Organisational Behaviour:Futuristic Commenting!!!

Supporting feedback with feedforward…

• At times even the most constructive feedback miscarries
• What might work then is ‘feedfoward’

The art of constructive feedback evolved to lessen the blow of criticism. But, even constructive feedback can miscarry at times, with employees becoming highly defensive. Since sharing feedback, even that bordering on criticism, is essential to employee development, there must be a way of doing it without hurting sentiments.

According to a team of experts, a new approach does exist, where comments are not shared after an action or behaviour, but before they happen. Christened as ‘feedforward’, this new approach is not a substitute for feedback sharing, but only a way of supporting the existing mechanism of commenting on employee performance and behaviour.

Feedback flop show

Contrary to popular belief, a huge percentage of feedback miscarries, not because it is untimely or disruptive, but because employees feel that harping on past performance doesn’t help much. They prefer the “Do it this way” approach to “You should have done it this way” line. Furthermore, employees often perform or indulge in one-time tasks and behaviours. Feedback about them, even though timely and constructive, does not make sense. As one expert says, “Feedback focusses on the past and is often stressful for recipients to hear and apply.”

In some cases, resistance to feedback is more as employees have to figure out ways to implement suggested measures without much guidance. In contrast, ‘feedforward’, as the word suggests, focusses on future actions and behaviours, thereby giving employees the opportunity to perform well right from the word go. Here is how this forward-looking approach works.

Surging ahead

The first step to implementing feedforward is to select the action or behaviour that needs to be addressed. Step two involves inviting suggestions on how it can be done. Since the focus is on a future action, a huge advantage of this forward-looking discussion is the absence of pre-conceived notions and blame. The discussion brings up a number of possibilities, and deciding on the best alternative is then left to the employees, if they are old-hands. For the newer lot, short-listed choices are recommended.

For instance, a manager wants to improve the frequency of informal communication within a work team.

In using feedforward, he first asks for suggestions on how this issue can be addressed. Suggestion can be invited from across the organisation. In fact, the more the number of suggestion-givers, the higher the number of workable solutions. Also, suggestion-givers are free to quote their own examples, share what they have heard or read somewhere, and even put forward their creative ideas. An important consideration at this stage is to accept suggestions without judgment. But irrelevant and improbable ideas can be eliminated after thanking the suggestion-giver.

“Unconditional gratitude is an important part of making feedforward work,” says an expert. Since the basis and success of feedforward is in the number of suggestions generated, employees must volunteer enthusiastically to share their ideas. Berating someone’s unconventional ideas in public would therefore be counter-productive.

Well collected

Once managers have a repertoire of suggestions, it is their job to match the ones that best fit the person involved and the situation. Here is when, in addition to using their discretion, managers should consult with their counterparts to understand the worth of each suggestion. The ones that are short-listed can then be shared with those who have to implement the feedforward. An employee, when given the opportunity to select the course of action from a pre-decided list, is more likely to implement it.

But, how is feedforward different from giving directions on how to perform tasks? From the looks of it, feedforward appears no different, but it is. Here is how it differs from typical how-to-perform guidelines:

• In addition to addressing performance improvement, feedforward comments on the kind of conduct or disposition an employee needs to maintain on a task. Guidelines seldom mention behavioural standards.
• Feedforward is a subjective approach, where suggestions, at times, are a byproduct of someone’s active imagination. On the other hand, guidelines put down operational and procedural requirements.
• Implementing feedforward is optional, whereas applying guidelines is mandatory.
  The quality of feedforward depends on inputs, since it is based on ideas shared by employees. With guidelines, there are no such concerns.
• Managers will have some apprehensions about delivering feedforwards, but not in the case of guidelines.

And the most important difference of all is that feedforwards supplement feedback-sharing and can be included as part of performance appraisals. Guidelines have no such importance.

Building a case

As important as feedback is, at times, even the most well-intentioned feedback miscarries, sullying manager-employee relationship. Feedforward, in itself, does not have much merit, but coupled with feedback, ensures that employees understand what is expected of them better. Not as a substitute for feedback sharing, but as a pre-cursor to it, feedforward can certainly carve a niche of its own.

Reference:
The ManageMentor