The Power of Positive Feedback
“If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought and could be.”
- Goethe (1749-1832)
We have been getting feedback since time immemorial. It’s basically an expectation management process and is a great tool to improve self-awareness. Except for a handful of people, a vast majority of us are our own worst critics. We look for and seek external positive reinforcement. After food, clothing and shelter, a basic human need is to feel valued.
But how much positive feedback does an average person really get?
David Rock, in his book ‘Quiet Leadership’ writes that people get, on average only a couple of minutes of positive feedback each year, versus thousands of hours of negative feedback. He explains the concept of Cognitive Dissonance, which is a state where excessive mental stress and discomfort occurs when one is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas and values. This leads to a person to disregard or ignore feedback that conflicts with self-image. Encouraging introspection and self-reflection during feedback sessions is very critical to overcome this homeostatic tendency.
He also talks about the threat response, also called as the “flight or flight” response. When your brain recognizes a stimulus as leading to negative emotions or experiences, the brain will disengage from the experience, shutting down resources available to the pre-frontal cortex. This can impair your cognitive reasoning leaving you less able to process the feedback and more likely to make mistakes. Accordingly, managers should make people feel safe, valued and appreciated. Give them responsibility and ownership of their actions and judge people on an objective scale.
Why is this learning important? Because the key to transforming performance or embracing change successfully lies in a positive feedback that is reinforced over time.
Psychologist John Gottman, who has been studying the interaction between couples and using that to predict the rate of success or failure in their relationships, classifies all these couples into masters and disasters. He says that says that it takes 5 positive comments to one negative comment for a relationship to work successfully for both partners – and that is what the masters do well over the disasters. I would say that this principle applies to workplace settings too. To improve organizational performance and elevate employee morale and productivity, a positive reinforcement of their contributions and perceived future role in the organization is key.
Positive Psychology, an emerging science in the study of human psychology, establishes that higher positive emotions result in broadening the mind leading to more creativity and better problem solving approaches. And this is not about having a positive attitude; its heartfelt positivity. It opens the mind to more possibilities rather than shutting it down, something that is very crucial for the success of both, individuals and organizations.
Given this backdrop, it is necessary that you do not wait round and simply resign to the negative feedback that is given to you. It is important to seek active feedback by asking the right questions. Questions that focus on what you are doing well and should continue doing.
Keeping a journal will definitely help. When you do something well, make a note. I remember the time when I was making a career transition and job hunting was a nightmare. It was easy to get sucked into negativity with a delayed or no response from a recruiter/ prospective employer. A Career Coach told me to maintain a log of things that I had accomplished every single day rather than obsessing over my to-do list. When I actually started maintaining that list, I was pleasantly surprised that I was actually making progress with each passing day; in terms of networking, getting my resume reviewed, applications, informational interviews, and reading up on industry and trade journals, etc. What really worked here is positive reinforcement.
It is also necessary to surround yourself with positive people. One of my Professors used to tell us that your environment is stronger than your willpower and it will eventually take over. Be cognizant of the people who keep you company and who are influencing you everyday.
On the part of organizations, it is critically important, hence, that they do not put managers in charge of people responsibilities simply because they are technically superior in their areas of responsibility. It is necessary to assess them on the scale of emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. The understanding of human performance science and how individuals respond to feedback should be an important metric when managers are assigned to people development roles.
