Imagine the future

Everyone knows that leaders and managers need to provide feedback to others. As leaders, we supply feedback to our team members to help them calibrate their efforts, their performance strategies and ensure that they are heading in the right direction. We also rely upon feedback ourselves; to help us improve our own procedures and processes, evaluate new ideas, and evaluate our leadership skills and style.

But as several management theorists and gurus have pointed out, there is a major flaw in relying upon feedback in that it focuses on the past. Often, feedback is received on a bi-annual or even annual basis, when we are barely able to remember the context of the events and behaviors about which we are receiving feedback. Alternatively, feedback is often received fairly quickly when it is in the context of a crisis or disaster (“so let me tell you all of the things that you did wrong…”).  Either way, it is focused on the past, on what has happened, not thinking about moving forward and what might happen.

What if instead of focusing our coaching and development efforts on what people have done in the past, we instead shifted towards a future focus, what professor, author and consultant Marshall Goldsmith refers to as “feedforward”. In other words, rather than focusing on someone’s behavior in past situations, thinking forward to their likely future contexts and situations and thinking about what behaviors will be helpful to them in those situations.

Think of this, we can’t change the past, but we can change the future. Feedback asks us to learn from past mistakes in a simple, corrective manner. What Harvard Business School professor Chris Argyris would refer to as “single loop learning”. This is fairly simple; as a matter of fact it is the kind of learning we expect of our dogs! And while feedback helps us avoid repeating past mistakes (certainly a valuable exercise), it doesn’t help us understand and recognize what will be effective behavior in new and future situations.

Goldsmith’s idea of “feedforward” however focuses us on the future, not on the past; it also focuses on positive, proactive behaviors rather than criticism of mistakes, which is often an energizing experience in and of itself. “Feedforward” also helps us think more strategically about new and different behaviors, about broadening our behavioral “toolkit” if you will. In contrast feedback tends to push us into distinct behavioral patterns (“do A not B”).

Finally, the idea of “feedforward” is more inherently developmental. Let’s face it, it is fairly easy to figure out what not to do after you have been “burned” in a situation. It is much more difficult to envision what will succeed in a brand new situation. As a leader, you should be preparing your people for the situations that they are going to find themselves in over the next several months and years, not simply correcting the mistakes that they have already made. “Feedforward” assumes that this person is going forward in their career, on to new challenges and responsibilities for which you need to help prepare them.

So while I’m not suggesting that a good leader never gives feedback or focuses on corrective behavior, I do suggest that you spend at least some of your time developing your people for their future rather than their past. Imagine the possibilities!