I like “mind tricks” that help me change my behaviors.
And that is what the notion of feed-forward can do.
Giving and receiving feedback is emotion laden and few of us love participating in the process.
Here’s a little twist that can help give some new energy to the feedback process that focuses on Growth and Change.
Feed-forward consists of providing future-oriented options or solutions.
When coaching nurses, remember, Growth is a motivator. Nurses leave current jobs in pursuit of growth. The most common reason for leaving jobs is finding a place to “go and grow”.
And when doing patient teaching/coaching, positive visuals help motivate. Hearing just the things they have to stop doing, instead of visualizing what good behaviors/options look like, may spark more motivation.
Instead of feedback, where we focus on the past, positive or negative,
Feed-Forward gets us to focus on the future.
Questions and statements like these use feed-forward:
- What information do you need to help in those situations in the future?
- How do you want to handle this situation the next time?
- Tell me how you need to handle this situation next time?
- Here’s what I think those interactions can look like, think of this scenario…..
We are all so YouTube and video oriented…. It’s helpful to paint a picture of the desired scenario or expected scenario…. Give details that give a visual that they can ‘see go by’ in their imagination.
Nurses using their self-awareness, can paint that picture on their own and share the visual with you! And vice versa….
This helps all of us help each other grow our self-awareness and our growth.