Exercise 12: Feedforward

[Joshua]

Exercise 12: Feedforward

Please post your reflections on the Feedforward exercise here including addressing some of the questions on page 112.

[Jim Jenkins]

#12 Feed Forward (Marshall Goldsmith)

My Topic: Improving as a public speaker and speaking as a leader to a group.

I had 3 runs of the recommended 10, since people I want to speak with were out of the office until next week. I intend to set up the remaining sessions in the following week to get the practice. As well, I want to test this tool in higher stakes circumstances. That means engaging my boss and others who are in authority positions.
The 3 sessions went well. (2 from the Leadership group, 1 employee who reports to me). I realize this simple tool has great utility.
• The responders were willing/wanted to help.
• I learned things about how I come across to others that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.
• All of the advice was useful. Some of it I knew already but those were good reminders and usually I received an additional perspective on how to proceed in applying the principle.
• The advice givers learned something about me that helped build our relationship.
• People were willing to share their references and I felt they wanted me to succeed.

I believe this tool solves part of a systemic official company feedback problem. The vast majority of companies have some sort of formal yearly employee performance evaluation process but often the power dynamic embedded in the organizational structure creates problems or the feedback from your boss and others is often not very relevant or useful or it can be a fearful process full of anguish, or things are not said that should be but they go on your record without you knowing so you are marked or you made a mistake at some point but don’t realize it but others in power do and don’t tell you because it is not their place (or it is their place but they just don’t want to) or you are trying to improve your capability but your efforts are miss-interpreted or are a bit off the mark as seen in the eyes of others and no one is willing to tell you.

The current approach in many companies starts with the statement that employees are responsible for their own development. It can be a very unsatisfying process for the leader and the employee who wants to progress but I believe the feeling is often that they (employee) are more or less left on their own to try to figure it out by stumbling forward as best they can.

The feed forward process may not solve all these problems but it at least represents a positive channel that is withing the power of the employee to access and utilize.

REFLECTION

1. Did you notice differences from feedback you might have gotten?
• Each person gave their perspective on the topic so the responses were different from each other.
• The feedback had a much more helpful tone than in other circumstances
• I want to test it further in higher stakes circumstances to me but I suspect it will be a more positive experience in general

2. Who is the leader in Feed Forward?
• The advise giver in terms of the comments provided
• I think there is also an element of shared leadership. The requester is taking the initiative on something important to them and the responsibility for listening. The advice giver is taking responsibility for providing useful advice and not judgement.

3. How did others seem to feel during Feed Forward?
• You can tell the advice givers are focused on giving meaningful advice and that builds trust between the two.
• Asking someone for advice makes then feel happy and recognized/important that someone wants to hear what they have to say.

4. How did you feel during Feed Forward?
• Motivated because I picked the topic I wanted and or was ready to hear feedback about.
• Grateful for the information and somewhat surprised at some of the responses that challenged my beliefs
• Safe and encouraged

5. Did you get any useless advice? Was that a problem?
• Some information was more useful than others but none of it was useless. The process is not just about giving and receiving advice but also about building a trusting relationship and learning more about each other.

6. Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
• I can see broad application of this tool in my leadership work, personal life and teaching it to others to help them.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Jim,

I strongly agree with your comment about building a trusting relationship as part of this process. Happy to be a part of it with you.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Feedforward to improve my communication skills

I talked to nine people and and got more than three pieces of advice from almost everyone. I decided to ask for advice on improving my communication skills. Ironically, a handful of the people I talked to asked me to clarify what I wanted advice on. You’ll see below that I received a few pieces of advice about specifying and being clear about what I want to communicate. I enjoyed this exercise and feel like I got a lot from it. The practice of asking for advice brought me back to the exercises from Initiative, which I loved and learned from.

If you’re interested in reading the full list of advice I received, I included it in my blog post.

I really liked all of the advice I got. I think the challenging part is acting on it. It was all different from typical feedback but still not clearly actionable. I think what I need to do is study my list, rewrite it a third time, and highlight my favorite bits. Then maybe choose a couple of those to turn into something active. In the future, I’ll know to ask the person giving me advice to share if they have experience acting on the advice they gave me.

Did I notice differences from feedback I might have gotten?

Yes. I think if I just asked for feedback based on my own communication skills, it would have felt more like they were judging me instead of sharing helpful advice. It wasn’t so awkward like performance evaluations at work, or a meeting with an advisor. I almost always left those meetings feeling like a lot was left unsaid and that the person was sugar-coating things a bit.

Who is the leader in feedforward?

Me I guess? I lead whoever I’m talking to to give me advice in a specific way on a specific thing. That said, I think the people giving advice feel respected and like they get to be an expert for the conversation. And they often took the invitation in directions I didn’t expect which were usually helpful.

How did others seem to feel during feedforward?

They seemed to enjoy giving advice and the resulting conversation.

How did I feel?

I felt slightly awkward and uncomfortable at the start but quickly felt very grateful for the unique advice from each person. I also felt excited to try implementing the advice. Probably my favorite part about exercises like these is that they serve as an excuse to have meaningful and interesting conversations with people. Sort of like playing board games, yes we’re here to play the game but we’re also here to have fun connecting beyond the game.

Did I get any useless advice? Was that a problem?

I don’t think any advice was useless. Some of it was repetitive or not new but it was still helpful to hear it again. Even when my gut thought was “oh yeah, I know that” it was good to be reminded that others think it is valuable.

Where and how might I apply my experience in the rest of my life?

I want to continue to proactively seek advice and feedforward instead of waiting for someone to give advice. People are genuinely interested in helping others, they’re just waiting for the invitation. Without a deliberate ask for this type of advice, I think I’ll almost always get judgments like “you did great on x” if anything at all. I may try to specify what aspect of communication to improve and ask for more advice or think of something else I want to improve with feedforward.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Feed-forward by Evelyn Wallace

I wanted to step up my professional emailing game. I liked having a reason to contact people and I think they felt honored/ important to be asked (even those who said they were by no means experts themselves). I feel like getting all this advice has made me a better emailer already, even with limited opportunity to practice yet.

From Abel:
• Be specific about what I’m actually asking for
• Keep different/ separate email inboxes (by project/ personal)
• Don’t be afraid to unsubscribe from newsletters you don’t read
• Don’t linger on emails that don’t matter (mark as read or delete right away)
• Don’t be a perfectionist: the more emails you write, the easier it gets (i.e. quantity is the route to quality)
• Make checking emails an integral part of my work day so they don’t pile up
• Find work-life harmony; you don’t have to put up severe barriers like “I don’t check email on weekends.” Maybe check for a few minutes on Saturday afternoon, then it’s less daunting on Monday. (Secondarily: don’t be afraid to take Monday morning off for personal issues if that’s what feels harmonious)
• Scroll through inboxes (even sent) every so often when you have a few extra minutes to check for anything that maybe fell through the cracks

From Hayden:
• Get emails started well in advance, even if you don’t send it; draft it when you have the thought
o Add “send email on Sunday morning” (or whatever) to your to-do list, even if you start drafting it on Thursday morning
• Draft as a word document or in or directly in email platform, depending on needs/ structure/ intensity/ importance of email
• Prepare for people to “glaze over” you emails; don’t use more words than you really have to
• Review blog post “one-minute emails”
• Use flagging/ starring system to make sure you remember to respond to things (not let things fall through the cracks)

From Haylee:
• Use labels to stay organized
• If you open it and it requires a response and you don’t have time to respond, star it or mark it as unread (or indicate in some way that works for you that it’s an action item)
• Don’t be afraid to delete old/ unused things: “the cloud” takes actual energy

From Eugene:
• Find tools that work in sync (something like Superhuman? It costs money but does a lot of the heavy lifting for you)
o Such tools have functions built-in
• Schedule an email to send in the AM if you don’t want it to arrive in the middle of the night
• Keep it simple
o Use “unread” button if you know you need to get back to it
• Consider multiple email addresses; one for personal, one for professional, one for a specific project, etc.
• Integrate email action items into systems I already use (e.g. calendar)

From Mary:
• Be conscientious of who’s receiving and what’s being communicated (is this personal? Professional? Etc)
• Communicate with folks via their preferred mode of communication. Some people won’t respond to an email for months but will send a text back in 30 seconds.
• Figure out “read” receipt, so I know they opened it; only request such receipts for important (to THEM) communication. So they can’t say “I never got that!”
• If I need to send a follow-up email, PUT THAT ON MY CALENDAR
• Use subject line that is clear, concise; a summary
o Subject line should be interesting and informative
• If something is super important, ATTACH IT (as attachment) for recipients to download/ save in their own desktop folders. Then they don’t have to scan a million emails to find that important info in the body of the email.
• Put most important info of email in the first few sentences/ at the top
• Create folders in email platform for each group I communicate with; make sub-folders
• Respond ASAP to ALL emails, even if only to say “got it! More later, so standby”; acknowledge receipt as soon as possible
• Use hyperlinks
• Do NOT “reply all” if you only need to reply
• BCC yourself for big group emails; or send it to yourself and BCC everyone else (to protect email privacy and also to make sure it’s actually being received/ not getting sent to spam)

From Glenda:
• If sending email after 5 or on weekends, don’t expect an answer until the next business day
• Or add an addendum to signature like “I work outside standard business hours; please respond at your convenience during the hours you work”
• If I do need a response by a certain time, be clear about that; or use alternate modes of communication if it’s urgent (e.g. text)

From Olivia:
• Use email as a means of summary, not means of escalation or problem-identification
o Don’t use email to “balloon up” a problem; talk to people in person then use email to summarize
o Suggest people take convo offline if I notice they are “ballooning up” a problem
• If I draft an email in the middle of the night, schedule them to be sent first thing in the morning
• Use short subject lines
• Add a TL;DR in first line of email; keep pleasantries short and sweet, then get to the point

From Jim:
• Put thought into crafting the subject line: that’s the biggest determinant of someone reading or not
o Be aware that people don’t read things that don’t look important
o Use phrases like “FYI” in subject line for emails that are interesting but not urgent
• Identify what I need from reader within first sentence
• Keep emails short; be prepared for people to tune out
• Think of emails like a resume: a way to get my foot in the door, not to lay out the whole story. Don’t give readers a meal, give them a bite.
• Lower down, include lengthier copy; add heading like “for those of you who want more info…”
• Keep paragraphs SHORT and add spaces between paragraphs

From Sherri:
• Don’t put things off! If you can respond, respond.
• If using outlook express, use flag button
• Create additional folders for people/ projects

From Beth:
• Get a second set of eyes to review important emails before sending
• Use professional language, not too familiar (for professional emails)
• Tailor language to reader:
o Talk like I’m talking to a drunk person
o Be concise and precise

[Hayden Kessinger]

Evelyn,

Thanks for all the extra email advice 🙂

[Eugene Bible]

Exercise 12: Feedforward

Exercise 12 of Leadership Step By Step was “Feedforward”, an exercise developed by Marshall Goldsmith to ask for advice instead of asking someone to evaluate something you did in the past (AKA “feedback”). In short, the exercise asks you to pick something you want to improve at, ask for advice using a specific script, ask some clarifying questions if necessary (NO evaluating or judging!), then thanking them for the advice.

For this exercise, I decided to select a project that aligns with one of my goals for 2025: developing relationships in my life. I decided I want to improve at nurturing meaningful, deeper relationships (with existing friends and family or new relationships).

After doing multiple rounds of Initiative exercises, this exercise felt like it wasn’t too much of a challenge. Within just a handful of days, I was able to contact 10+ people to ask for advice and was able to quickly fill my calendar with calls to friends and family to ask for advice.

Normally, I don’t post the actual advice that I got, but I think that the advice I got was so useful and valuable that for this reflection I would go ahead and post the advice I got:
– Ask others to help make introductions to people who are in the same situation as you (kid, married, similar work, similar hobbies)
– Connect more with the friends you have over holidays and special occasions. Make a point to send messages or call on birthdays, Christmas, July 4th, or any other holiday!
– Spend more time with people in-person. If not possible, phone calls can work as well, but try for in-person meetings.
– If it’s something you really want, prioritize it. Make it an active decision to use some of your time for friends/family.
– Even if you have a kid now, hold on to friendships (even if it’s just one call a year) because you will have time again someday.
– Find people who are in the same situation as you.
– Ask meaningful questions (open ended!), probing questions, layering questions.
– Find get-to-know-you games and memorize some questions. Ask others for questions that are effective at deepening connections. Seek people out one-on-one.
– To make new friends: find common ground and ask someone to connect.
– Use cadence/frequency to pace relationships (too frequent communication leads to nothing to say, not frequent enough leads to becoming distant). Each relationship will have its own cadence. Ask what a preferred cadence is!
– Make a rule for yourself to reach out whenever you think of someone and just say you’re thinking of them. If the desire is there, schedule a meet up and stick to it.
– Apply the 2-minute rule to connecting with friends. When you think of them, swallow any pride/fear/apprehensiveness and just send a quick text. Don’t overthink it.
– Identify hobbies and try to find communities to join.
– Find a local community to join or start volunteering.
– Don’t try to hang onto friendships just because they’re old. Nurture the valuable ones, let the others go.
– Go easy on yourself, relationships are orbits, sometimes close, sometimes far, there are natural cycles.
– Don’t be afraid to initiate. Be transparent (tell them you miss them and want to reconnect!). Get them on the calendar.
– Focus on THEM. Listen. Ask open questions.
– Recognize your own value and make friends with yourself too. Give yourself time to be with yourself too.
– Create a specific goal – rather than something vague like “make more meaningful relationships”, try to make your goal specific like “I will reconnect with every person on this list” or make it fun: “create deep connections with these 3, medium connections with these 5, then light connections with these 10.”

The variety of “feedforward” I got was really fun and interesting to hear. Some of the advice were things that I already try to do or had already thought of, and some of it was really insightful and from a perspective I’ve never considered, but all advice was helpful and really made me feel ready to try to apply it to my life.

One of the things I noticed was a very clear distinction between male and female advice: whereas most of the advice I got from men was logical (get things on calendars, make lists, be proactive/assertive), the advice I got from women was empathetic (ask open questions, listen and try to understand them, tell them how you feel about them). It was really interesting to hear the difference, and I felt continuously appreciative that I had both perspectives.

The tone of the conversations I had were all light and fun – many of them ended with both of us expressing a desire to connect more in future, which really made me feel good for having reached out and asked for the advice. The people I asked for advice also seemed to really enjoy the conversations. Some explicitly expressed that they felt honored that I asked them for advice on this and genuinely seemed delighted to give advice, which also made me feel great for having given them that opportunity to share something that maybe they don’t often have a chance to express. And for me, I was having fun asking for advice! Using my skills that I gained from Initiative, I felt like the conversations were almost like improvisation – on one hand I felt in control of the conversation and that I was leading, but there is still always an element of unexpectedness from the responses that keep you on your toes (which sometimes you have to guide back to the question at hand).

Overall, I feel like all the advice I got was valuable and the conversations that came from the exercise were all amazingly positive and added to my life. In a way, the conversations themselves did exactly what I was asking for advice on: they deepened and gave meaning to 10 relationships that I have in my life. As I go into 2025 trying to build better relationships with the people in my life, I think I will have gained a new technique for connecting: asking for advice!

[Hayden Kessinger]

Eugene,

That is very interesting to read the difference between advice from men and women! I really like the advice to “make friends with yourself.” I’ve heard the phrase (or some variation), “you can’t expect others to love you if you don’t love yourself” many many times and this seems like another version of it. Reading that is a reminder for me to prioritize intentional solitude to help myself be who I want to be.

I guess a strategy you could use to connect with friends is asking for advice more often!!

[Olivia Ong]

Leadership Step by Step Exercise 12: Feedforward

– Be realistic with how long things take in the morning
– Mentally or physically schedule things earlier than they actually are to give yourself a buffer
– If you think it’ll take you longer than you budgeted out for something, start 10 min. earlier
– If it can wait, don’t do it before you run out the door
– Write down what you want to do the night before
– Write down what you want/need to do the morning again
– Assume things will take longer than they do or say they will take
– Use pain and pleasure motivators with friends to hold myself accountable
– Set wall and car clocks 5 minutes fast
– Use copious amounts of notifications – i.e. a 30min. prior notification – up to 1 day before, 1 week before, 2 weeks before
– Add 15 minutes to your preparation time
– Budget out time for an activity – No matter what is happening, stop when you hit the timer/allotted time
– Be specific and concrete about what you need to do on a preplanned list
– eliminate all activities that are not on the list of critical items
– Write down what you need to do the night before
– Go to sleep earlier so you can wake up earlier
– Set a timer for an activity and no matter what, stop it when you hit the timer

Reflection:
The main difference between feedforward and feedback for me personally, is that feedforward seems like an emotionally neutral thing to receive, meaning that I don’t feel any emotional charges receiving feedforward. With feedback, it feels relatively easier to fall into a feeling of defensiveness about something I’ve done vs. my intention. And, even when the feedback seems to hit the nail on the head, sometimes feedback can hurt and/or I can feel a reluctance to accept it if there is an emotional charge around it. Feedforward, by comparison, feels much more like proactive brainstorming to me.

Others seemed interested and willing to help out in the feedforward exercise. People seemed to care about giving me unique advice or tailored advice based on my personal experience. I felt cared for and supported during the exercise.

I don’t think I got useless advice, but I did feel like some advice is easier to practice than others. Perhaps some advice was redundant for things I’ve already done, i.e. manually setting clocks faster, but it didn’t feel useless. Rather, I felt like I was on the right track.

I feel like feedforward is an exercise that can be used in the areas of tangible self-improvement. Even if it’s not a concrete thought or focus quite yet, I believe I could use it to obtain useful strategies to try to see what clicks and what doesn’t.

[Author]

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