All My Marbles

Does everyone need recognition for doing a good job? Or do some people just have an intrinsic feeling that they did a good job, even if no one tells them they did? We had an interesting discussion about that in the Leadership Class that I am teaching.

An article titled, Giving a High Performer Feedback, said that managers tend to focus on giving low performing employees the most attention just leaving well enough alone with the high performers. Actually, the high performers need to be told they are doing a good job, challenged with constructive feedback and given “stretch” goals to work toward.

If a manager has a difficult time remembering to give compliments on a job well done, I encourage them to use marbles to remind themselves. I suggest they start out with a few marbles in their left pocket. Each time they give someone an encouraging word, move a marble to the right pocket. The point is to have a full right pocket at the end of the day.

One homework assignment was called Stop, Start and Continue. First, a manager should tell an employee what they do well to continue doing. Second, they are told about behaviors that are distracting or unproductive that they should stop doing. Last, they suggest to the employee what they would like them to start doing. Almost all of the students were nervous about doing this at work with their employees. The students said that most of their team thanked them for giving them feedback because they were anxious to improve.

Today’s gift was to give kudos to Eric who spoke to us about energy efficiency where we live at the Running Y Ranch. After his presentation, my neighbors mentioned to him that I was a professional speaker. When I told him he did a great job, he asked if I would email his boss and tell him. Eric explained that when someone sends an email, it gets forwarded to everyone in the company and is read aloud at the next meeting. He smiled and said, “That would mean so much to me.” Though my right pocket was not full of marbles, I felt as though I had complimented someone who really needed the encouragement.

In Giving,

Robin