I spend a lot of my time delivering workshops to help
managers tackle issues – issues with performance, issues with attendance and
issues with behaviour – and in all those sessions we talk about the importance
of Adult dialogue, of handling issues with positive intent and taking a
balanced approach – often using the analogy of the emotional bank account – there is nothing to withdraw if insufficient investments have been made.
Today I came across the idea again (Gottman) that for people
to feel valued and have a positive relationship with another, they need to have FIVE
times as many positive interactions and statements
as they do negative, and that got me thinking. In my many years of experience
in all sorts of different industry sectors, I believe we are far more likely to
invest time and effort in what might feel negative - finding out what went wrong, who is to blame,
minimising risk, giving critical reviews, correcting errors and general post
mortems - than we ever do on the positive
stuff – acknowledging a job well done, appreciating
effort, rewarding consistency, praising positive performance and generally
letting people know that we appreciate and value them, their time and their
effort.
So why is that? I believe that as human beings so much in
life points us towards the negative – school reports where we ignore the 9 A’s
and ask the child what happened in Maths (only a B for heaven’s sake!) through
to self assessments in the workplace or psychometric tools that encourage us to
notice and develop what is missing, and create development plans to fix it, and
us, rather than celebrate and embrace what
we have.
Next week I am working with a group of construction
managers, a fabulous bunch of hard working, task focussed people who are
employed by a successful business, and we are embarking together on the journey
of discovering “What leadership shadow do you cast?”. I shall be very
deliberately inviting them to consider the emotional bank balance they have
with their teams and encouraging the following ideas:
- Show interest in people – personally and professionally.
- Show care and concern for them.
- LISTEN to what they have to say!
- Encourage their ideas.
- Show appreciation of effort and consistency NOT just results.
- Be accepting of different ideas and ways.
- Give authentic praise.
- Coach don’t tell.
- Encourage initiative.
- Build trust.
The 5:1 ratio carries over into all manner of
human relationships – spouse/partner, parent/child, teacher/student and manager/team
member – and whatever industry we are in and whatever role we do, I don’t think
any of us can deny we really rather enjoy that warm and fuzzy feeling we get
when someone stops and invests ten seconds of their time to say "Thank
you, I really appreciate what you just
did!"
And that's true, even if you are a down to earth construction manager who “Doesn’t do
candles and sandals” ;-)