Marshall Goldsmith; Mark Reiter. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful (Kindle Locations 2944-3067). Hyperion. Kindle Edition.
CHAPTER 12
Practicing Feedforward
HERE’S WHERE WE ARE.
You’ve identified the interpersonal habit that’s holding you back.
You’ve apologised for whatever errant behavior has annoyed the people who matter to you at work or at home. You’ve said, “I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better.” And they’ve accepted that.
With these skills, now you’re ready for feedforward.
As a concept, as something to do, feedforward is so simple I almost blush to dignify it with a name. Yet some of the simplest ideas are also the most effective. Since they’re so easy to do, you have no excuse not to try them.
Feedforward asks you to do four simple steps:
1. Pick the one behavior that you would like to change which would make a significant, positive difference in your life. For example, I want to be a better listener.
2. Describe this objective in a one-on-one dialogue with anyone you know. It could be your wife, kids, boss, best friend, or coworker. It could even be a stranger. The person you choose is irrelevant. He or she doesn’t have to be an expert on the subject. For example, you say, I want to be a better listener. Almost anyone in an organization knows what this means. He or she doesn’t have to be an expert on you or on listening. If you’ve ever found yourself on a long flight seated next to a perfect stranger and proceeded to engage in an earnest, heartfelt, and honest discussion of your problems with that stranger—or vice versa—you know this is true. Some of the truest advice can come from strangers. We are all human beings. We know what is true. And when a useful idea comes along, we don’t care who the source is. (If you think about it, a stranger—someone who has no past with you and who cannot possibly hold your past failings against you or, for that matter, even bring them up—may be your ideal feedforward “partner.”)
3. Ask that person for two suggestions for the future that might help you achieve a positive change. If you’re talking to someone who knows you or who has worked with you in the past, the only ground rule is that there can be no mention of the past. Everything is about the future.
For example, you say, “I want to be a better listener. Would you suggest two ideas that I can implement in the future that will help me become a better listener?”
When the other person suggests, first, focus all your attention on the other person. Get in a physical position, the “listening position,” such as sitting on the edge of your seat or leaning forward toward the individual. Second, don’t interrupt, no matter how much you disagree with what you’re hearing. These two ideas represent feedforward.
4. Listen attentively to the suggestions. Take notes if you like. Your only ground rule: You are not allowed to judge, rate, or critique the suggestions in any way. You can’t even say something positive, such as, “That’s a good idea.” The only response you’re permitted is, Thank you.
That’s it. Ask for two ideas. Listen. Say thank you. In seeking feedforward ideas, you’re not limited to one person. You can do feedforward with as many people as you like. As long as people are providing you with good ideas that you can use or discard (but which don’t confuse you), feedforward is a process that never needs to stop.
All I’ve outlined here, really, are the ground rules for a conversation that should and could take place in the workplace all day long every day. These conversations rarely happen—precisely because in most workplace conversations we aren’t working with these restrictions: Ask for two ideas; listen; say thank you. Even if we behave within the normal parameters of politeness and etiquette in the workplace, we think we have an obligation to be totally honest in every discussion. For some reason, when we’re “engaged” in frank talk with another person, we interpret this to mean that we are locked in a debate. Because we like to succeed, we assume we have to win the debate. We think we have a license to use every debating trick to win, including bringing up the past to bolster our side of the “argument.”
Is it any wonder that even in the least toxic environments, honest well-intentioned dialogues devolve into hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and counterproductive resentments?
Feedforward solves this dilemma.
The usual corporate feedback mechanisms – like reading history, provide us with facts about the past but not necessarily ideas for the future.
Feedforward, on the other hand, is feedback going in the opposite direction. That is, if feedback, both positive and negative, reports on how you functioned in the past, then feedforward comes in the form of ideas that you can put into practice in the future. If feedback is past tense, then feedforward is future perfect.
The best thing about feedforward is that it overcomes the two biggest obstacles we face with negative feedback—the fact that successful people in dominant positions don’t want to hear it (no matter what they say, bosses prefer praise to criticism) and that their subordinates rarely want to give it (criticising the boss, no matter how ardently he or she tells you to “bring it on,” is rarely a great career move).
Feedforward shrinks the discussion down to the intimate parameters of two human beings. If it isn’t obvious yet (and if it isn’t then one of us has not been paying attention), this book and its process for getting better hinges on one inalterable concept:
- I don’t establish what you need to do to change for the better.
- You don’t establish it either.
- They do.
- Who are they?
- Everyone around you. Everyone who knows you, cares about you, thinks about you, has you pegged.
Let’s say you want to do a better job of listening. It’s possible that a coach can explain to you how to be a better listener. The advice will be true, supportable, and impossible to dispute. But it will be generic. It’s much better to ask the people around you, “What are some ways I can do a better job of listening to you?” They’ll give you specific, concrete ideas that relate to them—how they perceive you as a listener—not the vague ideas a coach would give. They may not be experts on the topic of listening, but at that moment in time, they actually know more about how you listen, or don’t, than anyone else in the world.
Until you get everyone who is affected by your behavior on your side and working to help you change, you haven’t really begun to get better.
This is why the concept of feedforward is so important.
Feedforward eliminates many of the obstacles that traditional feedback has created.
It works because, while they don’t particularly like hearing criticism (i.e., negative feedback), successful people love getting ideas for the future. If changing a certain type of behavior is important to them, they will gobble up any ideas that are aimed at changing that behavior. And they will be grateful to anyone who steps forward with an idea, not resentful. There’s no arguing with this. Successful people have a high need for self-determination and will tend to accept ideas about concerns that they “own” while rejecting ideas that feel “forced” upon them.
It works because we can change the future but not the past. It doesn’t deal in wishes, dreams, and conquering the impossible.
It works because helping people be “right” is more productive than proving them “wrong.” Unlike feedback, which often introduces a discussion of mistakes and shortfalls, feedforward focuses on solutions, not problems.
On the most elemental level, it works because people do not take feedforward as personally as feedback. Feedforward is not seen as an insult or a putdown. It is hard to get offended about a suggestion aimed at helping us get better at what we want to improve (especially if we are not forced to implement the suggestion).
On a purely technical level, it works because when we receive feedforward, all we have to do is function as a listener. We can focus on hearing without having to worry about responding. When all you’re allowed to say is “Thank you,” you don’t have to worry about composing a clever response. You also are not permitted to interrupt, which makes you a more patient listener. Practicing feedforward makes us “shut up and listen” while others are speaking.
However, feedforward is a two-way street—and it is designed to protect as well as bring out the best in the people who are providing it.
After all, who among us doesn’t enjoy giving helpful suggestions when asked? The key is when asked. Feedforward forces us to ask—and in doing so, we enlarge our universe of people with useful ideas. Asking, of course, gives the other person a license to answer. I cannot overestimate how valuable this license can be. I’m sure that all of us are surrounded by smart well-meaning friends who “understand” us better than we “understand” ourselves. I suspect they would love to help us; most people like to help others. But they hold back because they think it is rude or intrusive to try to help someone who has not asked for our assistance. Asking solves this.
Also, there’s no threat of pain in the process. If you’re giving me two ideas that I’ve asked for, you will only receive my gratitude. Not resentment. Not an argument. Not punishment. On top of that, you don’t even have to be right. You don’t have to prove that your suggestions are good ideas—because I’m not judging them. All I can do is accept them or ignore them. A clever scheme that eliminates fear and defensiveness, don’t you think?
More than anything, feedforward creates the two-way traffic I love to see in the workplace, the spirit of two colleagues helping each other rather than a superior being providing a critique. It’s the feeling that when we help another person, we help ourselves.
Leave It at the Stream
If feedforward sounds like some eating technique you’d see advertised on late-night TV, guaranteeing weight loss with a faster metabolism, I apologize. Feedforward won’t make you thinner.
But it may make you happier. The concept really is as simple as it sounds. Instead of rehashing a past that cannot be changed, feedforward encourages you to spend time creating a future by (a) asking for suggestions for the future, (b) listening to ideas, and (c) just saying thank you. Its strongest element, by far, is that it doesn’t permit you to bring up the past—ever. It forces you to let go of the past.
That’s important when you consider how many hours of organizational time and productivity are lost in the endless retelling of our coworkers’ blunders, or how much internal stress we generate reliving real or imagined slights, or how often team-building sessions degenerate into, “Let me tell you what you did wrong” slugfests rather than, “Let me ask you what we can do better” love-ins.
An old Buddhist parable illustrates the challenge—and the value—of letting go of the past.
Two monks were strolling by a stream on their way home to the monastery. They were startled by the sound of a young woman in a bridal gown, sitting by the stream, crying softly. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gazed across the water. She needed to cross to get to her wedding, but she was fearful that doing so might ruin her beautiful handmade gown.
In this particular sect, monks were prohibited from touching women. But one monk was filled with compassion for the bride. Ignoring the sanction, he hoisted the woman on his shoulders and carried her across the stream—assisting her journey and saving her gown. She smiled and bowed with gratitude as the monk splashed his way back across the stream to rejoin his companion.
The second monk was livid. “How could you do that?” he scolded. “You know we are forbidden to touch a woman, much less pick one up and carry her around!”
The offending monk listened in silence to a stern lecture that lasted all the way back to the monastery. His mind wandered as he felt the warm sunshine and listened to the singing birds. After returning to the monastery, he fell asleep for a few hours. He was jostled and awakened in the middle of the night by his fellow monk.
“How could you carry that woman?” his agitated friend cried out. “Someone else could have helped her across the stream. You were a bad monk.”
“What woman?” the sleepy monk inquired.
“Don’t you even remember? That woman you carried across the stream,” his colleague snapped.
“Oh, her,” laughed the sleepy monk. “I only carried her across the stream. You carried her all the way back to the monastery.”
The learning point is simple: When it comes to our flawed past, leave it at the stream.
I am not suggesting that we should always let go of the past. You need feedback to scour the past and identify room for improvement. But you can’t change the past. To change you need to be sharing ideas for the future.
Race car drivers are taught, “Look at the road, not the wall.”
That’s what feedforward does. Who knows? Not only may it help you win the race, but you’ll definitely have a better trip around the track.