Development of Asia’s Future Leaders

denismccarthy — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:21:49 +0000

EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

Development of Future Leaders: A case study on the Bank of Thailand (BOT)

By Dr. Adisak Chandprapalert and Dr. Suda Suwannapirom
Jan 9, 2008 – 10:27:59 AM

This experimental research study explored visionary leadership in practice by focusing on the construction of organizational vision and the ability to manage the change that principals exploit to foster the competitive advantage of leader capabilities’ enhancement before implementing future leader developmental framework. The new leadership development methodology, assessment, and development were predominantly utilized in this study. Five crucial aspects of visionary leadership consist of leadership personality, strategic management, innovation and change management, problem solving and decision making, and organization diagnosis which have been focused and developed throughout the changing process. In the early stage, twenty-six top management director level of Bank of Thailand (BOT) were surveyed and interviewed. Leadership Competencies Assessment and Extended DISC Assessment were used to identify gaps between current competency levels and desired stages of the participants in the project. Later on, the distinct communicative session and intellectual bonding were used to create self awareness & significance of the development project. The research findings show and provide the practical guidelines and strategic insights to promote future leader, succession planning, talent management, and future leadership development roadmap for BOT top executives.
[ Read More... ]

Source: The online Journal of Academic Leadership, Volume: 6, Issue: 2, May 30, 2008 , ISSN: 1533-7812.
The Journal is peer edited through a blind review process that utilizes national and international editorial boards and peer reviewers. It is listed in Cabell’s and has a 45% acceptance rate.

Excerpted from the report is the “Conclusions and Recommendations” section, as follows:

Conclusions & Recommendations

This experimental research employed an exploratory and empirical survey to illustrate how the authors built up the “Future Leader” development program based on visionary leadership theory. Leadership development focused on transformation practices involving participants in a process which they can compare themselves with the benchmark, determine their concerned competency improvement, and build strategies to have continuous self-awareness and self-development. Implicit this process is some kinds of idealized notion of the best practice and model guiding action. The visionary leadership self-assessment utilized mainly in this process has provided individuals to assess themselves with behavioral benchmarks appropriate to their leadership situation and determine the means of adapting more effectively to changing environment. Moreover, to ensure leadership development effectiveness, Leadership Competencies Assessment and Extended DISC Assessment with 180 degree feedback, observations from role play and various participative activities are utilized for a coherent part of the “Future Leader” development program.

Marshall Goldsmith 2007 Reflections from India

denismccarthy — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:20:55 +0000

Education and educators are highly regarded in India, which makes teaching a pleasure and a privilege

by Marshall Goldsmith

During a recent trip to India, I had the opportunity to work with many dedicated professionals at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad.

ISB is an amazing place. It is a new institution that was formed with the support of Kellogg, Wharton, and the London Business School. The admission standards are extremely selective. Although it is only a few years old, ISB is already one of the top five schools in the world in terms of average GMAT score. I was there to teach a two-day executive education class on coaching to 50 top leaders from across India.

I love teaching in India. Every participant in my program was eager to learn. There is nothing that a teacher loves more than dedicated students who want to learn. The first day of my program lasted from 7 in the morning until 10 at night. I tried to answer as many questions as I could, but eventually I ran out of time! My students were willing to listen as long as I was willing to teach.

Deep Respect for Education

I was amazed at the sincerity and interest shown by the participants in my course. There was absolutely none of the cynicism or skepticism that I sometimes encounter in the U.S. or Western Europe. As a rule, people in India have a deep respect for education and for educators. At the end of the two days, I was given a lovely card with a personal thank-you note from each participant. I was very moved by their gratitude.

As I headed to my room at around 10:30 p.m., I saw three young ISB MBA students working on an assignment and decided to stop by and introduce myself. I asked them several questions about their lives, their futures, India, and the new global economy.

When I asked, “How many hours a day do you work?” one young woman laughed and said, “28!”

Income Gap Widens

All three agreed that they started studying each day early in the morning and finished late at night. They didn’t seem to mind. They realized how fortunate they were to be admitted to such a selective program. They were grateful for the opportunity to be there and wanted to learn as much as they could.

As a country, India still has hundreds of millions of extremely poor citizens who live in villages. The differentiation in incomes between the rich and poor has increased dramatically in the past 10 years.

I asked the MBA students, “How do the poor people in the villages feel about fortunate students like you? You are going to be making a lot of money when you graduate from ISB. Is there increasing resentment out there in the countryside?”

Emigration Not as Attractive

Their answer surprised me. The students all knew people in the villages. The general feeling was that, in almost every village, there was a resident who had left, attained a good education, and achieved a much more affluent life. If there was not a person in the village who had made it out, there was a relative in a nearby village. The students felt that even poor villagers saw hope for their children or grandchildren through hard work and education.

The world has changed a lot in the past few years. In the past, brilliant students, like the ones that I met at ISB, all dreamed of going to America or Europe for a quality education. Now they can get a quality education in India. In the past, brilliant young students all planned on leaving India to get great jobs. Now they can get great jobs in India.

The students went on to discuss India’s problems. Corruption, lack of infrastructure, and emerging competition in Asia all represent real challenges for India.

U.S. Heading Backward?

As I listened to these brilliant young students, I thought about America. In the past few decades, we have made progress on many fronts and may have gone backward on others.

In some ways there seems to be a decreasing respect for education—and for educators—in our country. The average high school teacher used to make a little less money than an accountant or consultant, but not that much. Today the difference in income is huge.

In general, teachers don’t seem to get the same amount of respect that they did when I was a student. And, unlike the people whom I met in India, many Americans are not very confident that their children and grandchildren will have better lives (BusinessWeek.com, 8/21/07) than they have.

The Future Is in Knowledge

As parents, teachers, leaders, and citizens, we can learn a couple of lessons from the people whom I met in India. Individually and collectively, we may need to revisit our priorities. We may need to demonstrate more respect for education and for educators. In the competitive world of knowledge work, educated individuals and educated societies are going to have a huge competitive advantage. We may also need to connect the value of a great education with our hope for a brighter future.

Many years ago, most Americans were farmers. Those days are gone. More recently, many Americans worked in manufacturing. Those days are soon to be gone. The future of America is going to be determined by knowledge workers. Education will be a key factor in determining our collective success as a society and each person’s success as an individual.

Hard-working, educated people who have hopes and dreams for a better future are going to win, no matter what country they come from.

Goldsmith’s new book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, was recently listed as America’s best-selling business book in The Wall Street Journal. He can be reached at Marshall@MarshallGoldsmith.com, and he provides his articles and videos online at www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com.

Marshall & Friends August 28, 2007
Source: www.businessweek.com/careers/content/aug2007

The Self We Think We Are

denismccarthy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:25:36 +0000

Marshall Goldsmith’s Amazon blog – Tue, 2008-06-24 15:49
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As a Ph.D. student at UCLA in the early 1970s, I had a self-image of being “hip” and “cool.” I believed I was intensely involved in deep human understanding, self-actualization, and the uncovering of profound wisdom. Early in my Ph.D. program, I was one of thirteen students in a class led by a wise teacher, Bob Tannenbaum. Bob had come up with the term sensitivity training, had published the most widely distributed article to appear in the Harvard Business Review, and was a full professor. He was a very important person in our department at UCLA. He is also a great guy.In Bob’s class, we were encouraged to discuss anything we wanted to discuss. I began by talking about people in Los Angeles. For three full weeks I gave monologues about how “screwed up” people in Los Angeles were. “They wear these $78 sequined blue jeans and drive gold Rolls Royces; they are plastic and materialistic; all they care about is impressing others; and they really do not understand what is deep and important in life.” (It was easy for me to be an expert on the people of Los Angeles. I had, after all, grown up in a small town in Kentucky.)

One day, after listening to me babble for three weeks, Bob looked at me quizzically and asked, “Marshall, who are you talking to?”

“I am speaking to the group,” I answered.

“Who in the group are you talking to?”

“Well, I am talking to everybody,” I replied, not quite knowing where he was headed with this line of questioning.

“I don’t know if you realize this,” Bob said, “but each time you have spoken, you have looked at only one person. You have addressed your comments toward only one person. And you seem interested in the opinion of only one person. Who is that person?”

“That is interesting. Let me think about it,” I replied. Then (after careful consideration) I said, “You?”

He said, “That’s right, me. There are twelve other people in this room. Why don’t you seem interested in any of them?”

Now that I had dug myself into a hole, I decided to dig even deeper. I said, “You know, Dr. Tannenbaum, I think you can understand the true significance of what I am saying. I think you can truly understand how ‘screwed up’ it is to try to run around and impress people all the time. I believe you have a deep understanding of what is really important in life.”

Bob looked at me and said, “Marshall, is there any chance that for the last three weeks all you have been trying to do is impress me?”

I was amazed at Bob’s obvious lack of insight! “Not at all!” I declared. “I don’t think you have understood one thing I have said! I have been explaining to you how screwed up it is to try to impress other people. I think you have totally missed my point, and frankly, I am a little disappointed in your lack of understanding!”

He looked at me, scratched his beard, and concluded, “No. I think I understand.”

I looked around and saw twelve people scratching their faces and thinking, “Yes. We understand.”

Suddenly, I had a deep dislike for Dr. Tannenbaum. I devoted a lot of energy to figuring out his psychological problems and understanding why he was confused. But after six months, it finally dawned on me that the person with the issue wasn’t him. It wasn’t even the people in Los Angeles. The person with the real issue was me. I finally looked in the mirror and said, “You know, old Dr. Tannenbaum was exactly right.”

Two of the great lessons I began to understand from this experience were (1) that it is much easier to see our problems in others than it is to see them in ourselves, and (2) even though we may be able to deny our problems to ourselves, they may be very obvious to the people who are observing us.

There is almost always a discrepancy between the self we think we are and the self the rest of the world sees in us. The lesson I learned (and strive in my professional work to help others understand) is that often the rest of the world has a more accurate perspective than we do. If we can stop, listen, and think about what others see in us, we have a great opportunity. We can compare the self that we want to be with the self we are presenting to the rest of the world. We can then begin to make the real changes needed to align our stated values with our actual behavior.

I have told this story at least three hundred times, and I have thought about it more frequently than I have told it. Often when I become self-righteous, preachy, holier than thou, or angry about some perceived injustice, I eventually realize that the issue is not with the other person or people. The issue is usually in me.

Today I work mostly with executives in large organizations. I help them develop a profile of desired leadership behavior. Then I provide them with confidential feedback, which allows them to compare their behavior (as perceived by others) with their profile of desired behavior.

I try to help them deal with this feedback in a positive way, to learn from it, and (eventually) to become a good role model for the desired leadership behavior in their organization. Although I am supposed to be a “coach,” very little of my coaching involves “sharing my wisdom.” Most of it involves helping my clients learn from the people around them.

In this way, the lesson I learned from Bob Tannenbaum has not only helped me in my personal life; it has helped shape the course of my professional life.

Life is good.

Marshall

www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com

www.MarshallGoldsmithFeedForward.com
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Here are some videos you can watch:

Are You a Commitment Killer?

Advice for your boss (example of feedforward)

Build a Great Team

Suck Ups

My newest book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There , is a New York Times best seller and a #1 business book in both America (The Wall Street Journal, USA Today) and Germany (FT). It is a ‘top 5′ bestseller for all business books published in 2007 on www.amazon.com ; and is the year’s #1 best seller on leading people. It has already been named as one of the ’2007 business books of the year’ by the Institute for Management Studies, Soundview Executive Book Summaries and getAbstract. It is currently being translated into 18 languages. I hope that you enjoy it!

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Marshall’s Upcoming Events

July 1, 2008 – San Diego – AST

July 8, 2008 – Webinar: “What Happy Coaches Know … The Science of Happiness” free – register online

August 1, 2008 – Dartmouth – Tuck Executive Progra

August 25-26, 2008 – Indian School of Business – Hyderabad

September 15, 2008 – New York – SHRM – contact Marshall if interested

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Source: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/guru-watch/marshall-goldsmith

Now, Indian CEOs hunting for coaches

denismccarthy — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:53:36 +0000

MUMBAI: Coaches for CEOs are quite a rage in the West. The list of CEOs who hire coaches include the who’s who of American business, including former GE CEO Jack Welch, IBM’s Sam Palmisano and eBay’s Meg Whitman. CEO coaches like Ram Charan and Marshall Goldsmith have achieved superstar status.

In recent years, executive coaching has started to make its presence felt in India as well, with country’s top honchos seeking professional help. However, there aren’t enough professionals in India who are equipped to don the garb of a CEO coach. Sighting the opportunity, the Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) plans to launch a study programme to train CEO coaches.

Says Deepak Chandra, assistant dean of the Centre for Executive Education, ISB, “Judging from our interaction with corporates and the feedback we got from some of our leadership programmes which involved individualised coaching for small groups of managers, we realised that there is a huge need for executive coaching in India.“

Slated to be held in August, ISB’s executive coaching programme will be conducted by Goldsmith, one of the world’s best-known executive coaches. Goldsmith has been ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the world’s Top 10 executive educators.

The programme will be open to senior professionals who want to become CEO coaches. “We are looking at both independent coaches as well as people within the company, like senior HR leaders and CEOs, who need help on coaching,” says Chandra.

Usually CEO coaching focusses on three aspects: Behavioural coaching, organisational change and strategy. ISB’s programme will focus only on affecting behavioural change.

The idea being that the behaviours that have made a leader successful may not be the same behaviours needed for future success. So Goldsmith will explain why leaders who are becoming successful can also face difficultly when they need to change, and he will give tips to participants on methods of coaching. The programme will initially start with a batch 30 execs.

While executive coaching is seen as a fad by some, no one can deny the value that comes from hiring one. Says Satish Pradhan, executive V-P, group HR, Tata Sons, “The fact is that a CEO is very lonely. And having someone who can share that space, be realistic and provide guidance is extremely important.”

However, there are possible pitfalls too. Says Pradhan, “The risk that you run with an executive coach is that they can also become like Linus’s comfort blanket: nice to have, functionally of no value, but just leaves you with a good feeling. But that is worthwhile too.”

There is a second risk too which stems from who gets to become a coach. Says Pradhan, “In a managerial context, a coach is someone who can actually process-enable rather than content-enable a manager. But at a CEO level, content becomes important: so have you walked in similar shoes for a period of time to know what hurts and what doesn’t? That ‘been there and lived through some of it’ becomes a very important part of the ability of the coach to help the CEO.”

So in a sense, this is really more of a kind of “mentor coach” rather than a “coach coach”. “It is difficult to think of someone who has had less width of experience to be able to coach a CEO than someone who has a much wider experience,” says Pradhan

Source: Now, Indian CEOs hunting for coaches
28 Jun 2007, 0019 hrs IST, Neelima Mahajan,TNN http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Now_Indian_CEOs_hunting_for_coaches/articleshow/2155177.cms

Marshall Goldsmith Executive Coach in India 2007

denismccarthy — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:32:48 +0000

Getting There with Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith

The Centre for Executive Education (CEE) at the Indian School of Business (ISB) recently hosted accomplished and most sought after executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith. A spectrum of participants from companies such as Raymond Ltd., Aditya Birla Management Corporation Ltd, Godrej India Ltd., HDFC Bank, etc., interacted with Goldsmith during an Executive Coaching Programme. The Programme, held at the ISB, between August 20 and 22, was the first of its kind in India.Executive Coaching, today, is widely accepted as a ‘necessary learning’ in the arena of competitive business. It is accepted as a part of standard leadership development for top- rung executives. It is a Programme of one- to-one collaboration between a certified coach and an executive, who wants to better his leadership skills, access new perspectives and above all reach maximum potential. In the words of Goldsmith, executives should seek coaching “when they feel that a change in behaviour—either for themselves or their team members—can make a significant difference in the long-term success of the organisation.”

Goldsmith has been ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top 10 executive educators. He is one of the foremost authorities on how to help leaders achieve positive, measurable changes in their own behaviour and in the behaviour of their people and teams. Recently the American Management Association named him as one of the 50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management.

The trend is fast catching up in India too. Top corporate executives acknowledge the energising role that a coach plays and are fast seeking the expertise of an executive coach in order to strengthen their business vision, performance and capacities. However, there is a perceived need for a tailored programme to train senior professionals who want to be CEO Coaches. It was into this gap that the CEE stepped in.

Says Deepak Chandra, Associate Dean, CEE, at the ISB, “During a Leadership Skill Programme, conducted by the CEE, we received feedback about the felt need in the industry for a cadre of executive coaches. It was then we conceived this pioneering Programme to help people, within or outside an organisation, to become good coaches. Speaking about the relevance of such a programme in the Indian context Chandra added, “The growing complexity of businesses in this era of globalisation, has prompted senior management to counsel, seek, and simply talk to a person who can be an amalgam of a sounding board, a critic, a seer, a friend, etc.”

Usually CEO coaching focuses on three aspects- strategy, organisational change, and behavioural coaching. The Programme at the ISB concentrated only on behavioural change. It aimed towards positive and measurable behaviour improvement of the participants, by identifying specific behaviours to improve upon and choosing concrete methods of change.The Pedagogy

Based on an empirically-tested method of executive coaching, Goldsmith devised a straightforward and highly effective process that has consistently delivered successful results across a large population of leaders in a broad spectrum of professions.During the programme, he explained why leaders who are becoming increasingly successful can also face increased difficultly when they need to change. He discussed how the behaviour that led to their present level of success might not be the same behaviour that is needed to reach a higher level of success.

Participants also took part in various team-building exercises and learnt about ‘team building without time wasting.’ Said participant Vicki Nicholson, Managing Director CW Solution Private. Ltd, and an existing Executive Coach, “What stood out was the simplicity of Marshall’s approach.” Prasheel Pardhe, Assistant VP, HR at Bennett and Coleman, vouched, “Marshall gave us tips about a positive way of looking at life – managing it for oneself and for others. “

Goldsmith rated his group as “more focussed on education and having more respect for the educator, than seen in other parts of the world.”

Source: http://www.isb.edu/media/UsrSiteNewsMgmt.aspx?topicID=276

Marshall Goldsmith Loves Using Extended DISC

denismccarthy — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:00:26 +0000

Source: Marshall Goldsmith Embraces Extended DISC

Extended DISC was first introduced to the Indian Subcontinent through Dion Lawrence in 2007 and the first training programmes were given in August 2008 by visiting Australian trainer Denis McCarthy who is an authority on Extended DISC. He trains and accredits Indian HR practitioners, coaches, consultants and anyone else who may be interested in using the tools.

Enquiries about future training dates should be addressed to the Extended DISC India office in Bangalore. Contact details can be found on their website at http://www.int-a1.com/extendeddisc-india or by emailing extendeddisc.india(at)int-a1.com

Denis was introduced to Extended DISC by Marshall Goldsmith after reading his 2000 book on “Coaching for Leadership: How the world’s greatest coaches help leaders learn” hailed by Warren Bennis as “the single best collection of writings and writers on executive coaching”. Dr Marsall Goldsmith was listed in Forbes magazine as one of the five top executive coaches and in Human Resources magazine as one of the world’s leading HR consultants. He is a Wall Street Journal “top ten” executive educator and is University Professor at Alliant International University’s Marshall Goldsmith School of Management, which was named in his honor in 2006 (for more on him go here).

Reference links:

Marshall Goldsmith Partners LLC. : Executive Coaching and Training
www.marshallgoldsmith.com/

Marshall Goldsmith Library
www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/

Marshall Goldsmith Blog
www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/blog/

Harvard Business Online’s Marshall Goldsmith
discussionleader.hbsp.com/goldsmith/

Featured Services & Tools Featured Services & Tools
http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/html/marshall/resources-services.html
This is a great resource … Developed by Marshall Goldsmith and Extended DISC R&D Team, the FeedForward tool provides individuals, teams and organizations with suggestions for the future and to help them achieve a positive change in the behavior.

Marshall Goldsmith : What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
www.whatgotyouhere.com/html/Marshall_Goldsmith.htm
Dr. Goldsmith’s twenty-two books include: The Leader of the Future (a Business Week best-seller) and Coaching for Leadership.

Source: Marshall Goldsmith Embraces Extended DISC

Try FeedForward Instead of Feedback

denismccarthy — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:29:06 +0000

By Marshall Goldsmith * (more>>)

BLOG NOTE:
Marshall Goldsmith’s FeedForward Tool was created to provide individuals, teams and organizations with suggestions for the future and to help them achieve a positive change in their behaviour. The Marshall Goldsmith FeedForward Tool, based on the Extended DISC online assessment, is very easy to use. The Extended DISC online questionnaire takes only about 10 minutes to complete. All of the information on the report (cover pic) is derived from your “natural behavioral style” in the Extended DISC Personal Analysis Report (more>>).

To download a sample report (see cover page below) go to https://www.extdisc.com/feedforward/Sample Report.pdf. Marshall Goldsmith and Extended DISC North America’s Finland-born president Markku Kauppienen share a passion to help executives make better about their employees, teams and organization.

* Dr Marshall Goldsmith was listed in Forbes magazine as one of the five top executive coaches and in Human Resources magazine as one of the world’s leading HR consultants. He is a Wall Street Journal “top ten” executive educator and is University Professor at Alliant International University’s Marshall Goldsmith School of Management, which was named in his honor in 2006 (for more on him go here).

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Providing feedback has long been considered to be an essential skill for leaders. As they strive to achieve the goals of the organization, employees need to know how they are doing. They need to know if their performance is in line with what their leaders expect. They need to learn what they have done well and what they need to change. Traditionally, this information has been communicated in the form of “downward feedback” from leaders to their employees. Just as employees need feedback from leaders, leaders can benefit from feedback from their employees. Employees can provide useful input on the effectiveness of procedures and processes and as well as input to managers on their leadership effectiveness. This “upward feedback” has become increasingly common with the advent of 360° multi-rater assessments.

But there is a fundamental problem with all types of feedback: it focuses on a past, on what has already occurred—not on the infinite variety of opportunities that can happen in the future. As such, feedback can be limited and static, as opposed to expansive and dynamic.

Over the past several years, I have observed more than ten thousand leaders as they participated in a fascinating experiential exercise. In the exercise, participants are each asked to play two roles. In one role, they are asked provide feedforward —that is, to give someone else suggestions for the future and help as much as they can. In the second role, they are asked to accept feedforward—that is, to listen to the suggestions for the future and learn as much as they can. The exercise typically lasts for 10-15 minutes, and the average participant has 6-7 dialogue sessions. In the exercise participants are asked to:

Pick one behavior that they would like to change. Change in this behavior should make a significant, positive difference in their lives.

Describe this behavior to randomly selected fellow participants. This is done in one-on-one dialogues. It can be done quite simply, such as, “I want to be a better listener.”

Ask for feedforward—for two suggestions for the future that might help them achieve a positive change in their selected behavior. If participants have worked together in the past, they are not allowed to give ANY feedback about the past. They are only allowed to give ideas for the future.

Listen attentively to the suggestions and take notes. Participants are not allowed to comment on the suggestions in any way. They are not allowed to critique the suggestions or even to make positive judgmental statements, such as, “That’s a good idea.”

Thank the other participants for their suggestions.

Ask the other persons what they would like to change.

Provide feedforward – two suggestions aimed at helping the other person change.

Say, “You are welcome.” when thanked for the suggestions. The entire process of both giving and receiving feedforward usually takes about two minutes.

Find another participant and keep repeating the process until the exercise is stopped.

When the exercise is finished, I ask participants to provide one word that best describes their reaction to this experience. I ask them to complete the sentence, “This exercise was …”. The words provided are almost always extremely positive, such as “great”, “energizing”, “useful” or “helpful.” The most common word mentioned is “fun!”

What is the last word that most of us think about when we receive feedback, coaching and developmental ideas? Fun!

Eleven Reasons to Try FeedForward

Participants are then asked why this exercise is seen as fun and helpful as opposed to painful, embarrassing or uncomfortable. Their answers provide a great explanation of why feedforward can often be more useful than feedback as a developmental tool.

We can change the future. We can’t change the past. Feedforward helps people envision and focus on a positive future, not a failed past. Athletes are often trained using feedforward. Racecar drivers are taught to, “Look at the road ahead, not at the wall.” Basketball players are taught to envision the ball going in the hoop and to imagine the perfect shot. By giving people ideas on how they can be even more successful, we can increase their chances of achieving this success in the future.

It can be more productive to help people be “right,” than prove they were “wrong.” Negative feedback often becomes an exercise in “let me prove you were wrong.” This tends to produce defensiveness on the part of the receiver and discomfort on the part of the sender. Even constructively delivered feedback is often seen as negative as it necessarily involves a discussion of mistakes, shortfalls, and problems. Feedforward, on the other hand, is almost always seen as positive because it focuses on solutions – not problems.

Feedforward is especially suited to successful people. Successful people like getting ideas that are aimed at helping them achieve their goals. They tend to resist negative judgment. We all tend to accept feedback that is consistent with the way we see ourselves. We also tend to reject or deny feedback that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves. Successful people tend to have a very positive self-image. I have observed many successful executives respond to (and even enjoy) feedforward. I am not sure that these same people would have had such a positive reaction to feedback.

Feedforward can come from anyone who knows about the task. It does not require personal experience with the individual. One very common positive reaction to the previously described exercise is that participants are amazed by how much they can learn from people that they don’t know! For example, if you want to be a better listener, almost any fellow leader can give you ideas on how you can improve. They don’t have to know you. Feedback requires knowing about the person. Feedforward just requires having good ideas for achieving the task.

People do not take feedforward as personally as feedback. In theory, constructive feedback is supposed to “focus on the performance, not the person”. In practice, almost all feedback is taken personally (no matter how it is delivered). Successful people’s sense of identity is highly connected with their work. The more successful people are, the more this tends to be true. It is hard to give a dedicated professional feedback that is not taken personally. Feedforward cannot involve a personal critique, since it is discussing something that has not yet happened! Positive suggestions tend to be seen as objective advice – personal critiques are often viewed as personal attacks.

Feedback can reinforce personal stereotyping and negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Feedforward can reinforce the possibility of change. Feedback can reinforce the feeling of failure. How many of us have been “helped” by a spouse, significant other or friend, who seems to have a near-photographic memory of our previous “sins” that they share with us in order to point out the history of our shortcomings. Negative feedback can be used to reinforce the message, “this is just the way you are”. Feedforward is based on the assumption that the receiver of suggestions can make positive changes in the future.

Face it! Most of us hate getting negative feedback, and we don’t like to give it. I have reviewed summary 360° feedback reports for over 50 companies. The items, “provides developmental feedback in a timely manner” and “encourages and accepts constructive criticism” almost always score near the bottom on co-worker satisfaction with leaders. Traditional training does not seem to make a great deal of difference. If leaders got better at providing feedback every time the performance appraisal forms were “improved”, most should be perfect by now! Leaders are not very good at giving or receiving negative feedback. It is unlikely that this will change in the near future.

Feedforward can cover almost all of the same “material” as feedback. Imagine that you have just made a terrible presentation in front of the executive committee. Your manager is in the room. Rather than make you “relive” this humiliating experience, your manager might help you prepare for future presentations by giving you suggestions for the future. These suggestions can be very specific and still delivered in a positive way. In this way your manager can “cover the same points” without feeling embarrassed and without making you feel even more humiliated.

Feedforward tends to be much faster and more efficient than feedback. An excellent technique for giving ideas to successful people is to say, “Here are four ideas for the future. Please accept these in the positive spirit that they are given. If you can only use two of the ideas, you are still two ahead. Just ignore what doesn’t make sense for you.” With this approach almost no time gets wasted on judging the quality of the ideas or “proving that the ideas are wrong”. This “debate” time is usually negative; it can take up a lot of time, and it is often not very productive. By eliminating judgment of the ideas, the process becomes much more positive for the sender, as well as the receiver. Successful people tend to have a high need for self-determination and will tend to accept ideas that they “buy” while rejecting ideas that feel “forced” upon them.

Feedforward can be a useful tool to apply with managers, peers and team members. Rightly or wrongly, feedback is associated with judgment. This can lead to very negative – or even career-limiting – unintended consequences when applied to managers or peers. Feedforward does not imply superiority of judgment. It is more focused on being a helpful “fellow traveler” than an “expert”. As such it can be easier to hear from a person who is not in a position of power or authority. An excellent team building exercise is to have each team member ask, “How can I better help our team in the future?” and listen to feedforward from fellow team members (in one-on-one dialogues.)

People tend to listen more attentively to feedforward than feedback. One participant is the feedforward exercise noted, “I think that I listened more effectively in this exercise than I ever do at work!” When asked why, he responded, “Normally, when others are speaking, I am so busy composing a reply that will make sure that I sound smart – that I am not fully listening to what the other person is saying. In feedforward the only reply that I am allowed to make is ‘thank you’. Since I don’t have to worry about composing a clever reply – I can focus all of my energy on listening to the other person!”

In summary, the intent of this article is not to imply that leaders should never give feedback or that performance appraisals should be abandoned. The intent is to show how feedforward can often be preferable to feedback in day-to-day interactions. Aside from its effectiveness and efficiency, feedforward can make life a lot more enjoyable. When managers are asked, “How did you feel the last time you received feedback?” their most common responses are very negative. When managers are asked how they felt after receiving feedforward, they reply that feedforward was not only useful, it was also fun!

Quality communication—between and among people at all levels and every department and division—is the glue that holds organizations together. By using feedforward—and by encouraging others to use it—leaders can dramatically improve the quality of communication in their organizations, ensuring that the right message is conveyed, and that those who receive it are receptive to its content. The result is a much more dynamic, much more open organization—one whose employees focus on the promise of the future rather than dwelling on the mistakes of the past.

The term “feedforward” was coined in a discussion that I had with Jon Katzenbach, author of The Wisdom of Teams, Real Change Leaders and Peak Performance.

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Source: http://www.marshallgoldsmithfeedforward.com/html/Articles.htm

Footnote: The Extended DISC Personal Analysis Report (free pdf sample) is the basis of the Marshall’s FeedForward Report. The cover page of the 30 page report is depicted below. To download a brochure on the Personal Analysis Report click here

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