How to Motivate through Positive Feedback
In my last post, I talked about why giving positive feedback is a crucial leadership skill. You can read it here: The Power of Positive Feedback.
Positive feedback should never be seen as just an ‘oh, by the way’ or something you save for performance reviews and staff birthday parties. It’s an essential skill that helps employees understand in a more specific way how to succeed at their job. In this post, I want to share some thoughts about how you can craft positive feedback in such a way that it becomes an important part of your influence as a leader.
Never forget how crucial your voice is in shaping your employee’s perception of their work and even themselves in the context of the work environment. It’s easy to underestimate the power you have and yet understanding this is the first step for anyone in leadership. (Here’s a related post: Growing Into Your Authority)
First, just do it
The first rule is that there is no rule…just do it. Don’t overthink it. When you see something good…point it out. It doesn’t matter (that much) if it’s within your employee’s job description or not, do it anyway. Beyond this, however, there’s a very simple formula that I find to be especially effective:
Connect specific employee action to positive organizational impact
It’s a simple concept but let me illustrate:
“Susan, great job on the new weekly report format. I can get to the relevant information without sorting through the whole thing. Thank you.” (…you’ve saved me both time and mental energy)
“Carlos, your phone skills with customers are excellent…you always sound patient and attentive, even with the tough ones. I know this impacts our reputation in the community.” (…we look good because of you)
“Karina, that new process you created for accounting is a real time-saver. It should cut in half the work needed to get payments out.” (…which will save us money and make our customers happy)
“Roger, I appreciate you calling out the mistake we made. I know it means we have to go back and fix it, but in the end, we’ll have a safer installation.” (…and safety matters here)
“Jasmine, I really appreciate your attitude during this reorganization. You’ve had a positive impact on the others, and it’s helped them to get through it.” (…reorgs suck no matter what and your influence has made things much easier)
“Tuan, you rock! The way you handled that software upgrade debacle really set a high bar for how this team needs to work together moving forward. They needed that.” (…and without you they’d likely kill each other)
The logic here is simple
First, you send the signal that you’re paying attention and notice the good things your employees are doing…even the small things. This is so very important and yet something we easily look past when we get into management (often because we now have so many bigger things to worry about).
Second, a significant part of employee morale is knowing they are helping the organization succeed. This is a powerful motivation that a manager shouldn’t leave untapped. Let your employees know they are important to fulfilling the mission and that you appreciate that.
Third, by being specific, you’ve identified something an employee can repeat. Saying that “I’m a nice guy” or that “I do a good job” is great but it can leave me wondering what exactly you mean…and I can’t repeat that.
Build positive feedback into your weekly routine
Intentional, planned positive feedback should be built into your leadership routine. This means you’ll want to give it the same forethought and attention as other items you want to discuss or communicate. Don’t let one-on-ones with employees, team meetings, or even impromptu water cooler conversations pass without your authority being felt in this way. While it’s possible to overdo positive feedback, this probably isn’t a fault most of us will develop.
Also, keep in mind that positive feedback goes upstream as well down so don’t hesitate to share with your peers and even your own supervisor. This builds trust and, frankly, it’s a great way to gently “manage” those over which you have no organizational authority. Remember, whatever you affirm will likely get repeated…even from your boss (just make sure it’s sincere and without strings attached, otherwise, you might come across as manipulative).
Three precautions…
First, if you haven’t established the habit of positive feedback already, be slow to begin when you need to give corrective feedback. The is the so-called “Oreo” model…positive-negative-positive. The problem is, every employee hearing this knows the positive part is simply for effect and isn’t what you really care about. When you give positive feedback employees need to know you mean it and that it stands on its own.
Second, if you have an enthusiastic, talkative, and gregarious personality (like me) you ooze high energy and positive vibes…all the time. But this doesn’t mean that you actually care about people since it’s just what you reflexively do (in behavior styles lingo, this person is called a Promoter). When this energy becomes unfocused and lacks discipline, it can easily come across as insincere and people will have a hard time believing you. On the other hand, be intentional with what you say and you’ll have a genuine impact.
Finally, don’t let giving habitual positive feedback fool you into thinking that you can’t now give corrective feedback when you need to. I’ve had a few managers say they’ve felt this way. Your goal in affirming employees is not to create a happy club where no one hears the hard truths. You can still do both. In fact, rounding out your feedback culture to include the positive actually gains you credibility and trust, and this will always serve you well when you need to have a difficult conversation.
One final thought
A surprising side-effect of giving sincere positive feedback when you have authority over another person is that it can create a sense of intimacy. Remember what I said in the previous post: as human beings, we all wonder at some level if we’re valued and if our lives make a positive contribution to the world in which we live. It’s a fundamental question of our existence, really.
Some of us show up to the workplace with this question lurking just below the surface. When someone goes out of their way to affirm that, yes, we do have value, it can hit us in a way we may not expect.
In fact, one of the reasons I believe managers might resist looking at an employee directly and affirming both their person and the work they do is that we can feel this intimacy…and this can be intimidating in its own right. Grow past this and do it anyway. It’s one of the great privileges of leading others.