Module 17 – Accentuate the Positive

How did you get on with thinking about positive goal setting? Did your brain feel energized? Well hopefully, you did, and you’ve now started to sense how the brain works, how the brain reacts when it gets something really positive to think about, to get its head around. And how new wiring is created in that energized, positive state.

Now, it’s not just around goal setting that we can find this. It also comes into feedback. Now, most of us get feedback all the time. Whether that’s in a work situation, or whether it’s from life in general. And sadly, most of that is quite negative. We get knocked back continuously. We are very quick to tell people when their performance isn’t up to standard. Just how many times in one year are you told, “You could do more. You could do better. No, no, no, no, that’s not the right way to do things.” We typically will get dozens, or hundreds of times we’re told in one year. That can add up to many hours of negative feedback. And when that happens, and we learned this the other day, is that we simply move to avoid that threat. We simply don’t work as hard; we don’t take the risks. We try and work for another team, another company. We simply look to avoid those threats.

The worst thing in a business situation is we get demotivated staff who aren’t willing to try, not willing to take risks. So, what we need to do is we need to give positive feedback and continuous positive feedback. But we’re not talking here about just simply overloading people with warm, fluffy comments, because they will not see that as genuine. We spoke about the importance of integrity the other day. This is a time for finding the good and reinforcing that. Reinforcing everything that you see which is good, and telling people that it’s good, because what they will do is look to do more of it to get more praise. And remember, that brains get energized, and good behavior becomes hard-wired behavior, and that’s what we want.

So, look for the good, look for the positive, don’t take it for granted that people know what to do. Don’t take it for granted that they know the best way of doing things. And show them that you see the good, acknowledge that positively and continuously at a really genuine way. And it’s just that small reinforcement that’s required, you don’t have to wait ’til some annual awards ceremony, you can do it day in, day out. “Thank you, well done. Brilliant.” Or write a small note, or send an email if you need to, better than in person. But just constant, give people positive feedback, and just watch the results you achieve.

So today, have a go, give somebody some positive feedback, say “well done,” for the smallest thing that is heading your team in the right direction. Have a good day and give somebody some positive feedback. Well done.