Feedforward in Coaching: 7 Steps and 12 Questions
Coachful
Editorial Team
A client has heard plenty about what they should stop doing. How do you help them work out what to do instead, without turning the coaching session into another round of unsolicited advice? Use feedforward to collect a small number of invited suggestions for a behavior the client wants to change, then help them choose one realistic experiment.
The useful shift is from defending yesterday to designing the next attempt. It is not a way to erase yesterday, avoid an apology or make your preferred solution sound client-led. This guide gives coaches a seven-step adaptation of the feedforward exercise, 12 questions, a worked example and a practical follow-through process.
What is feedforward in coaching?
Feedforward in coaching is a future-focused process in which a person invites suggestions for a specific behavior they want to develop. Rather than asking, “What did I do wrong?”, they ask, “What could I try next time?” The suggestions are possibilities to consider, not instructions they must follow.
Marshall Goldsmith describes his FeedForward exercise as an exchange in which participants choose a behavior, ask others for two future-focused suggestions, listen without commenting or judging, and say thank you. In the group version, participants exchange roles and move to other partners. His description separates suggestions about the future from feedback about past events.
The seven steps below are our coaching adaptation, not a verbatim Goldsmith protocol or a validated assessment. They add contracting, contextual checks, client choice and review. Those additions matter when you are responsible for a coaching relationship rather than facilitating a brief conference exercise.
Feedforward vs feedback: choose the job before the method
Feedback supplies information about something observed: “In the meeting, you answered before I finished explaining the risk.” Feedforward offers an idea for a future situation: “At the next meeting, you could ask whether there is anything else to add before you respond.” One helps someone understand an event; the other proposes a possible action.
Neither is automatically kinder or more useful. Vague feedforward can be patronizing, and careful feedback can be generous. “Be more confident next time” is future-focused but gives the client little to work with. “Your opening named the decision and the deadline” is feedback that identifies something worth repeating.
Use feedback when the client needs to understand what happened or compare intention with observed impact. Use feedforward when they have chosen a development focus and want additional possibilities. Address harm, unmet duties or necessary repair directly; a future focus must not make accountability disappear.
If the real question is about a gap between self-perception and other people's observations, the Johari Window exercise may fit better. If you need to name a discrepancy in the session, that is a decision about challenging a coaching client, not necessarily a reason to collect suggestions.
How to use feedforward in coaching: 7 steps
1. Let the client choose one observable behavior
Start with a change the client wants, not a personality trait you think needs correcting. “Become a better leader” is too broad for a useful suggestion exchange. “Leave room for colleagues to finish before I respond in project meetings” gives contributors a recognizable situation.
Ask where that behavior matters and why the client wants to work on it now. A sponsor may have suggested a development area, but the client still needs room to examine and understand the goal. Do not turn someone else's dissatisfaction into a task the client must accept without discussion.
Keep the focus within their influence. They can change how they invite input; they cannot guarantee that every colleague will contribute. If the desired result depends on staffing, authority or access they do not have, explore that constraint before prescribing a better personal habit.
2. Agree whether suggestions would actually help
Ask: “Would fresh ideas be useful here, or do you first want to understand what makes this difficult?” Feedforward is a poor shortcut when the client already knows several possible actions but cannot safely take them. More suggestions can become more noise.
Explain the exercise plainly: the client chooses a behavior, invites a few ideas and decides later what to use. They can stop, decline a contributor or reject an idea. A thank-you is not a promise to comply.
Also distinguish roles. If you offer a suggestion as the coach, label it as a suggestion and ask permission. Do not disguise advice in a leading question such as, “Wouldn't it be better to send an agenda?” You can remain useful without pretending the idea originated with the client.
3. Choose relevant contributors and make a narrow request
Help the client identify someone whose perspective is relevant and whose involvement is appropriate. Goldsmith's exercise can involve people who do not know each other. In an ongoing coaching engagement, a trusted peer with knowledge of the setting may offer more usable suggestions than a large, unfocused audience.
Use a request the client can adapt and send themselves: “I'm practising leaving more room for other people in our project meetings. Would you be willing to offer two things I could try in the next meeting? I'm looking for future suggestions rather than a review of past meetings. It is fine to decline.”
Agree what will be shared with you and whether contributors are comfortable with that. A suggestion does not need to arrive with a dossier about colleagues. Do not promise anonymity in a small team where the wording or circumstances would reveal the person.
4. Receive the ideas without immediately debating them
In Goldsmith's exercise, the recipient listens, takes notes and says thank you without evaluating the suggestions. The point is to receive ideas rather than argue each one into submission. Anyone who has watched a helpful suggestion become a ten-minute defense of the current approach will recognize the pattern.
Explain that receiving and deciding are separate moments. The client does not need to say “great idea” to preserve the contributor's feelings, nor do they need to explain immediately why something will not work. They can consider the suggestions privately afterward.
For your coaching adaptation, agree in advance whether brief factual clarification is allowed. Asking what a term means can be useful, but it differs from the original no-comment exchange. If input becomes demeaning, coercive or unsafe, stop the interaction. An exercise rule is not a reason to tolerate mistreatment.
5. Help the client sort possibilities, not rank contributors
After the exchange, ask what stands out and what does not fit. Separate a useful principle from the exact action proposed. “Pause before answering” may be relevant even if the suggested five-second silence would feel awkward in that particular conversation.
Consider context, effort, risk and alignment with the client's purpose. A suggestion to confront a manager publicly might carry consequences the contributor does not face. “It sounded positive” is not enough to make an idea appropriate.
The client can adapt, combine or reject ideas. If they reject all of them, explore what that tells them about the problem or the request. Do not interpret rejection as resistance simply because the group or coach invested time in giving advice.
6. Turn one idea into a small, testable action
Choose an upcoming situation, an action within the client's control and something they want to learn. For example: “In Tuesday's meeting, I will let the speaker finish and ask whether there is more to add before offering my view.” That is more usable than “I will listen better from now on.”
Agree what evidence could inform the review. The client might notice whether they interrupted, what happened after the pause and how the conversation developed. With consent, they could ask a colleague for one specific observation. They do not need a satisfaction survey or a score for every interaction.
Make the experiment small enough to stop or adjust. If trying the action would expose the client to significant risk, choose a safer setting, rehearse it first or decide that a behavioral experiment is not the right next step.
7. Review what happened and decide what to keep
Return to the client's question, not your enthusiasm for the method. Ask what they tried, what they observed and what they learned. A colleague's disagreement does not automatically mean the experiment failed; agreement does not prove it worked.
Distinguish carrying out the action from achieving a broader result. Someone may pause successfully and discover that the meeting format still prevents useful discussion. That is information about the system, not evidence that the client needs to try harder.
Close with a decision: keep, adapt, repeat in a different setting or stop. If the client chooses another experiment, agree it explicitly rather than leaving an indefinite assignment hanging over the next session.
12 feedforward coaching questions
These are questions for the coach to use around the suggestion exchange. They are not twelve questions to fire at a contributor, and they do not all belong in one session. Choose the question that helps the client make the next decision.
- What would you like to do differently in a specific upcoming situation? Move from a broad identity goal to a recognizable behavior.
- Why does this change matter to you? Check that the focus serves the client, not just someone else's preference.
- What is already working that you want to preserve? Avoid replacing an entire approach when only one part needs attention.
- Would new suggestions help, or do we need to understand a constraint first? Do not collect advice to solve a problem you have not clarified.
- Whose ideas would be relevant and safe to invite? Consider knowledge, trust and power, not just availability.
- What two future-focused suggestions would you like to ask them for? Keep the request narrow enough to answer usefully.
- What, if anything, would you need to clarify before considering these ideas? Separate missing information from immediate defense.
- Which idea fits your situation, and which does not? Make rejecting an unsuitable suggestion ordinary.
- How would you adapt that suggestion so it feels workable? Preserve client judgment rather than demand literal compliance.
- Where could you try it once without taking an unnecessary risk? Choose a proportionate experiment.
- What will you notice that could help us evaluate the attempt? Name observable information rather than a guaranteed outcome.
- What will tell you to keep, change or stop this approach? Give the review an actual decision to make.
A worked feedforward example for coaches
This example is hypothetical. An executive coaching client, Daniel, wants to contribute to project meetings without cutting people off. He already recognizes the pattern and does not need the coach to persuade him that it exists. He wants practical alternatives to silently reminding himself to stop interrupting.
The coach helps Daniel narrow the request to the weekly project meeting. He invites a trusted peer to offer two suggestions. The peer suggests keeping a short note of his question while someone speaks, and asking “Is there anything else you want to add?” before responding.
Daniel thanks the peer without deciding on the spot. In coaching, he says that taking notes could make him look distracted, but the second suggestion feels natural. He chooses to try it once in Tuesday's meeting and pay attention to whether the speaker actually has more to say.
At review, the coach asks what happened rather than whether Daniel has become a better listener. Perhaps the speaker adds important context; perhaps they simply say no. Either way, Daniel can examine the action and response, then decide whether to keep it. This example illustrates a process, not a predicted result.
How to adapt the exercise for a coaching group
Explain the purpose before pairing people. Each participant chooses a development behavior, asks for future suggestions, listens and thanks the partner. Partners then exchange roles. Keep contributions brief enough that one person does not turn the exchange into a miniature consultancy session.
Goldsmith describes a group exercise lasting roughly 10 to 15 minutes. Treat that as his format, not a required duration for your group. Allow time to explain boundaries and debrief; the fastest exchange is not necessarily the most useful one.
Offer a genuine option to pass, observe or choose a low-stakes topic. Do not ask people to disclose a sensitive weakness in front of their manager. Avoid pairing choices that make refusal difficult, and do not report individual suggestions as evidence of performance or coachability.
Debrief the process, not private content: “What helped you receive an idea?” and “How did you decide what to use?” Let participants keep their chosen action private unless sharing was explicitly agreed. A cheerful room does not establish that everyone felt free to participate.
When feedforward is the wrong tool
Do not offer it as a replacement for addressing a serious complaint, harassment, a safety issue or an overdue apology. “Let's focus on the future” can sound like “Please stop mentioning what happened.” A coach needs to recognize when facts, repair, specialist support or formal procedures matter more than another exercise.
Also pause when a client wants space to think rather than advice, when contributors have a conflict of interest, or when the suggested action requires knowledge outside your competence. Future-focused wording does not make financial, legal or clinical advice safe for an unqualified person to give.
If the client has already received too much input, fewer voices may help more than another round. Ask what they believe and what information is genuinely missing. Feedforward is one option for generating possibilities, not a requirement for every development goal.
Keep follow-through light and connected to the client
Record the chosen behavior, the experiment, what the client wants to notice and the agreed review point. You usually do not need to retain every suggestion or identify every contributor. Keep information consistent with your confidentiality agreement and normal record-handling practices.
Coachful's client-management view illustrates keeping ongoing work connected to the relevant coaching relationship. It is not a feedforward scoring tool. Use your agreed record process for the experiment, and do not infer insight, readiness or commitment from a dashboard indicator.
For a repeatable action, the client might choose a simple habit prompt, such as pausing before their first response in a recurring meeting. Tracking should serve their learning. A missed entry may mean they forgot the entry, not that they ignored the behavior.
Coachful's habit view shows named habits and progress entries. It can illustrate a lightweight way to revisit a chosen practice, but completion is not proof that another person felt heard. Keep the qualitative review in the coaching conversation.
Frequently asked questions
Is feedforward just giving advice?
The suggestions are a form of advice or input, so be honest about that. What makes the exercise different from unsolicited advice is the recipient's chosen focus, invitation and freedom to decide. The coach can facilitate that process without becoming the source of every solution.
Can you use feedforward in one-to-one coaching?
Yes, as an explicitly agreed adaptation. The client may invite suggestions from someone between sessions, or ask the coach for an idea within the coach's competence. Explain when you are departing from Goldsmith's reciprocal group format, and preserve time for the client's own thinking.
Does feedforward eliminate the need for feedback?
No. You may need observations about past behavior to understand the issue or evaluate an experiment. Keep the purposes distinct: feedback helps examine what happened, while feedforward supplies ideas for what might happen next. Neither should be used to avoid a difficult responsibility.
What if the client does not use any suggestions?
Explore their reasoning without demanding a defense. The ideas may not fit, the request may have been too broad or the original goal may need reconsidering. Receiving input is not an agreement to implement it. Help the client identify the decision they actually want to make.
Make the next conversation an experiment
Choose one behavior, invite a few relevant ideas, separate receiving from deciding, and review one small attempt. That is enough to make feedforward useful without turning coaching into a suggestion factory. The client remains responsible for their choice, and you remain responsible for how you facilitate it.
If your next practical decision is how to support the chosen behavior between sessions, explore the client-management and habit views before adding real client information. Try the interactive demo to assess whether that follow-through fits your practice. The software can support the experiment; it cannot decide which suggestion is right.
Visual note: the cover and two supporting photographs are AI-generated editorial illustrations, not actual client sessions. Product images show Coachful demo views. Four original diagrams explain the process; all essential guidance is also provided in live text.
