weeks before I left Madurai for good that this great change in my life took place. I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it nor was there any urge in me to find out whether there was any account for the fear. I just felt I was going to die and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or any elders or friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there. The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And at once I dramatised the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis has set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, and that neither the word ‘I’ nor any word could be uttered. ‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burn and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So I am the Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.’ All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. I was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was centered on that I. From that moment onwards, the “I” or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness.
Yes! He says, we should imagine exactly what it would be like to die right now – each and every moment. Then when death comes, we will realize it is not frightening at all – it is simply a natural transition – another change in the flow of life, and if we have trained ourselves to greet change as a natural part of life, instead of fearing it, we have freed ourselves from the greatest barrier to happiness: FEAR.
A common source of fear is desire.
One way to practice what Ramana Maranhi suggests – a bit less dramatically than practicing our own death – is to ask yourself about your needs and desires.
Ask yourself
Do I really need this?
Do I have to judge this?
Do I really need to be appreciated for this?
Do I really need his approval?
Do I really want this?
And by asking these questions, you begin to strip down your wants and needs and discover what really matters to you. When you don’t really want something, the fear of losing it evaporates into thin air!
A huge obstacle to this kind of acceptance is our insistent yearning for something ‘out there.’
‘Out there’ is an illusion. There is only the here and now. Our desire for something else has us playing the ego’s game of if only …
… if only I had more money
…If only he loved me
…If only I had a better job
…If only I could afford those shoes …
But what we need to develop is an ability to stop and look at ourselves – not our ‘self-image,’ which is an illusion – but at our true selves. Enlightenment is all about realizing that there is only one consciousness, and that the self, itself, is an illusion.
Of course, this realization can also be frightening. It is a bit ironic that conquering fear can generate a new kind of fear: fear of the truth. What the Buddha calls ‘spiritual death’ can be very frightening indeed, as we awaken from not only our own dream but humanity’s collective dream.
In this new state of being you must just let it be. Don’t think of enlightenment as something you receive. You don’t get anything from enlightenment, you lose the part of you that has been seeking it so desperately. The need, the desire, are gone.
And with them, fear.
Okay, you may be thinking, ‘But fear is fear. When you’re afraid of something you don’t want to face it, so how can you fight it?’
You’re right. Seeing fear as the ‘enemy,’ that must be defeated just feeds more fear. What you need to learn to do is to allow fear to crumble away into nothingness, rather than confronting it head on.
This isn’t a battle; you have no stance to make. Simply draw your attention to what is arising and allow it to dissolve.
One of the most common expressions of fear is anger. When you feel anger rising inside you you can fight it, you can express it, you can repress it, but none of these things will defeat the fear that generated the anger. What you should strive to do is ‘let it be.’ Try to picture the fear for what it is – the ego’s attempt to control you – and let it slowly fade away.
Instead of running from fear, just stop! You see, fear gets all its power from you. Negative emotions have tremendous power. But if you can be still and refuse to be moved, that power fades, the shadow dims and fear drifts away.