Idea 39: Giving feedback to reinforce and motivate
Feedback on progress (or even a relative lack of it) helps with motivation, either to spur people on, or to concentrate the mind on what still needs to be done.
Feedback is not given at all or sometimes not often enough, and people claim that's for these reasons:
- ‘People don't need to be told how they are doing, they already know.’
- ‘People take it easy if you say things are going well.’
- ‘They are unhappy and cause trouble if you say things are not going well.’
- ‘We lack the skills or the time to do it.’
And when you do give feedback, it needs to be the right kind. Feedback that is affirmative – praise – must be:
- Accurate.
- Sincere.
- Generous.
- Spontaneous.
- Fair.
Then it becomes true that, as the proverb says, ‘Our praises are our wages’.
In contrast, praise must not be:
- Too much or too fulsome.
- Patronizing.
- Superior/condescending.
- Grudging.
- Calculated for effect.
- Unjustly bestowed.
Maintaining motivation depends on combining the act of informing with being inspiring. The rule is always to establish the truth first, before you attempt to encourage or inspire.
Be sparing in praise and more so in blame.
As industrialist Andrew Carnegie said to one of his plant bosses:
Don't tell me that the man is doing good work, tell me what good work he is doing.