'Feedback' Is Now Too Harsh. The New Word Is Feedforward.

Jennifer Solomon-Baum, a former Microsoft marketing director who left early this year, says she understands why the company chose to rethink its approach to feedback, which she feels may have made employees more open to giving feedback. "Feedback conversations, as they commonly exist today, activate a social-threat response in the brain interfering with the ability to think clearly, and raising heart rates", says Theresa Adams, senior HR knowledge adviser at human-resources trade association SHRM. Many companies, executive coaches and HR professionals are looking to erase the anxiety-inducing word from the corporate lexicon, and some are urging it be replaced by what they see as a gentler, more constructive word: "feedforward.". [Extracted from the article]