Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
“You need to do better.” “This isn’t good enough.” “Why hasn’t this been done?”
“We are lagging in our KPI’s.” “We must deliver better results.” “Come on team, we’re not up to speed.”
These are the cries of some leaders and supervisors seeking improvement.
They’re taking a pathological approach to improvement and wondering why it’s incremental and variable.
We only hear from them when things aren’t going well.
They are trying to get improvement by focusing on what’s broken or needs fixing.
That’s the force of a pathological approach.
Then there are leaders and supervisors who discover what’s working well and acknowledge their people, naturally stimulating the desire to do even better.
They are using the power of appreciation.
They get transformational improvement, consistent engagement and loyalty.
And when things don’t go that well, they ask with credibility, “You do so well with ‘X’, how would you apply that to this situation?
It’s a whole different ball game and so simple to deploy.
One of the biggest complaints in the workforce is “I only get criticism, never compliments”
Being appreciated is a key human driver of higher performance – provided it’s genuine and consistent.
Deliberately seek what’s working well, acknowledge it, because it’s there, and the response you get will be a desire to receive more compliments, by us putting in the effort.
What’s your ratio of giving criticism versus compliments?
By the way…power always beats force.
It’s important to know the difference.
