Self-Esteem & Feedback: How Would You Handle This Situation? (#1 of 4)
One of the most interesting and challenging things we do at Progressive Success is help people solve their problems. That’s always been a foundation of our training – that we make it real and make it relevant for the participants who are there.
You know there’s nothing more agonizing than spending days in training and walking away with a lot of theory and no pragmatic application.
Some of the cases we see in class are quite difficult and the participants who submit them have really struggled without success to find answers. Sometimes they’ve been struggling for months and have given up hope of ever finding a viable solution.
Here’s a real-life case in point, submitted by one of our participants:
ASKCAL Case #1 of 4: “What would you do if you supervise people who went to school during the age of self-esteem building? They were praised for doing what was expected of them, not just when they exceeded requirements. Now they are being negative because you only praise for above average work, not just for doing what they are paid to do. Should I praise them because that’s what they are used to or just give praise for an outstanding actions?”
How would you handle this situation?
Here’s my solution: I think you should reconsider your thought process. We now live in a culture where employees, if left to their own devices, are not engaged with their work. In fact, many of them are actively disengaged. Employees in today’s workplace are motivated by competition and recognition. Over the last five years, recognition has been the number one motivator. Job security and challenge has moved ahead of praise and that is probably because of the state of the economy. What I’m getting at is that employees want to be recognized when they do work or complete a project. Sometimes just a simple thank you for a job well done will suffice. Many employees would never get any recognition if their supervisor only praised them for outstanding work or work above and beyond while in fact, they are the bread and butter of the organization because they are meeting the requirements. Be careful about withholding praise because they will lose motivation and say forget it if they never get any recognition.
Do you have a different response? If you’d like to share your answer or a related experience, please enter your response in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing what you have to say!
In the meantime, be thinking about how you would handle this next case:
ASKCAL Case #2 of 4:
“What would you do if you had an employee whose personal hygiene is so bad that other employees have complained? How does a supervisor handle this situation without insulting the employee?”
Give it some thought and let’s talk about it! I’ll share my answer to Case 2 next time!
Until then,
Cal