Feedforward: advice without judgement

In feedback conversations, I often notice how quickly the past takes over.

A manager points to something that went wrong. The other person disagrees, apologises or explains the context. What was meant to be useful becomes a quiet negotiation about who understood the situation correctly.

Marshall Goldsmith suggests a different approach: feedforward. Instead of judging what already happened, ask what could be done differently next time.

The distinction sounds small, but it changes the conversation. Feedback can feel like a verdict, even when it is carefully delivered. Feedforward treats improvement as something still available. There is less need to defend a decision that cannot be changed.

That does not make the past irrelevant. We still need to understand mistakes. But perhaps the most useful part of that understanding is not the explanation. It is the next move.

I have started to think that good advice depends less on how accurately it describes what went wrong than on whether it gives someone something useful to work on.