Step by Step

Feedback vs Feedforward

It doesn’t matter if we are working as a contractor, leading our own company or being part of an organization, we always have the opportunity to learn about the past and understand how we can improve. Feedback is a tool we can use to evaluate our performance. There is no doubt that we can learn about our mistakes and failures, and that we can use feedback to improve.

However, what if we could leverage the opportunity to see all the possibilities and opportunities that we will have in the future? What would happen if we enable our team members, collaborators or employees to strengthen their learning by focusing on a positive future and not a past of errors?

This is what is called “The feedforward.” This term forged by Marshall Goldsmith and Jon Katzemback (feedback to the future) is complementary to the feedback although there are some differences:

As Dr. Goldsmith noted in his article ‘Eleven reasons to try Feedforward’: “We can change the future, we can’t change the past - By giving people ideas on how they can be even more successful, we can increase their chances of achieving this success in the future”

• Reference www.marshallgoldsmithfeedforward.com

Originally Published on Mayte’s Corner...Thoughts on Project Management  - 2018 Q2 - PMI Northern Utah Chapter newsletter

No me puedo creer que hace casi un año, se me pasó por la cabeza la descabellada idea de partiendo de la idea de un post que escribí en este sitio web:

https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/25731/The-New-year-s-Resolutions----Project-Management-process-groups

Empezar un nuevo proyecto en mi vida personal/profesional...Convertir un post en un libro! 

Muchas horas, días y meses después, ahí está..en Amazon! 

Puedes ojearlo o adquirirlo en Amazon USA, UK and ES.

Every day a new buzzword appears in the world of project management. One of the words that we are hearing lately is “storytelling”. 
 
Storytelling is not something new or innovative, it has been used for years in commercial and marketing departments. At the project management level we are finding that storytelling offers a new way to connect, engage and motivate our audience. 
 
Robert McKee, an award-winning writer and director, explained in a Harvard Business review “executives can engage listeners on a whole new level if they toss their PowerPoint slides and learn to tell good stories instead.” 
 
From my point of view, we are far from throwing away the most used tool in our meetings, but we can include the art of storytelling in our toolbox. 
 
Some of the key benefits to including the art of storytelling in our presentations are:

• Building empathy with the audience
• Engaging emotions
• Making our ideas “cling like ivy”
• Helping us to get the buy-in from our stakeholders
• Our meeting attendees will remember a story more than data, or a “5 Why’s” slide 

 
However, while storytelling can spice things up, it doesn’t take the place of some of our other existing skills:

• Storytelling will not necessarily make us better leaders
• Stories are not anecdotes
• Stories are not a counterfeit of reality
• We don’t need to dramatize our story. 

 
Try to remember the last meeting or conference that you attended. Was it engaging? Were you motivated and inspired? Or were you just checking the e-mails on your computer?  
 
And what happens when you are the chairman or speaker? Are the attendees engaged? Are they listening? Do they remember the information that you presented?  
 
Reflect on your skill-set. Give it some thought. Maybe now is the moment to learn a new tool! 

From a "bad experience", I wrote an article on LinkedIn and here 

https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/29669/Attitudes-Toward-Accents

It's curious because I saw my experience as a learning opportunity:

How is it works in the states? I won't work in this company and I won't apply again, and after few hours of research and interesting English reading that improved my vocabulary skills, I wrote about thousand words in English in less than two hours.

On the other hand, my network basically said, "so sorry", "this guy was a jerk", "welcome to Utah", comments face to face and in my Social Media that I didn't expect. Wasn't easy to explain to them that the important point wasn't the guy, or their attitude, the key point was the opportunity to learn!

Now, the article will become a presentation in one big local organization, about 100 project managers, will learn how to overcome accents when working on international projects. 

Lessons Learnt: There are no bad experiences, there are opportunities to grow.

Leading multicultural and international projects, I realized that an image is much more powerful than a hundred words or "friendly reminders". That's why, taking the example of the viral "Be like Bill or Pepe" (for Spanish version), I decided that during some of my meetings was helpful to prepare a slide with Ana. 

Ana is smart and tries to catch the attendees attention for following basic ground rules for attendants to the meetings.

• Show on time and prepared.

• Stay present (mentally and physically - no cell phones, no computers or spaghetti with meat balls that will distract you).

• Think before speaking. It's correct to disagree, but be respectful, chose correctly your words. Remember to stay in your point and on time. And most important, talk about the issue/problem don't attack the person who is defending the idea. 

Feel free to like/share and comment the article in LinkedIn