Coaching practices for Shared Purpose Feedback

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Shared Purpose Feedback, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• No matter how carefully I word it, my feedback seems to land as me sitting in judgment over them from above
• Feedback in my one-on-ones only ever flows one way
• All the feedback I get is about whether I hit the target, and none of it touches the assumptions underneath how I’m even seeing the situation
• When I just hand someone my assessment they go passive and defensive, like I’m doing something to them
• Every time my partner and I try to swap ideas it slides into scoring points

Practices that may help

1. Establish shared purpose before delivering critique
   Frame critique as help toward a shared goal, not an evaluation from above.
   The Feedback Sandwich: Why It Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead
2. Make feedback flow in both directions
   Give timely, specific feedback — and ask for it on your own management.
   Effective One-on-Ones, Made Practical
3. Seek developmental feedback, not just performance feedback
   Ask for feedback that challenges your assumptions about how you see, not just how you perform.
   Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
4. Ask what the person already knows before offering your assessment
   Ask the person to evaluate their own performance before giving yours.
   The Feedback Sandwich: Why It Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead
5. Establish a no-argument rule in feedforward exchanges
   In structured feedforward exchanges, neither party evaluates or debates the suggestions — only listens and notes.
   Feedforward: Future-Focused Feedback That Actually Changes Behavior
6. Use feedforward to align team members on goals before projects begin
   At the start of a project, invite feedforward on how to succeed — before any performance to critique.
   Feedforward: Future-Focused Feedback That Actually Changes Behavior
7. Give and receive feedback with courage
   Sit on the same side of the table: feedback as a shared problem, not an attack.
   Daring Greatly, Made Practical
8. Receive feedback with minimal defensiveness
   Treat feedback as data about others’ experience — not as a verdict on your character.
   The Johari Window
9. Feedforward: Future-Focused Feedback That Actually Changes Behavior
   Feedforward, developed by executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, replaces backward-looking critique with forward-looking suggestions — asking "what ideas do you have for the future?" rather than "what did I do wrong?" The core claim is that people are more receptive to ideas about what they could do than to judgments about what they did. Evidence is primarily clinical and practitioner-based rather than from controlled trials.
10. Close feedback by checking understanding, not agreement
    Ask "What did you take from that?" rather than "Do you agree?"
    The Feedback Sandwich: Why It Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.