f e e d b a c k — t h e h e a r t o f a l l c oa c h i n g 167 organization to have credibility (expertise), they are much more likely to receive feedback well.
If you believe you are lacking in both expertise and relationship from the perspective of those you lead, keep in mind the quotation we’ve seen attributed to many different people: People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care about them. The message is clear: work on relationship first. In most cases that will be easier to establish than expertise (especially if you don’t know people’s work), and it is more highly valued by most people anyway.
We humbly submit that if you want to be an exceptional or remarkable coach, you must aspire to earn all three types of feedback.
For details on how these three types of feedback connect to people’s communication styles, go to the Bonus Bytes page at BudToBossCommunity.com and click on the Feedback Sources button.
While most people think of feedback as positive or negative, that tells only part of the story. As important as it is to learn from the past, we only look at the past as a guide to adapting, changing, or improvingfutureperformance.
Instead of focusing only on the past, why not make your intentions perfectly clear and use the past to give people advice about what to do the next time? Or look at it this way: if we are giving feedback or coaching to help people to do better in the future, shouldn’t we focus on the future? After all, past performance is past and outside of anyone’s control. But future performance can be controlled by the performer and influenced by the coach (that is you!).
Given this, let’s consider the other two types of feedback, or rather, feedforward—which we define as future-focused advice and counsel.
Negative Feedforward
This type of feedback helps people see what not to do in the future. It refers to past performance as context for advice about the future. It is especially effective in emergency or crisis situations. It is the ‘‘whatever you do, don’t push that button’’ kind of feedback. It is advice about things not to do in the future. In shorthand it is explicitly stating things to avoid or to not do in the future.
Positive Feedforward
The final type of feedback helps people see what to do in the future. It, too, refers to past performance as context for future performance.
It provides advice about what to keep doing or start doing that will lead to better results. In shorthand it is speaking about things to start or keep doing in the future.
five reasons to consider feedforward
No translation required. If you have ideas about what to do—or not to do next time—why not share them? From your place of expertise, the tendency is to give feedback assuming that people will know what or how to change or adapt next time. When you give clear feedforward you aren’t assuming, so there will be no translation required.
It can be faster. Sometimes leaders spend a long time trying to give the feedback in a way that people will accept
f e e d b a c k — t h e h e a r t o f a l l c oa c h i n g 169 and understand. In these cases it is often much faster to just give some clear directions on what to do next time.
You know this is true because in a crisis or overloaded work situation this is what you probably do—and it works.
Remember that feedforward isn’t only effective, it can also be faster.
It can be more readily accepted. There can be lots of defensiveness and denial when people keep hearing about their past performance. People are usually less defensive when receiving advice about what to do in the future. Because it is future focused, feedforward is often accepted—and therefore used more readily than past-focused feedback.
We can’t change the past.Maybe this should have been first on the list. People can learn from the past, but they can’t change it. This is why feedback is still important—if we focus solely on the future our advice may become too directive (do this and this, but not that). Yet if you only think about the past, you aren’t creating the desired future either. Focus some of your conversation and coaching on what youcan change—which is the future. In other words, in order for feedback to be constructive (which everyone professes to want), it must be about what you can do next time.
Feedforward creates an upward spiral.You are having a conversation about performance because you want people to grow, to succeed, to be more productive, and to be happy in their work. Right? Using feedforward as a tool helps you move people in an upward, engaged spiral of performance.
Your Now Steps
1. Analyze the recent feedback you have given, noting how balanced between positive and negative, past and future it was.
2. Recognize your weakest areas.
3. Give someone feedback today, consciously making it more bal- anced than it would have been before you read this chapter.
H O W T O U S E T H E F O U R T Y P E S O F F E E D B A C K
Now that you know the four types of feedback, the obvious question is, How do you use that knowledge to give better feedback and help people create better results?
We are glad you asked. Here are several suggestions.