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Feedback is an opportunity for managers to open a dialogue with employees around performance expectations and individual development. Yet, feedback is often met with negative reactions despite the nature of the feedback itself (Kluger and DeNisi, 1996; London and Smither, 2002). In order to mitigate negative responses, researchers have advised that feedback be timely, behaviorally focused and task specific (DeNisi and Pritchard, 2006). Still, there is immense variability in its effectiveness (Gregory and Levy, 2015; Kluger and DeNisi, 1996).
Today, feedback can come from many sources (e.g. supervisors, subordinates, customers, peers), however, the bulk of the responsibility for developing employees remains with direct supervisors. For this reason, this paper focuses on feedback provided by managers or supervisors to their direct reports or subordinates. Managers often avoid giving feedback and subordinates resist receiving it (Gregory and Levy, 2015). Feedback should not damage the subordinate/supervisor relationship and instead should be an opportunity to improve manager/subordinate communication as a precursor to improvement in performance. Research has demonstrated that leader behavior has the potential to affect how subordinates respond to negative feedback (Young et al., 2017). Still, there is a lack of guidance on how supervisors should deliver feedback as a way to enhance relationship quality and improve performance outcomes (Kluger and DeNisi, 1996; Reilly and Aronson, 2009; Scullen et al., 2000).
As a response to these shortcomings, Kluger and Nir (2010) proposed a new psychological intervention for managing employee performance: feedforward interview (FFI). The FFI is based on appreciative inquiry where the underlying principle is that a focus on one’s strengths rather than one’s weaknesses can lead to personal improvement (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987). The FFI encourages managers and subordinates to focus on the future, rather than the past, during performance interviews. Drawing on principles rooted in positive psychology, the FFI is an intentional activity that builds an individual’s capacity through structured interviewing techniques (Meyers et al., 2013; Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Seligman et al., 2005).
Research on the FFI in organizational settings is in its early stages, however, studies have found the FFI to increase performance-related outcomes. In a case study, Bouskila-Yam and Kluger (2011) found that the FFI improved interpersonal relationships among supervisor-subordinate dyads in a firm in Israel. In a field...