105: Embracing a “Feed-Forward” Mentality | Bill Auxier - a podcast by Nikki Lewallen

Bill Auxier is the President and CEO of Dynamic Leadership Academy where he specializes in executive coaching, specifically in the healthcare industry. 

In this episode, Bill breaks down the method called team stakeholder-centered executive coaching, and discusses the power of personal assessments and feedback.

To learn more about Bill and team stakeholder-centered executive coaching, you can tune into his podcast Rural Health Leadership Radio at rhlradio.com or visit his website at billauxier.com 

Truth You Can Act On 

 

1. Focus on One Thing to Make a Difference

 

Supporting Quote

Bill Auxier: “For the executive team, they felt like they needed to become better communicators, but one of their big picture objectives was improving employee engagement. So working with them, identifying a goal, a team goal around communication, and then working on that with each of the senior leadership team members, as well as a group. Each person created their own individual goal that contributed to the team goal, and through that stakeholder centered coaching process, we measure the results of their growth in their behavioral change and their growth and communication.”

 

2. Pivot Feedback to Feed-Forward

 

Supporting Quote

Bill Auxier: “Feedback is important to me because I can learn from it, but I can't change anything, whereas feed forward is a suggestion on how I can improve in the future. We can't change the past. We can learn from the past, but we're all striving to perform better in the future. And that's why we want to emphasize feed forward because to a certain extent, we got to let go of the past. The past is behind us. We learn from it, yes, but we need to let go of the past. Then in that moment live in the present and then work towards the future. And that's what feed forward is all about.”

 

3. Change Your Behavior

 

Supporting Quote

Bill Auxier: “If I told you that I was wanting to become a better listener, because I think I need to be a better listener, and I think it would make a big impact on our ability to work together. So occasionally I'd like to ask you for some feedback and feed forward. I can read all kinds of books, I can Google how to be a better listener. I can read all these articles. I can be doing all these trick things in my brain to be a better listener, but if I never asked you if I'm being a better listener, how am I going to know if I'm being a better listener? I can learn from that. I'm constantly asking you for feedback and feed forward, so after a while, you're going to say, ‘Hey, I guess they are taking this seriously, and he really does want to become a better listener.’ And then when I implement an idea that you suggested to me, you're actually going to notice it because you suggested it to me...And so not only am I changing my behavior, you're noticing how my behavior is changing because we're always talking about, and so that's how you can change behavior and the perception of that behavior simultaneously.

 

4. Say “Thank You” After Feedback

 

Supporting Quote

Bill Auxier: “When you ask someone for feedback, after someone tells you, you can only respond with two words, sometimes three words, but those two words are ‘Thank you’, or you could include their, their name, ‘Thank you, Nikki.’ The reasoning behind that is, has anyone ever asked you for feedback about something, you give them feedback and then they tell you why you’re wrong? Does that encourage you to give that person more feedback? No, because they didn't really want feedback. They want you to agree with whatever they did. So if you're going to ask for feedback, and if you're going to build trust, and if you're gonna encourage others to do this again, when you ask for feedback or when you ask for feeds forward, after you listen to what they say, you don't interrupt them. You let them tell you what they're going to tell you. You can only respond with two or three words. ‘Thank you’, or “Thank you, NAME.’ That's it.”

Book Recommendations

• Triggers by Mark Reiter and Marshall Goldsmith
• What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

Further episodes of Gut + Science

Further podcasts by Nikki Lewallen

Website of Nikki Lewallen