Using Feedback for Praise

It's really easy to "go negative" with feedback.

When I sit down with clients to review their results, very often I've seen them ignore positive comments, go straight to the criticisms and brood over what respondents didn't like.  In one case, it didn't matter that their campaign score was .7 points shy of perfect; they were concerned and frustrated by the two negative comments in the mix.

For whatever reason (and the reasons could fill tomes), this is part of our nature.  So I think it's something we'll continued talk about over the years with our feedback reviews - how to balance the negative with the positive.

Here's one way to keep your hand on the positive responses:  Look for reasons to reward.

Rewards and praise are great, right?  Everybody loves meaningful praise.  But in order to make it meaningful, you need valuable examples to point to.

Feedback can offer many of those examples.  So try looking at feedback as a pile of evidence of where your team is performing well.

For example, I recently reviewed volunteer feedback with a client.  As we talked, it was easy to focus on their volunteer program and how they could manage their volunteers better.  Yet, their respondents repeatedly mentioned the candor of the staff - their politeness, enthusiasm, consideration, etc.

Yes, there were things that the volunteer program could improve.  But there were also things that staff were doing really well - amazingly well!

A valuable way of using the feedback would be to share these positive examples at the next staff meeting with a, "hey guys - our volunteers love working with you!  Here's what dozens of them had to say!"  As a staff person, that's some praise I'd love to hear.  I'd probably even be more  energized and considerate the next time I interacted with volunteers.

So if you're tending to focus on feedback criticisms, take a moment to look for who you can praise.  Your team will appreciate the morale boost - and you will, too!