Effective Communications Styles Part Two: Feedforward Instead of Feedback

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Zagash** (0:17)
Hello and welcome back to the show. We are continuing our dive into communication techniques. Today covering the concept of feed forward. That's feed forward in contrast to feedback. I'm Stephen Zagash here with Tulio Sirugusa. Hey, Tulio.

**Tulio Sirugusa** (0:34)
Hey, I am looking forward to this. I've never heard of feed forward. That should be an interesting thing to share with everybody.

**Stephen Zagash** (0:41)
Yeah, I think it's something some of us may do naturally and didn't really know that there was maybe a whole term and even a book around it. Feed forward, it's a concept developed by Marshall Goldsmith, who's a renowned executive coach and leadership thinker. And unlike traditional feedback, which focuses on past performance, feed forward emphasizes the future possibilities and solutions. So at its core, it's about providing individuals with suggestions on how they can improve in the future. So like I said, this is something some of us may do naturally when we're dealing with a problem. So it's a proactive approach that concentrates on ideas and actions that can help someone achieve their goals moving forward. So shifting from blame to growth opportunities. So we aren't dwelling on those past mistakes or shortcomings. We're trying to reduce the defensiveness and opening the door to constructive dialogue.
So it transforms conversations from about being what went wrong to about what could be better. So I'm sure many of you in your communication styles probably do a lot of this, right? Some of you, if you don't, then this is a good topic for you to think about. So some of the benefits here. So it encourages continuous learning and development. It promotes a positive solution-oriented mindset, and it strengthens relationships by showing genuine interest in someone's growth. And it can be less stressful and more motivating for both the giver and receiver. Tulio, so what are some of the key components of this? Let's break it down.

**Tulio Sirugusa** (2:41)
So I want to preface, like you said, some of my practice is this without realizing for myself, I realized I do practice this, just didn't have a name for it. It's actually how I parent. So there's a lot of connection to parenting with this. So some of the key components of feed-forward communication is focusing on future behavior. So the emphasis is on what can the person do differently or continue to improve. I've often heard myself saying, so how are we going to handle this in the future? What can we do different in the future? So it's about taking actionable steps that can lead to a better outcome, and discussing those, really being able to paint the picture of being able to walk a different path than had been walked. So it's visualizing and seeing yourself in the future doing things differently. So for example, instead of saying, you didn't communicate effectively, we might say, going forward, consider setting regular check-ins to keep everyone aligned. One is about solving the problem moving forward. The other one is kind of like just a slap in the wrist, right? Doesn't really do anything. The other thing is providing positive, actionable suggestions. So suggestions should be very specific, practical, and super attainable. They are supposed to empower the individual to take ownership of their development. And it's important to frame these in the form of suggestions so that it's encouraging and supportive to the person you're speaking with. And to also encourage a two-way exchange. So feedback is most effective when it's more of a dialogue, not a monologue. So inviting the other person to share their own ideas and perspective is key.
And you can ask open-ended questions like, what strategies do you think could help you in the future? And this collaboration fosters better engagement, number one, and also really a bit of a mutual respect between the two individuals. Now, some of the examples on how feed-forward works in practice, in a practical way. Here's some examples, right? Imagine a team member struggled with meeting a project timeline or a project deadline. That's never happened before, right? I mean, that can happen, and it happens all the time. So instead of focusing on, you missed a deadline, now we're all off, and you know, instead of focusing on the missed deadline, highlighting the problem, the mistake that they made, you might say something like, for upcoming projects, it might help to break down the tasks into smaller milestones. How do you feel about that approach, right? So one, you're establishing that you're not gonna get fired over this. There's a sense of safety already established in the future, which means you're gonna be here. So it's not like they didn't make a mistake that's not repairable. So in the future, maybe break this down into smaller milestone. What do you think about that? And this not only provides a practical suggestion, but really invites the other person to give their input. So these are very simple things that can be easily practiced, but it's about being proactive and aware of it. Now, some of us might have been raised in certain cultures where, you know, the immediate thing was to be judgey or to give, this is what you did wrong, you know. Some of us were raised that way, right? So it's harder for those individuals to stop and like, okay, let me not be reactive with highlighting what's already happened. It's not going to fix anything, but let's focus on what can we do better in the future, and how can I invite this individual to see themselves doing it better in the future? That's a lot more effective, and that's what really feed forward feedback is about.