Energy flows where attention goes

When you go into your annual performance review, you might feel tense or even have sweaty palms. Feedback can be scary. At least, that’s how many employees and people leaders feel about it. Many of us implicitly associate “feedback” with “criticism“, which can make giving it uncomfortable and receiving it disheartening. When it comes to the workplace, the opportunity to give or receive feedback is often imposed by some sort of compliance process, and often met with anxiety, resentment, and, too often, avoidance.

Yet, it doesn’t need to be that way. With the right mindset, tool and self-awareness helping people to grow can taste as real food for champions. Any sort of feedback requires from the receiver perspective a growth mindset and the willingness to expand own self-awareness. Only if you consider challenges as an opportunity to grow and initial, temporary pain as information that you are growing, you will welcome and even seek it to regularly improve.

From the feedback provider perspective it requires the willingness to serve other people, set them for success and make them better. Helping people to develop, however,?does not necessarily mean to focus on the past. Feedback?examines the past, which cannot be altered. In contrast, feedforward?looks ahead at a future potential that is conceivably within our own circle of control or influence. While feedback?carries judgment and opinion; feedforward?is about ideas of further development and performance. It’s a positive, future-focused, personal development process that, if based on self-awareness, can avoid hurt feelings, or minimize apprehensions. How does it look like from a feedback provider perspective, in particular from a people leader view?

As a people leader adopt a coaching mindset, sort of ...

• What is your biggest professional challenge/opportunity in the next 12 month? or alternatively, if your colleague shares with your a challenging situation and his frustration you may say I can see how frustrating this is. I have a few thoughts – let me know if you want to discuss it
• What sort of behavior or skill does yet prevent you from tapping into the opportunitiy or mastering the challenge?
• If the employee then presents his major learning area, such as listen more effectively, be more assertive?or?improve presentation skills, ...
• You ask for exceptions: Has there been ever a situation in which you have mastered a similar challenge?
• After your colleague shares positive exceptions from the struggle (s)he is facing you build on the comment and give further "big ideas" to explore and test that move your colleague forward.

To sum up, what′s the difference to traditional feedback?

Feedforward?is the art of "replacing an often time problem-focused and past-oriented perspective with forward-looking developmental suggestions.”?Remember, leadership is not a formal authority - it is rather a responsibility to move people and topics forward.

What's the impact?

Energy flows where attention goes. If you want to instill more positive energy towards your vision shift your approach. Just like more strength-based development or appreciative inquiry, feedforward breeds openness, positive energy, learning and growth (capacity to perform). In particular, in times of transformation it makes all of a difference.

What if performance reviews and employee/customer surveys would focus more on concrete feedforward elements?