Master the art of forward-focused conversations that spark curiosity and momentum. Equip yourself with simple, powerful techniques to keep your team learning, improving, and moving forward together.
Overview
We’re taught that feedback is how people improve. But feedback often looks backward, and the brain reads criticism as a threat — making it hard to actually hear.
This session introduces feedforward, a coaching-backed approach that focuses on what’s next instead of what went wrong. Drawing on UCLA social threat research and the coaching work of Goldsmith & Katzenbach, participants will learn why words shape how feedback lands, and leave with a simple habit for giving feedforward starting this week.
Learning Objectives
Understand why feedback often triggers defensiveness, even when it’s well-meant
Practice turning real feedback moments into simple, forward-looking questions
Learn what feedforward is, and how it opens curiosity instead of criticism
Webinar Outline
Feedback vs Feedforward
- Why feedback puts the brain on the defensive
- What feedforward is instead
- Where the idea came from
The Power of Words
- How language shapes outcomes: Appreciative Inquiry’s 4-D cycle
- A harsh line versus a feedforward reframe
- The neuroscience: naming a feeling, or a person’s potential, calms the brain’s threat response
Making Feedforward a Habit
- A simple 3-step way to give feedforward
- Why a positive focus builds momentum
- Writing and practicing your first feedforward this week
English
Simplified Chinese
Cantonese
English
Simplified Chinese
Cantonese
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