Positive Feedback Is Your Most Underrated Tool
When’s the last time you thanked someone on your team?
If you think feedback is only about pointing out what’s going wrong, your team isn’t going to trust that you see what they are doing right and ultimately, that you want them to succeed. Criticism has it’s place but if you want to have a good relationship start by focusing on what is working. Positive feedback is far more important than you realize, especially for high performers.
There is actually a quantifiable ratio of positive to negative feedback required to sustain healthy relationships.
5:1
“This means that for every negative interaction during conflict, a stable and happy marriage has five (or more) positive interactions….Outside of conflict discussions, successful couples had an even higher positive-to-negative ratio—20:1”
While the Gottmans study romantic relationships, I think this applies to all kinds of relationships, especially those at work.
As a leader, have you been pointing out what your team is doing right? Mentioning what you like about an article they wrote or meeting they ran? Have you told them that you appreciate their work?
That’s what builds trust. Trust enough to accept when the critical feedback comes in. Trust that when conflict arises, it’s because you care personally and challenge directly ala Radical Candor.
This can be difficult when things get hectic. When I get stressed, it’s usually the first thing to fall to the wayside. So, I track it.
How often have I pointed out when someone is doing something well?
This can look lik:
Asking follow-up questions about an idea they had to show I’m listening.
Comments about what I like in documents they shared.
Messaging them about what I liked in a presentation they just gave.
Talking in 1:1s about what’s going well.
All of these end up in a list that I have for each of my team members. I’m not aiming for an exact ratio. But if that list starts to tip in a negative direction, then I need to check in with myself.
If it’s out of balance, am I in the right headspace? Brene Brown has a nice guide for checking in with yourself before going into a feedback conversation. (The Engaged Feedback Checklist) She pulls in the same ideas from the Gottmans’ research.
“I’m ready to acknowledge what you do well instead of picking apart your mistakes.”
“I can genuinely thank someone for their efforts rather than criticize them for their failings.”
“I recognize your strengths and how you can use them to address your challenge”
I used this exact check-in to help me recognize when a person I thought was a low performer on my team was actually just a mismatch for the role. Once the engineer moved from a product development team to a platform team where the end users were other engineers, they started to thrive.
So for the next week, track how often you acknowledge your team’s good work? And challenge yourself to recognize the strengths of your team members.
And maybe check-in with yourself. Have you been giving yourself enough credit?
References:
Tell Me How I’m Doing: A fable about the importance of giving feedback
