Ken Blanchard has spoken to tens of thousands of people and regularly asks his audiences this question.
“How many of you are just sick and tired of being praised so much?”
No one ever raises their hand!
Of course, Ken gets a huge laugh. No one ever raises their hand. Somewhere someone said every person’s favorite sound is the sound of their own name. Yet we so seldom hear our names connected with celebration or a job well done.
At home and in the office we may get teased, corrected, and questioned publicly but seldom praised.
Praise Publicly
Celebrate, thank, and recognize people in front of others, not in big, grand ways that might even embarrass them but in small ways. Just remember, it’s a micro-action. For example, when we are standing in the workroom at the office with a group of people casually milling about, we can do a micro-action of public praise by saying to one of them across the room, hey, I appreciate how you jumped in on that project last week and the results were outstanding. By doing this we demonstrate we genuinely value what they do.
In the world of business, public praise is a manager’s easiest way to offer positive reinforcement and increase employee engagement by telling someone their values and the company’s are in alignment.
How to get started with positivity in your organization
A couple of years ago, my writing partner, Nicole Phillips, and I turned our passions and interests in kindness toward companies and organizations. We combed through hundreds of suggestions and best practices we have received and developed during our speaking and coaching careers. We settled on 30 micro-actions of kindness any of us can do. These are actions so small they will fit into any busy manager or supervisor’s schedule. Some are self-reflective, some have an instant impact on others and some are just fun. We collected them along with stories and data to support them. Then, we created personal worksheets for each micro-action. We took all of that and put it into an oversized guide and workbook called Workplace Positivity.
Workplace Positivity
Nicole and I devote much of our time to training management teams and leaders to eliminate negativity by personally practicing some of these micro-actions of kindness. These aren’t sleepy mandatory sessions. We bring the vibrant joy that comes with sharing kindness. We have more stories, more insights, and more micro-actions than any company, organization, or team can possibly use.
Every story, insight, and action we share with your team will multiply until you are sharing and overflowing with your own.
Either of us, or both of us, will be happy to work with you to create a customized training and presentation for your weekly staff meeting, quarterly training event, or annual conference. We have presentations from an hour to multiple days.
Now it’s your turn.
In the comments, tell me your #1 takeaway from this post and how you plan to use it in your workplace.
Want more? Click here for a free excerpt from Workplace Positivity with three micro-actions.