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Coaching approaches

Feedforward coaching

Feedforward coaching replaces judgment about the past with requests for ideas about the future. The person names one behavior they want to change, asks others for suggestions about what they could try, listens without arguing, and thanks them. Marshall Goldsmith describes the idea in his 2007 book, and says he came to it through his work coaching executives. No controlled study of feedforward coaching turned up in the sources checked. The nearest research is on feedback in general, which does not test feedforward directly.

What it is

In feedforward coaching, a person chooses one behavior to change and describes that goal to someone whose view they value. The other person offers suggestions about what the person could do next, rather than comments on what went wrong. The coach helps the person ask, listen and respond without debating the suggestion.

The approach rests on a practical claim: an idea about a future the person can still change is easier to hear than a verdict on a past they cannot change. That is a claim about how people tend to respond, and it has not been tested in trials of feedforward itself.

Where it comes from

Goldsmith describes feedforward in What Got You Here Won't Get You There (2007), written with Mark Reiter. He has said the term was meant as a counterpoint to feedback and grew out of his work coaching chief executives.

The idea has since been taught in executive coaching and leadership programs. The earliest published account found in the sources checked is the 2007 book; no journal article from before it turned up.

The principles underneath

Future over past

Suggestions about what could be done next are treated as more usable than judgments about what has already happened.

Ask for ideas, not verdicts

The person asks others for suggestions about the future, rather than asking whether they did something wrong.

Listen, then thank

The receiver listens and replies with thanks, without debate or justification. The approach treats argument as the thing that wastes a useful suggestion.

Repeat with several people

The process is repeated with more than one person, so ideas can be compared rather than taken on one person's word.

How a session runs

  1. The person chooses one behavior to change and states it in a sentence they can say aloud.
  2. They describe the goal to someone whose view they value, and say what they want from the conversation.
  3. They ask that person for two or three suggestions about what they could do in the future.
  4. They listen without judging the suggestions or explaining why they will not work, and reply only with thanks.
  5. They review with the coach which suggestions to try, and repeat the process with another person before deciding.

When it tends to fit

  • You have given feedback about something a person already knows went wrong, and the conversation turned into an argument about the past.
  • You want someone to change one specific behavior and need ideas about what to try, not a record of what happened.
  • You are about to ask a colleague for input on a goal and want suggestions that look forward.

What the research shows

Evidence: Practitioner tradition — little or no outcome research

No controlled trial of feedforward coaching turned up in the sources checked on 2026-10-15, and the feedforward idea is documented mainly in Goldsmith's practice and writing. The nearest research is on feedback. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) reviewed and meta-analyzed feedback interventions and proposed a preliminary theory of them, and Kluger and DeNisi (1998) summarized feedback interventions for a general audience. Those papers were read at the level of their titles only, so they do not show whether feedforward performs better or worse than feedback.

Where the evidence is thin: No controlled study comparing feedforward with feedback turned up in a search on 2026-10-15. The claim that suggestions about the future are easier to hear than verdicts on the past is a practitioner claim. Where feedback research is cited, it bears on feedback, not on feedforward.

Sources

  1. Goldsmith, M., & Reiter, M. (2007). What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. Hyperion.
  2. Kluger, A., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254–284.
  3. Kluger, A., & DeNisi, A. (1998). Feedback Interventions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 7(3), 67–72.

Where it stops

Feedforward is not a substitute for feedback when someone needs to know that a specific behavior caused harm or broke a rule. Asking only for ideas about the future can leave a problem that needs to be named unspoken.

A feedforward conversation with someone who is in distress, in a harmful relationship or in an unsafe workplace can put them under pressure to consider suggestions about a situation they cannot change. In those cases a qualified professional, or a formal process, is the right route.

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