From Deficit to Strength: How Feedforward Motivates Employees

Traditional feedback has a fundamental flaw: it looks backward. It focuses on past events and mistakes. Leaders often concentrate on what employees should improve.

While this might motivate some people to try harder, it creates unwanted side effects. Deficits get more attention than strengths, which can threaten self-worth, especially when careers are at stake. Employees become demotivated when they don’t understand or disagree with the assessment. Vague criticism without specific examples causes the most damage.

Feedforward completely flips the approach. Instead of analyzing the past, it focuses on future possibilities. Rather than dissecting mistakes, it builds concrete action plans for upcoming challenges.

Future-oriented, strength-based conversations do something powerful: they activate the brain’s reward system. This boost enhances creativity, improves problem-solving ability, and increases willingness to change.

At its core is a structured conversation called the Feedforward Interview. Through a guided dialogue, managers identify employee strengths and collaboratively develop specific actions that foster personal growth and goal achievement.

Rather than evaluating performance, the manager becomes a conversation partner — asking thoughtful questions, listening actively, and supporting employees to reflect on their most successful work experiences, thereby unlocking future potential.

Feedforward isn’t just for annual reviews. You can also use it for new assignments by setting learning goals upfront. Apply it in daily collaboration to encourage regular reflection. Deploy it before challenging projects to build confidence.

Try this question: Before an important customer meeting:
“Based on your experience with similar customers, which of your strengths will help you in this meeting? How can you use them strategically?”

Feedforward focuses on individual strengths and growth opportunities instead of analyzing past mistakes. In conversations with employees or teams, feedforward reveals its true strengths:

Future-oriented and solution-focused:

The Feedforward approach gives employees a clear roadmap for what to do next, not just what went wrong.

Constructive and inspiring:

Feedforward is constructive because it shows a clear path for improvements while emphasizing a person’s strengths and behaviors necessary for success.

Objective and depersonalized:

Non-threatening discussions focus on future possibilities instead of past failures. Plus, the behavior is detached from the respective person and not judged, which reduces defensiveness.

Strength-based and motivating:

When emphasizing strengths and positive experiences, a person’s motivation and engagement increase.

Performance-enhancing:

People are more capable when they know and use their strengths.

Promoting relationships:

The positive nature of the conversation reinforces leader-employee bonds and fosters their relationship.

Experienced appreciation:

Employees feel valued and respected when their perspectives are considered and their strengths are recognized.

More effective than traditional feedback:

Feedforward is more targeted than traditional feedback because it focuses on actionable steps for improvement.

Feedforward is a powerful and innovative tool for boosting employee performance and satisfaction. It strategically identifies and leverages individual strengths to create development opportunities.

Nevertheless, traditional feedback still has value for learning from mistakes and identifying improvement areas.

The winning combination starts with feedforward to create a positive, constructive foundation for subsequent feedback and thus reduces possible negative effects.

Both approaches are useful and can promote performance and development based on the situation.

What’s your experience? How do you plan to use feedforward in your leadership practice? I would love to hear your thoughts; I’m really excited.

Do you want to use your team’s strengths? Schedule your free call now.