“You’re a Great Communicator, But is Anybody Listening?”
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
It’s been said by experts many times, “Catch your team doing something RIGHT!” But do you?
This is something that seems so simple to say, and seems like exactly the right way to keep people motivated, but it just doesn’t seem to be all that popular. I’ve even heard a suggestion that we should catch the team doing something right 7 times for every criticism we make. I’m not sure I manage a 1:1 ratio, let alone 7:1.
But what if your supervisor followed this principle? Would you feel better about the choices you made, feel more successful in your duties, and feel motivated to get after it and improve the 1 thing out of 8 that needed improvement? Of course you would—we all would.
Just like many practices for effectively managing people, this is something that requires vigilance and intentionality on your part. It may not be “who you are”, but that doesn’t matter if it’s the right thing to do. Set your ego aside and say to yourself, “I can do better.” Make a point to catch your team doing things RIGHT, instead of always simply looking for things they’re doing wrong.
This shouldn’t just be a mechanism to get people to do what you want, this is how we treat human beings when we genuinely care about them.
If we have good people on the team, they’re not going to storm off the job because you didn’t give them their daily warm-and-fuzzy. But they may quit listening to the constant “constructive criticism”, simply because they’re numb. They can probably finish your sentences for you because you’ve corrected their work hundreds of times. Not that your comments are off-target, but if they’re not heard, are you even getting through?
We all have a different “language” in which we prefer to communicate. Unless you hire clones of yourself, it’s a pretty sure bet that someone, if not most people, on your team may want to communicate differently than you do.
So your simple choice is to keep communicating how YOU prefer and risk being tuned out by your team, or stop and listen to the signals your team is sending. I guarantee that they’ll be loud and clear, if you care enough to listen for them.
