You don’t have to go to many management or leadership classes to learn that more positive feedback is something that all leaders should be using to motivate their team and encourage them to hit even more ambitious goals.

The number one reason is, when things are busy you don’t tend to take the time to acknowledge the progress or the good things that you see around you. Secondly, many leaders feel that people are just doing their job and that getting paid is more than enough recognition.

It’s disrespectful because some employees give their bare minimum and others really crank it up. If you acknowledge the contributions that people make, it will sustain performance at a higher level. The third reason leaders don’t give enough recognition is that most are so focused on what’s going wrong, they don’t see what’s going right.

I’ve asked training workshop participants, “In a typical day or typical week, how much actually goes according to plan?” They will typically respond with, “Well, maybe only 50-75% is going well.” Now in truth, if only 50 to 60% of things were going well, your company would be broke, insolvent, out of business. Right?

When you look at it, 97% of everything is like going well for a typical company on any given day. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be shipping product to your customers. You wouldn’t even have customers anymore. In one company, their scrap budget percentage was 3%. And they were under budget. That means more than 97% of their product is meeting the customer specifications.

As a leader, you tend to focus on mistakes, but in reality, so much is going well on a typical day. Here is how you can provide more recognition at work: it really boils down to just two simple concepts.

Let’s talk about ‘see it’ for a moment. I led a group through an exercise recently, I said, “In the last year, your team has probably performed better in certain areas than they did the previous year. Where have you made some positive progress in your department? Have you acknowledged that with your team? In the last 48 hours, someone on your team stepped up, did something a little extra, chipped in, or solved a problem. Did you acknowledge that individual for their contribution? Has there been a person on your team who has changed their behavior in a positive way? Has there been somebody that stepped up and helped a co-worker? Or, is there a new person on your team who seems to really be mastering some of the necessary skills, and maybe exceeding your expectations?”

Notice the good things going on around you and then make sure you acknowledge that on an individual and consistent basis.
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These are all fabulous opportunities to provide positive feedback, and people feel good when they receive it. Not only do they feel good towards you as the leader, they even go home feeling good about their work.

The second part is ‘saying’ the