How I learnt Feedback & Feed-forward

lesson from my son

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is considered the world’s number one leadership thinker. He
pioneered his highly effective leadership coaching process through feedback and the
concept of feedforward. Years ago, I had a unique opportunity to practice how to handle
feedback and work on feedforward, while interacting with my younger son. I have two
sons who are now adults. My elder son is three years older than the younger ones. This
incident is from many years ago when both were much younger.

One day, when I returned from work my younger son came to me. He looked a little
upset. I asked him what was the matter. He replied with an emotional tone – “Dad you
don’t love me as much as you love my brother. He is your favorite!” If you are a parent
of more than one child, I am sure you must have had a similar conversation with your
children.

The feedback came as a shock, as I truly believed that I loved both my boys equally. It
didn’t match with how I perceived the situation. How do I respond to this feedback? I
had several different ways to handle this situation.
Option 1 to respond to the feedback – reject it

I could just reject the feedback. My response would be – “Son – what are you talking about?
This is nonsense. I love you both equally. Don’t make such baseless accusations and don’t ever
say that I love you any less.”

Would this response help change my son’s perception that I loved him less than I loved his elder
brother? What do you think?

Option 2 to respond to the feedback – reason with it

I could reason with him and provide him proof of how both of them were treated fairly and
equally. The conversation would be – “Look, son! Whenever I bring candies or goodies, I bring
it for both of you. We celebrated the birthdays of both of you. I bought birthday presents for
both of you. I treat you both equally and I love you both the same. Please don’t say that I love
you any less.”

Would this response help change my son’s opinion that I loved him less than I loved his elder
brother? What do you think?

Option 3 to respond to the feedback – accept, acknowledge and

feed-forward

I could just accept the feedback unconditionally and acknowledge his feelings. Here is the
conversation – “Son, I am sorry that you feel that way. What can I do in the future so that you
feel that I love you as much as I love your brother?”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a couple of minutes. He probably didn’t expect this
response. I could see that he was thinking hard trying to come up with an answer. He replied
with strong emotions again – “Dad you are always discussing all kinds of things with my elder
brother. Politics, technology, sports and more. You never discuss anything with me!”

My first reaction was to explain the fact that he was three years younger and probably wouldn’t
understand many of the things I discussed routinely with my elder son. I wanted to assure him
that in three years when he would be the same age as my elder son, I would be happy to discuss
those topics with him also. But I paused and thought about it. Would that reasoning address his
concerns? Would that line of conversation change his perception? Probably not!

So I tried another response – feed-forward

“Son – what topics would you like to discuss with me? Do you like politics?”.

He retorted – “Dad, I don’t like politics. I have no interest in discussing politics.”

I asked – “How about sports?.”

His eyes lit up. He said – “Dad, I would love to discuss sports with you.”

I asked – “What is your favorite sport?.”

“I love cricket!” – he replied.

“Which team is your favorite?” – I asked.

“Indian national cricket team.” – he replied.

“Who is your favorite player?” – I asked.

“Virat Kohli” – he said excitedly.

“What other teams do you like?” – I added.

“I love IPL. Chennai Super Kings is my favorite team!” – He replied again excitedly.

“Who is your favorite player in that team?” – I queried.

“M.S. Dhoni.” – He reverted quickly.

“Great!” – I said.

And the conversation ended.

Changing my behavior and changing his perception

Over the next few weeks, I started paying attention to cricket although I am not a big fan of
cricket. I started Googling for scores of the Indian national cricket team and the Chennai Super
Kings team. I also started checking how Virat Kohli and M.S.Dhoni performed. It would take
me a couple of minutes of internet browsing to “catch up” on what was happening in the sport of
cricket and especially with my son’s favorite teams and players.

I would discuss the scores and the results with my son after I reached home from work.
Especially the performance of his favorite teams and the favorite players. I would just start the
discussion and he would excitedly fill in the rest of the details! He was very well informed as it
was his passion.

So here is the question. Would this third option help change my son’s perception that I loved
him a little less than I loved his elder brother? What do you think?

Which of these three options are most likely to change my son’s opinion? The answer is
obvious. As actions speak louder than words – my efforts at implementing his suggestions to
make him feel loved would go a long way towards changing his perception. If I continued
working on his suggestions for a sufficient period, the change in his perception would be certain.

Feedback is just that – Feedback!

Was my son’s feedback wrong? (that I loved him less than I loved his brother). Was my
perception wrong – that I loved both my son’s equally? Therein lies the interesting dynamics.
From his perspective my son was right. He saw me interacting with my elder son regularly and
felt left out. His perception was that I was ignoring him or that he was not important to him. On
the other hand, I was right as well. I sincerely loved both my children. I had no intention of
loving one of them more than the other. Both perceptions can be proven right, and both can be
proven wrong. Basically, feedback is just that. Feedback is feedback – it is neither right nor
wrong!
Feedback is a gift

When someone is willing to share their feedback in your presence, it is a gift! They could have
chosen to talk about you or your performance behind your back, but they dared to share it with
you. It allows us to get better. All feedback can be a gift if we can just put our egos aside and
are willing to listen. There cannot be any improvement without feedback.

Had I not listened to my son’s feedback, he could have carried the misconception that he was
loved less probably for the rest of his life. This feedback allowed me to course correct and
address both my behavior and his perception.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s feed forward process of coaching leaders

Although I didn’t know it at that time, I was applying the process of “feed-forward” pioneered
by world’s number 1 leadership thinker Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. This simple yet powerful
process has been used by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith to coach CEOs at Fortune 500 companies.

The seven steps of feed-forward are

1. Ask
 2. Listen
3. Thank
4. Think
5. Respond
6. Change
7. Follow up

Our leadership coaching using Marshall Goldsmith’s Stakeholder Centered Coaching is

based on three primary concepts

1. Feedback
2. Feed-forward
3. Follow up
Would you like the leaders in your organization to become better leaders through the process
of feedback and feedforward using Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s stakeholder centered coaching?

We offer guaranteed and measurable leadership development coaching along with emotional
intelligence assessment to develop specific competencies.

We use the Stakeholder centered one on one coaching for leaders pioneered by Dr. Marshall
Goldsmith – World’s No. 1 Leadership Thinker.

Here are some of the features of our leadership development coaching

process.

 Guaranteed, measurable leadership growth as assessed – not by us – but by the leader’s

stakeholders
 Unlike training or executive education programs, the entire team will be involved while doing
their day to day work
 The leader becomes the coach and it has a cascading effect on the team
 It is a system for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams
 In a study of 11,000 leaders on 4 continents – 95% of the leaders using this process improved!
 This is the same process that has been used by 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to grow their
leaders
 We are so confident of the process that we work on a no-growth no pay basis (don’t try that
with other vendors, lol!)

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership

adviser today

SCHEDULE NOW!

Or text, call or WhatsApp +91-6352681614

Visit :- https://newageleadership.com/

Email Us :- info@newageleadership.com

Facebook :- https://www.facebook.com/LeadershipCoachTushar/