Cultura organizacional

Feedforward, a great leadership tool

Marshall Goldsmith

Providing feedback has long been considered to be an essential skill for leaders. As they strive to achieve the goals of the organisation, 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° 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 10,000 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 six or seven dialogue sessions. In the exercise participants are asked to:
Pick one behaviour that they would like to change. Change in this behaviour should make a significant, positive difference in their lives.
Describe this behaviour to randomly selected fellow