Enhancing Leadership Development With Marshall Goldsmith’s Feedforward

Many leaders seek the advice and opinions of others to strengthen their leadership abilities, with Marshall Goldsmith’s MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There being two popular examples. One method increasingly popular with leaders today is feedback process – made famous in Marshall Goldsmith’s books MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

Feedforward is a novel approach to gathering feedback that replaces evaluation with suggestions for the future. Here are 10 reasons why feedforward may be more effective than feedback:

1. It’s easier to receive

Most of us have received constructive criticism about something we did wrong or how to improve a process, but its delivery can often damage our self-confidence.

Feeback, on the other hand, emphasizes things which cannot be changed and can lead to judgment of our failures rather than discussions on how we can move forward. Conversely, feedforward emphasizes turning mistakes into opportunities for learning for future growth as well as encouraging teammates to believe their talents can be nurtured over time.

One of the primary drawbacks to traditional feedback is its reactive nature; managers and leaders typically share their suggestions only during performance reviews or annual meetings, which can be intimidating for employees who feel as if they need to lobby their case for more money. Conversely, feedforward is more collaborative; encouraging teammates to work together towards reaching goals.

Consider feedforward like a city map: it shows where you are currently located, but to get where you want to be in terms of relationships – which requires courage, humility and discipline on both parts. Once implemented successfully however, feedforward can enable leaders to change their behavior for the good of all involved parties involved.

2. It’s more effective

Many people struggle to receive effective feedback because it often tends to be negative and focused on what’s not working right now. While such feedback could prove useful for the future, it often leaves individuals feeling discouraged and deflated in the present.

Feedback offers insight and tips for improvement with an encouraging tone; for instance, a supervisor could say to an employee “I would like you to deliver stronger presentations in the future” instead of saying something negative like, “You gave a poor presentation in the past.”

Feedforward offers many advantages. One is its flexibility – anyone with expertise on a topic can offer feedback and this allows for learning from varied viewpoints and reduced defensiveness that often accompanies feedback.

Feedforward can provide numerous advantages for individuals and organizations alike. Most notably, its main benefit lies in helping individuals to hone their skills by offering constructive guidance on how they can alter their behavior in the future rather than dwelling on past errors and negatives. As a result, feedforward is highly motivational and can have a powerful effect on individual and organizational performance.

If you’re looking for a unique approach to leadership development, take a look at Marshall Goldsmith’s Feedforward Enhancing Leadership Exercise. Participants give feedback to one another about certain behaviors before soliciting suggestions from others on how they could change it in future.

3. It’s more fun

The Feedforward Exercise provides a fun, engaging way to learn, in contrast with feedback which may be painful, embarrassing or uncomfortable. When managers were asked their opinion regarding feedforward and feedback respectively, most reported finding feedforward more useful and enjoyable to receive than its opposite.

Feedforward can be easily understood. While traditional feedback tends to focus on past experience, feedforward emphasizes future improvement. For instance, if your manager knows you stumble during presentations, they could help prevent such embarrassments in future by giving suggestions on how you could better perform next time around.

Feedforward makes the feedback process more fun for participants because they can tap into support from various people who will offer assistance beyond what would normally be available with traditional feedback. In a group of ten to fifteen participants, each one can select one behavior they would like to change such as becoming better listener or improving humility; then share that behavior with randomly chosen fellow participants who provide feedforward: two suggestions designed to assist them with making these desired changes for themselves.

4. It’s less judgmental

Leaders that use positive feedback as part of their leadership style have an opportunity to be supportive and compassionate while avoiding some of the traditional problems associated with traditional feedback such as blame-shifting and negative self-fulfilling prophecies.

This approach is nonjudgmental and doesn’t create a good-bad hierarchy or classify people; rather, it emphasizes growth potential and supports efforts toward change – making the exercise enjoyable and beneficial to both managers and employees. Furthermore, this technique may help navigate power dynamics present within leadership environments.

One major advantage of this approach is that anyone can use it. This differs dramatically from feedback which requires deep personal experience with the person being assessed; hence this method may be particularly helpful for leaders looking to assess their peers without creating power dynamics.

Feedforward offers an alternative approach to feedback that emphasizes the future. Feedback focuses on what cannot be changed while feedforward considers what potential can be realized with effort. It can be an invaluable asset in improving leadership communication across an organization; ultimately, feedforward may ease tension associated with assessment procedures while leading to deeper conversations regarding personal growth and development.

5. It’s more collaborative

Feedforward encourages openness and participation from everyone involved. Instead of traditional feedback sessions in which one person gives input directly to another, feedforward is a collaborative effort with all participating offering suggestions for improvement and support, creating teamwork skills as well as creating a positive working environment.

Feedforward can also help decrease defensiveness, which is often an impediment to change, as well as any negative repercussions from unconstructive feedback. Because its focus lies more on future than past mistakes, feedforward doesn’t create as much resentment than traditional forms of feedback can.

Many individuals find the process of receiving feedforward more productive and useful than traditional feedback sessions. Therefore, it’s crucial for leaders to engage in regular, disciplined sessions of feedforward to gauge how effective their actions are and whether or not they are making changes as promised.

Enacting this strategy at the CEO level can also be very effective at building a team of leaders, as it helps break down traditional hierarchies and empower all members to contribute their ideas and opinions. This approach can particularly assist those who feel their voice is not being heard or who do not receive critical input needed to improve performance. Incorporating this technique will set a culture of personal development, open communication and leadership growth resulting in a more productive working environment for everyone in your organization.

6. It’s more open

Feedforward assessments differ from feedback in that they do not comment on past actions or behaviors but instead provide advice for improving ongoing ones. It acts like an arrow on a city map pointing in the direction of where you need to be.

Feedback vs feedforward are two crucial concepts, and their distinction is at the core of successful teams’ differentiation from stagnant ones. Feedforward allows open communication among teammates; replacing old patterns of one superior providing criticism or praise with one where all members constantly evaluate themselves and their coworkers for ways they could grow together.

Implementing feedforward assessments into your organization requires a shift in mindset for managers and employees alike, but the benefits can be tremendous. People operations professionals who conduct feedforward assessments can identify areas for team improvement while simultaneously devising strategies for long-term growth – creating an atmosphere in your workplace that fosters learning and resilience as core values of the business.

As opposed to waiting until a performance review to discuss and identify areas for improvement, leaders can utilize feedforward throughout the year whenever they see an opportunity to help their team members flourish. Not only will using feedforward make your experience more pleasant and increase overall effectiveness and productivity.