Page 19 - MetalForming June 2013

The Proper Ratio of Recognition to Constructive Criticism
Human Capital
Posted to HR.com by Derek Irvine, vice president, Globoforce
We all know the compliment-criti-
cism sandwich is a bad idea, as it sends employees confusing mixed mes- sages (“Am I doing a good job or not?”). We also all know that constructive crit- icism is important, otherwise how could we improve or know where to focus our self-improvement efforts?
So what is the right ratio of con- structive criticism to praise and recog- nition? It’s certainly not 1:1 or even 2:1. The proper ratio, according to research reported in Harvard Business Review, is nearly 6:1 praise to criticism. The research measured the effectiveness of strategic business-unit leadership teams using the “financial performance, customer satisfaction ratings, and 360- deg. feedback ratings of the team mem- bers.” The leading determining factor between the least-successful teams and the most successful: the ratio of positive comments to negative comments. From the research: “The average ratio for the highest-performing teams was 5.6 (that is, nearly six positive comments for every negative one). The medium-per- formance teams averaged 1.9 (almost twice as many positive comments than negative ones). But the average for the low-performing teams, at 0.36 to 1, was almost three negative comments for every positive one.”
That doesn’t mean negative feed- back doesn’t play an important role. As the article says:
“Negative feedback is important when we’re heading over a cliff to warn us that we’d really better stop doing something horrible or start doing something we’re not doing right away. But even the most well-intentioned criticism can rupture relationships and undermine self-confi- dence and initiative. It can change behav- ior, certainly, but it doesn’t cause people to put forth their best efforts.”
Negative feedback resets direction, but it does not inspire or motivate to greater success. If that’s your goal, then you’d best incorporate positive feed-
back, praise and appreciation into your communications with your team.
“Only positive feedback can moti- vate people to continue doing what they’re doing well,” the article notes, “and do it with more vigor, determina- tion and creativity. Perhaps that’s why we have found with the vast majority of
the leaders in our database, who have no outstanding weaknesses, that pos- itive feedback is what motivates them to continue improvement.”
In other words, how do you keep motivating your top performers who already are great and don’t need cor- rection? Positive feedback. MF
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