Even feedback with the best of intentions can cause people to put their guard up and prepare to go on the defensive. It can be very difficult for people to listen to even positive feedback as it can be interpreted as a critique of someone’s character.
Yet people want feedback and critique to help them refocus their efforts and continue their work with confidence. According to one study, 96% of participants said that receiving feedback regularly was a good thing, but 63% felt like they didn’t get enough praise.
Feedback isn’t delivering how it should, so we should look to another method for delivering criticism. Could feeding forward rather than backward be the answer? Let’s dive into the concept of feedforward and how it could help you.
What is feedback and feedforward?
Feedback is part and parcel of the workplace and has been for years. If an employee intends to scale the career ladder, they need to get feedback to know how best to make improvements and grow. Likewise, people need to know just if they are doing a good job. Not having any criticism available might seem like a good thing, but it also doesn’t give us any direction to grow.
Feedback looks at our previous actions and behaviors and analyzes the outcomes. What works and what doesn’t? What could we have done better to reach a more favorable outcome? Was there something in our actions that management didn’t like?
Feedforward is the reverse exercise of feedback. Rather than looking at what has happened in the past, it focuses on actions that could be taken in the future. These future-oriented solutions can then help inform our actions and actually give us guidance over where to go next.
The problem with positive and negative feedback
The problem with either positive or negative feedback is that it is, as the name suggests, looking back. The action has been made and there are far too many variables at play to be able to confidently say that the same outcome will be reached.
Whether you did something poorly or perfectly, the action was in the past. To use a common analogy, feedback is pretty much like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Though praising someone’s actions can prove to be beneficial to their self-esteem and confidence, pointing out where someone went wrong can do exactly the opposite.
It can feel like a bit of a waste of time to sit around and think about what went wrong and what we could have done to improve it. Rather than have circular discussions about what might have gone wrong, we should focus our efforts on changing our behavior and intentions for the future.
The benefits of feedforward communication
Feedforward communication is useful because it looks to support and reinforce future actions rather than critique mistakes of the past. This way, it carries several benefits that should capture the attention of most leaders regardless of their management style, including:
Eyes on the future
A feedforward assessment is focused on what can be done in the future rather than something that has already happened. With feedback, you can often end up focusing and almost nit-picking on details, and this can create a negative work environment and company culture if allowed to run unchecked.
While you do need to look back during a feedforward assessment, it should be done so with the intention of laying the groundwork and clear steps to be followed.
One way to approach feedforward is to do horizon scanning, in which you analyze possible contexts and environments, potential challenges, and opportunities to proactively shape strategies and actions that will lead to desired outcomes and improvements. Not only should this lead to greater levels of success in the future, but it is also a crucial aspect of foresight leadership, which is expected of those who wish to grow vertically in their careers.
No judgment here
Since a feedforward mindset is focused on what is still to come, we need to ensure that suggested goals and past mistakes are viewed without judgment. Everything needs to be considered as just one step along the road towards a successful outcome.
Feedforward approaches also require people to look inwardly in order to change. They might have to consider the areas of professional development that they wish to pursue, and this can require them to take a step back and reflect. Having to assess ourselves, admit areas of weakness, and meet them head-on can be difficult. When someone decides to follow this path, they should be supported and guided along it—not judged for anything that they have to overcome.
Adopt a growth mindset
One of the amazing things about feedforward assessments is that it encourages employees to adopt a growth mindset. They regularly need to take a step back, check in with themselves, and see how far away they are from their goals. It can take a lot of resilience and effort to successfully manage, but it can help someone reach their chosen endpoint more successfully.
Establishing a growth mindset amongst your team can be great as it reinforces positive interpersonal relationships. People start to think about how they can help each other reach their goals, and the organization can move towards positive actions together.
How to structure a feedforward assessment
A feedforward assessment can be shaped in many different ways. One of the champions of the feedforward method is Joe Hirsch, who created the acronym REPAIR to help us explore and understand the feedforward approach.
Regenerates
The first step is to regenerate the talent at hand. A feedforward should be thought of as a chance to work towards organizational growth. It is an excellent chance for mentors or management to engage in knowledge transfer, actively passing down what they know to other teams and members of staff with suggestions on how to shape the future. This benefits not just the individuals looking for professional growth but the company as a whole.
Expands
Feedforward focuses on expanding possibilities and ideas. Ultimately, it will hopefully introduce some new processes to the business. Though there can be many practical challenges in introducing something new, the aim should not be to shoot those ideas down before they are even considered. By choosing to listen carefully and offer realistic options and deadlines, we can expand and improve.
Particular
One major part of negative feedback is that it can be quite vague. An employee is only told not to do something, or to focus on their past errors without reflection, and this can just lead to confusion and upset. Feedforward frameworks encourage us to be particular and specific. There is a focus towards positivity, encouraging employees to think rationally about what they can achieve and how best to go about it.
Authentic
Discussions about someone’s future should always be viewed as authentic communication. Though we do need criticism to grow and improve ourselves, we also need to ensure that praise is genuine and thoughtful. Build authentic honesty and communication into your feedforward processes. This can help keep things focussed and facing forward rather than trailing away into dishonesty or falsehoods.
Impact
When choosing feedforward vs feedback, you need to consider the long-lasting impact that such discussions might have. The great thing about feeding forward is that it creates space for reflection and the chance to grow. This isn’t just a one-way thing! Any mentor providing guidance should also put those reflection skills to the test and see if there is some way that they can change their own ways of working.
Refines
A positive work environment could decide to implement collective feedforward assessments completed by the whole team and look to create a space for everyone to suggest and make improvements. It turns goal-setting into a collaborative effort that benefits everyone’s work styles and own personal goals so the team can move together as one.
Who can make use of feedforward advice?
Obviously, everyone benefits from feedforward advice. It is great for teams as a whole as it can allow everyone to rise together with clear goals and alignment for the future. If you feel like your team is all at different points and can’t see a common goal, a feedforward exercise really helps to get everyone on the same page.
However, it shouldn’t just be thought of as a great option for teams and managers. It can also be a great option for mentoring and ERGs.
Feedforward and mentoring
Mentoring, after all, is used to support and guide the mentee in some specific way. While every mentoring relationship is unique and different, many of them are built on a foundation of aid and knowledge-sharing. This makes them perfect for feedforward advice as it is designed to guide those future actions.
It can also be extremely useful for reverse mentoring, where the more junior member of staff acts as a mentor to a senior. Again, the aim is to set goals and to grow. The junior member of staff can help their senior mentee establish ways they wish to change and things they can do in the future. Together, they can create an easy and actionable plan to help the mentee grow and change their ways of working.
Feedforward and ERGs
ERGs also make for fantastic candidates for feedforward plans over feedback. ERGs need to have constructive pathways through which they can inform their parent organizations about ways in which they can change. Typically, this is done through constructive feedback, but – as we all know – it is far too easy to interpret this kind of feedback as an attack.
ERGs exist to provide psychologically safe spaces to their members and to advise their parent companies on ways to make things more inclusive. Rather than hear about all the ways a company has gone wrong in the past, it can be easier to bring change by looking to the future.
This is where a feedforward structure can change. Yes, a company might not have been the most inclusive or understanding in the past, but here are some clear, non-judgmental steps to take for improvement. This kind of feedback can help to bridge the gaps between the needs of the workers and the understanding of upper management, and ERGs should make use of it to ensure that their concerns are adequately listened to and understood.
Build a feedforward culture with MentorcliQ today
A feedforward culture does not dwell on the past but, rather, looks forward to a better future. If you want to create a workplace that values each individual and the way in which they work, you can’t rely purely on feedback. If you are ready to create a performance management strategy that actually supports employees and their goals, you need to ensure that a feedforward approach is part of your strategy.
You also need a platform where you can keep track of everything. A mentoring relationship is best served when you have one space where you can connect, record goals, and plan meetings. A feedforward strategy always benefits from being able to look ahead and refine the approach as needed.
Let MentorcliQ be that platform. Our algorithm takes all the guesswork out of matching so you can be sure that your mentees are paired with the people they need to be talking to in order to succeed. Book a demo with us to find out more today.
