Remember when praising was considered a good thing? No more. It’s become almost fashionable these days to think that praise is bad.
It’s bad for toddlers. It’s bad for older children. Maybe even children of any age. And is it bad for employees? If you listen to some experts, it’s almost certainly terrible for them. In fact, employees should beware of bosses who praise them.
But a new study from Harvard Business School suggests that — at least in regard to employees — we have it all wrong.
Telling your employees that they are doing a good job might lead to them having less stress, higher creativity and better problem solving skills.
Perhaps the anti-praise movement arose as a backlash to excessive concern for developing “self-esteem” in children. Many feel that the result of instilling lots of self-esteem is not entirely healthy, especially when it is not supported by actual accomplishments. There is a long tradition of thought holding that self-esteem ought to be balanced, if not governed, by humility.
The promptings to humility that derive from the Protestant work ethic are deeply ingrained in the American psyche. The Book of Proverbs says, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” And folk wisdom encourages us not to make much of our deeds so that we don’t succumb to the vice of excessive pride. Think of all the famous literary characters who were undone, or nearly undone, by hubris — Oedipus, Macbeth and Mr. Darcy come quickly to mind, to name just a few.
In polite society we generally resist the urge to seek praise. We tend to prefer moderately modest people to those who cannot help tooting their own horns.
And at work, where judgments are based on success at doing our job well, employees and supervisors often have to convey that success with overtones of humility. The annual review traditionally contains some praise for work that has been completed well, but its more serious part, both for supervisors and employees, is pointing out flaws and offering critical suggestions for improvement.
But Dr. Jooa Julia Lee, one of the co-authors of the Harvard study, says that this is actually not the best way to do it. In trying to discover the effect on employees of being told that they have done something wonderful, the study (which included two lab experiments and a field experiment in a global consulting firm) found that when people were reminded of their best work, as if they were hearing their own eulogies, they had more creativity and less stress. “In our study, we implemented a tool that is called ‘reflected best self exercise,’ which was originally developed by the University of Michigan scholars,” emails Lee, who is a postdoctoral fellow at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “This narrative-based exercise allows employees to learn about their positive impact and contribution to others through the eyes of their social network (family, friends, colleagues, etc). Our study found that activating one’s best self concepts via reflections (which was done as part of corporate onboarding) can predict better performance outcomes and reduced emotional exhaustion and turnover, one year after the onboarding.”
In the study, participants visited the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory and were asked to solve problems. Approximately half of the participants were told to ask friends and family members to send them an email just prior to their participation that described a time when the participant was at his or her best. Overwhelmingly, those who read positive statements about their past actions were more creative in their approach, more successful at problem-solving and less stressed out than their counterparts. For instance, participants had three minutes to complete Duncker’s candle problem. Fifty-one percent who had read emails prior to the task were able to successfully complete it; only 19% of those who did not receive “best-self activation” emails were able to solve it. Those who received praise were also significantly less stressed than the control group.
If results like these seem worth striving for, here are a few suggestions for trying to increase “best-self activation” in your workplace:
Focus annual evaluations on strengths rather than weaknesses.Plenty of research shows that the customary evaluations are actually detrimental to a company’s overall health. “I think most corporate performance evaluations (e.g., 360 degree surveys) tend to focus on identifying weaknesses rather than celebrating strengths, because people tend to focus on limitations and blind spots,” Lee says. “Plus, studies have found that existing performance evaluation tools failed to foster learning and personal development but rather became punitive to employees, increasing a perception of threat and vulnerability.” On Forbes.com, Daniel Kleinman suggests employers take an idea from the new Harvard study: “Perhaps by using best-self activation in a performance review, a manager and an employee can generate more success than attainable via the traditional review style.”
Promote a culture of commendation. Ask your employees to get in the habit of telling each other when they think they’ve done a good job.
Incorporate a comment box. Persuade your employees to anonymously drop notes into the box sharing moments when they saw another employee doing something extraordinary — even if what was done was not related directly to work. Share some of these stories at regular meetings.
Encourage employees to keep growing, provide plenty of opportunities for them to succeed and let them know they are doing well in these areas. Set up training programs and lunchtime learning activities. Urge your employees to attend college classes.
Spontaneously tell your employees they are doing a great job. Email a quick message to them, stop by their desk with a few kind words or invite them into your office for a quick boost. “My hunch is that good leaders should inspire and empower,” Lee says, “rather than managing based on fear and anxiety (which would be the case if leaders focus on criticism too much).”
Any of these suggestions can help to alleviate a problem that, I’m afraid, cannot be completely solved. The hierarchical nature of our companies makes it almost impossible for the people in them to see one another in purely human terms. Many employees see supervisors as threats because of the power they hold. And many supervisors see employees as underlings whose value is contingent on the amount and quality of the work they get done. Neither attitude is conducive to treating others with the respect and dignity to which they are entitled as free and independent human beings.
Source: Forbes, 1 November 2015