How to praise employees so that the whole team works more efficiently

The psychological state of the team determines a lot. Including its performance. Business consultant and entrepreneur Keith Ferrazzi believes praise is one of the best leadership tools. Appropriate compliments can be very useful.

The author talks about this and many other things in the book “Never Govern Alone and Other Rules of Modern Leadership”. It was published in Russian by the MIF publishing house. With his permission, Lifehacker publishes an excerpt from the sixth chapter.

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1. Praise people personally in real time

When you notice that someone on your team is doing something well and right - big or small - celebrate it. Any praise is better than none. And whenever possible, try to link it to a specific action or behavior. If you see that a colleague is doing something right, immediately admit it and be sure to describe to him what pleasant feelings this caused you.

For example, when Shannon from my office sends me an email quoting my comments from our recent phone call, I let her know that I appreciate it very much. I tell her, “Shannon, when you do this, I have every reason to believe that we will certainly contain the situation. And I am very grateful to you for that. Thanks a lot".

Jalen, Head of Human Resources at one of the largest startups in Silicon Valley, relies on that kind of immediate positive feedback in just about everything it does. According to him, this leads to the consolidation of positive behavior. “People often don’t realize what they are good at,” he explains. “If we don’t directly tell them where and what they excel at, how will they know to keep going like this?”

One day at the end of an informal meeting of his team, I saw Jalen ask for the attention of those present and, taking advantage of the moment, praised the manager who conducted event (he was a few levels below Jalen), for the way he took feedback, provided it and asked questions in a very energetic exchange ideas. “I think we should all take note of that,” he said. “This is how we need to deal with situations like this in the future, when we need to make the most of the discussion and get the boldest answers to the questions before us.”

2. Remember the "platinum rule"

That is, treat others the way they would like to be treated. Remember that public praise is great, but not everyone is comfortable receiving it in public. Try to study your teammates and celebrate them in the way you see them most want.

When a person, thanks to praise, feels that his efforts are noticed and his merits are recognized, this, as a rule, gives him strength and increases efficiency. But in almost every workplace, there are introverts who are painfully embarrassed when someone loudly announces their achievements at a general meeting. Be as attentive and delicate as possible; they may be more likely to appreciate a handwritten note of praise or a thank you email.

If you praise a person in the most comfortable way for him, he understands that you really appreciate him for who he is, with all his features.

In some cases, it is more correct to praise privately. For example, sometimes I call the parents of employees and thank them for raising such a wonderful person. One day, I called the father of an employee named Frank and left a message on his voice mail telling him what a great year Frank had had and how proud he should be of his son. Well, many years later, Frank confessed to me that his father didn't delete that message on the answering machine in his car for the rest of his life.

3. Don't be afraid to praise imperfection

Our teams will never get better if we don't give their members the opportunity to see a ray of light in which they can go in hard, dark times. It is when your team is on a particularly difficult mission or going through a difficult period that you need to praise people even when they productivity falls short of ideal, and the results are up to optimal. It's like telling them, "Guys, I know you're going through hell right now, but you have to keep moving forward." Recognition and praise serve in such a situation as fuel that maintains the strength of people, helping them to act in a difficult period.

For several months, I worked with Marty, the CEO, who had long been considering firing Jasmine, his head of strategy. Marty felt that Jasmine did not pay enough attention to his needs and was too slow to respond to changes in the market. He wanted to get clear answers to his questions as quickly as possible, and Jasmine preferred to collect as much data as possible about the situation on the market before drawing any conclusions.

Many colleagues, including myself, have tried to convey to Marty the idea that Jasmine actually serves as a very effective counterbalance to his own rather reckless style. leadership. In some cases, it was Jasmine's deep analysis that prevented Marty from making serious mistakes that could adversely affect the company's profits. But Marty stubbornly refused to recognize her merits.

I end up with some irritation He said to him: “Stop this torture already! Either start acknowledging and celebrating Jasmine's victories and give her a chance to change your mind about her, or let her go." I wanted Marty to understand that by behaving in this way with a colleague, he was simply indulging his selfish need to be always right about everything.

If he sincerely wanted to improve the work of an employee, he needed to start praising her when she did everything right.

And Marty agreed to the experiment. Instead of criticizing what he didn't like, he began to acknowledge Jasmine's actions and decisions that he considered beneficial to the company's mission. He began to praise her for the slightest improvement, even where he was still dissatisfied with her. I was extremely pleased to see how one day after one meeting, Marty went out of his way to compliment Jasmine for her strong intuition And for the fact that she trusts her. But it took Marty a long time to realize that refusing to praise a colleague whose work you are not very happy with only leads to worse results.

By and large, recognition of other people's achievements costs us almost nothing, despite the fact that it contributes to the exponential return on the involvement, productivity and motivation of people. It is also a great chance to strengthen bonds of loyalty and trust.

4. Celebrate the momentum of victory

By recognizing even the smallest victories of people, we show them the way to great and sustainable achievements. The importance of celebrating the momentum of victory is illustrated by the example of General Motors.

At first, the company was able to generate initial enthusiasm (and a lot) of employees through the program "Trusted Advisor", celebrating small co-elevation wins at each dealership, step by step. Then, as "trusted advisors" and dealers began exchange ideas and copy each other's best practices, their results continued to improve. Essentially, the company used the contagion effect to ensure that the Trusted Advisor model would grow into a GM-wide movement.

And if this program were launched immediately across the country as a ready-made solution launched from headquarters, its results would most likely be more ambiguous and vague. In this case, a small initial group of fifty dealerships that implemented the program on the first stage, would hardly have enjoyed the scrutiny they needed to become true laboratories for innovation. And without the momentum of small victories, the initiative could very well have ended before the best practices had any chance of being noticed, developed, and celebrated.

Frankly, before I did not believe in small victories. I reserved the praise solely for "big wins" such as acquiring a mega-customer, or raising the value of a company's stock, or the publication of an important study in the Harvard Business Review, or the inclusion of a book on the New York bestseller list times. But such big wins don't happen every day.

If you celebrate only achievements of this magnitude, it will be very difficult for you to keep the team spirit at a high level.

Today, I recognize that big victories are the result of many small victories accumulated, and each of them deserves praise and celebration. Realizing this for the rest of my life put in my hands a new very effective arsenal. tools to improve productivity.

Today, I see firsthand how focusing on what a team is doing well and doing the right thing exponentially increases its productivity. Of course, we are still identifying and fixing problems, it's just that this is not our only goal now. If you consistently and sincerely honor people for doing something right, you just don't you may not see that they are much more enthusiastic about correcting what they have not done enough so far OK.

5. Create a brand for yourself as a person who recognizes the merits of others

My friend Roy is a successful biotechnologist and entrepreneur, and I consider him my mentor in terms of manage emotions. I have never heard him speak badly of anyone or criticize anyone. Everything Roy says always sounds positive and filled with kindness and concern for people.

When introducing people to each other, Roy always praises them. I heard him call me with my own ears "a brilliant inventor of behavioral engineering that is revolutionizing the world's largest companies and one of the best people who can change your life." Overkill, to put it mildly.

This approach confuses me a little, but Roy does this with everyone. Such is his personal brand - a man with an unbreakable habit of praising people in every way. And this makes him the one with whom people really, really like to be around. They trust him without the slightest doubt, although his enthusiasm sometimes leads to obvious exaggerations akin to the above.

I'm trying to emulate Roy's style by working on my own brand - a person who always recognizes the merit of others. It's embarrassing to admit, but in the FG workplace, it's very hard for me to remember to turn off the engine and stay focused on making sure we do more for the sake of our mission, as well as knocking out the critic in our head, who is always evaluating what has not yet been done as well as it could be, and where else we fall short before ideal.

I must say that these difficulties are largely due to my upbringing. From early childhood, my parents instilled in me the desire to succeed in everything and constantly improve; they really wanted my life to be better than theirs. They pushed me so hard because they wanted so much more for me than they had. As a result, I learned to be very strict with myself every time I did not see obvious signs of success. I was terribly worried that I would disappoint my parents, that I would not live up to their expectations.

As a result of this childhood experience, I developed psychological attitudes that faithfully served in the early stages, but which I have to get rid of by any means now that I have become leader. I take the mission of our company very seriously, so I tend to focus on mistakesboth their own and those of others. I see how people can improve themselves and their work and the areas in which they can grow, and until recently I have always communicated this directly to them. And if someone took my advice, but did not adapt as quickly as I expected, I also made it clear. And in each such case, I sincerely believed that my criticism was extremely useful for them, but I have to admit that my frankness was not always perceived as such.

Criticism is only half the task of coaching. The other half is the celebration of victories.

When you honor teammates in public, your personal brand becomes a brand of a person who exalts himself with others. And this brand serves the interests of a common mission, as it effectively convinces people to join you in fulfilling it.

Try sending out a complimentary text to five team members who have recently done something truly meaningful with you, whether it's a short-term project or a long-term goal. Write to them that you just remembered them, and suddenly you really want them to know how much you are grateful to them for the partnership. But don't overdo it. Be as sincere as possible. And stay realistic. Describe how you really feel and see how they react.

6. Don't be afraid to take an unreasonable position

Some people need us to believe in their abilities more than they are willing or able to believe in themselves. We need to protect those who, for some reason, cannot defend themselves. A friend of mine calls this an "unreasonable position" towards another person.

Coaching a team to change the behavior of its members is often difficult. Most people don't believe at all that a person can change, let alone truly transform. They admit that they can still somehow affect a very small group, but huge groups, hundreds, thousands? For nothing in the world! They simply do not see a way to change the values, principles and relationships that have long and firmly shaped them. corporate culture.

The unwarranted position I take on such occasions is to remind people that they are by no means new to change and transformation. And I encourage them to remember what successful change initiatives they have been involved in before. In response, older employees often talk about the famous quality movement of the 1980s. called Six Sigma or more recent security transformation standards labor. They admit that these changes seemed unrealistic at first, and talk about how they have affected their work and how, after years of hard work and effort, they have become the new normal. Sometimes I remind people of the laws about smoking: Thirty years ago, everyone smoked on trains, in aircraft cabins, in restaurants and at work. Few could have foreseen then how much we would be able to change this tradition.

I often ask top managers to talk about the most successful team they have been fortunate enough to be part of in their entire career. “What behavioral models were used in the team? What was the biggest challenge you faced and what was the hardest to break? What have you done to overcome this? Questions like these make people remember their own experiences. resilience and perseverance. They remember everything that it took them then to win. Perhaps it meant collaborating with someone they didn't get along with, taking quick, unexpected turns in the most unpredictable directions, or taking the team into uncharted territory.

For those who do not believe in the ability of people to change - yes, in fact, all of us - it is necessary to recognize that we already overcame past hardships, honor past accomplishments with an eye to what we can achieve in further.

Take your past victories and project them into the future. Their recognition and honoring often opens the door to great opportunities. And then bring the spirit of hope to your team members. Celebrate their accomplishments and successes, especially when they feel overwhelmed and frustrated. This way you will not only increase their efficiency in the short term, but also help them feel more motivated and ready to accept the next big challenge, which now may seem unrealistic to them.

This is how I once convinced Liam, a former FG colleague, to join a project with a few new clients. Liam led a reorganization project for our largest client and successfully completed it, after which the word about him spread throughout the industry. But this big work was already coming to an end, and Liam refused the following tasks. He told me that after his success with a large client, he realized how risky it was to juggle multiple clients at once, especially from industries he didn't know. He kept asking me, “What if they fail? Will I be fired?" I urged him to take this really big step, but he didn't feel strong enough.

If I had just assigned Liam to a project with a few new clients back then and done nothing else, I think he would have been doomed to fail because of his attitude. And I wanted him to immediately plunge into a new role and, starting this work, feel a surge of energy and great enthusiasm. “Everything you need is within reach,” I assured him. “We just need to take a step forward.”

The only way I could get Liam to be as efficient and sincere as possible was to take position, which he considered completely unfounded, and to help him connect his past successes with what he wanted to achieve in the future.

After three joint dinners and many exhortations and appeals, Liam nevertheless agreed to a new task. And he did it excellently. He supervised the work of several teams teaching FG methods and tactics in a number of large sales organizations and helped them increase sales by billions of dollars.

It is believed that hope, which is defined as “the belief that everything can be better and that it is in your power to do it,” may have toO.C. Tanner Learning Group White Paper, "Performance: Accelerated" up to 14 percent productivity in the workplace.

You cannot give a person a better gift than hope.

Helping people to look at themselves and their abilities with fresh eyes, you remind them that they are ready to face any difficulties and with the right attitude they can do anything.

7. Don't forget gratitude

I noticed that if you look, there is always something to celebrate. And in particularly difficult times, or whenever you feel like you don't have much to celebrate, try turning to gratitude. Develop the habit of asking yourself, “What am I grateful for today? What do I value in my teammates? clients, at work? Pay attention to what you are grateful for: it always improves your mood.

Research showL. firestone. The Healing Power of Gratitude: The Many Ways Being Grateful Benefits Us / Psychology Todaythat the benefits of gratitude go far beyond our conception of it, starting with greater happiness and improving health and relationships with others, and ending with increased vigilance, determination and self-esteem dignity.

Moreover, by expressing gratitude, you extend all of its amazing benefits to others.

It is very easy to do this - for example, write a short thank you letter: “Thank you for your prompt response to my letters. For most people, this takes hours, if not days. You make me feel like I really mean something." And there is nothing easier than to remember with gratitude the favor done to you: “Something just reminded me of the day you [fill in the blank]. It was so kind of you. I will never forget it."

It was the expression of gratitude that helped me better understand what I value most in teammates, even those with whom I often have problems. disagreements. I realized how much I appreciate their ability to listen without judgment, loyalty, respectful disagreement when we we see things differently, the ability to cheer me up and help me look more optimistically and more confidently into the future. I am also immensely grateful to those who are willing to challenge my ideas and hold me accountable for my decisions and actions.

Trust me, problems and complaints about things going wrong will always find a way to get your attention. But if you make an effort to take your mind off them for even a minute and write a few thank you letters, you will surely feel more inspired and just a little more energetic and self-confident, which will help you much more courageously rush into battle with the next difficult situation.

8. Celebrate mistakes and failures

My friend Philippe continues his ritual by sending daily words of encouragement to colleagues and clients, because transformation work is always extremely difficult and far from the most fun. But praise colleagues for achievements and celebrating their successes is not enough - one must also praise and celebrate their mistakes and even outright failures.

"Celebrate failure, not just success" saidLessons from Coca-Cola’s CEO – Celebrate failure, not just success / HULT in a 2018 speech by former Coca-Cola CEO and CEO Mukhtar Kent. — If today I could do something differently in all 36 years of my career, I would create an atmosphere in which mistakes are made, since we all learn so much from them. We usually lack the courage to take the right amount of risk, and risk is essential to success. We don't make enough mistakes."

Risk taking and innovation are key to transformation. But some experts estimate that up to 90 percent of innovation projects fail. “One of my jobs as an Amazon leader is to encourage people to be brave,” saidInterview: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos / Business Insider in 2014 by CEO Jeff Bezos. “[But] getting a person to make bold bets is incredibly difficult… [If] you are going to make a bold bet, you always settle for an experiment. And if you're experimenting, you can't know in advance whether an idea will work or not. Experiments by their very nature are often doomed to failure. But a few big successes more than make up for dozens and dozens of failures.”

AND Bezos sets an example for people by celebrating the failures of his company. “At Amazon.com, I made billions of dollars of mistakes, literally billions,” He speaksInterview: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos / Business Insider is he. - But it does not matter. But what really matters is that companies that refuse to experiment and fail even the slightest, in ultimately find themselves in a desperate situation, and they can only recite "Ave Maria" as a sign of the death of their corporate existence."

Even very successful innovations benefit from failures and mistakes made during their implementation.

For example, the world's best-selling general-purpose technical aerosol, WD-40, is so named because the first 39 attempts by inventors sufferedOur History / WD-40 Company crash. Given that the celebration of failure is embodied in the very name of the company and its product, it is obvious that this is the basis of the entire corporate culture of WD-40.

“When something goes wrong in our WD-40, we don’t call it errors,” they sayLearning and Teaching / WD-40 Company company employees. We call these learning moments. We welcome the opportunity to openly discuss, learn, correct and grow from our learning moments and share this knowledge with others to avoid future moments.”

Whether you lead a team, own a business, or just want to learn more about leadership techniques, Never Manage Alone is for you. Keith Ferrazzi analyzes modern management models in detail and gives a lot of practical advice.

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