Positive Reinforcement a Swimming H.R. Success
Written by: Dr. Michael Weiss
Research shows that if you insult a goldfish, he’ll remember the slight for three seconds. Years ago, someone once told me that my temper ruins everything. I’ve never recovered.
I wish I were more like the goldfish, but I’m not.
Neither are employees. Research shows that if you say 10 positive things and one negative thing during a performance review, the employee will remember the negative comment forever.
Another difference between goldfish and employees is that a goldfish doesn’t care if you think he does a good job of being a goldfish or not. Employees, on the other hand, take pride in their work, desire recognition, and hope to use their talents and skills to make lasting contributions.
According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, nothing can sink this productive, enthusiastic spirit faster than a traditional performance review.
"During formal employee evaluations," the article says, "discussions invariably focus on ’opportunities for improvement,’ even if the overall evaluation is laudatory. Informally, the sting of criticism lasts longer than the balm of praise."This reminds me of another goldfish fact.
In a behavior called listing, a goldfish will hang around sluggishly near the bowl’s surface if he perceives that the water quality is low. It’s a sign to the fish owner that the tank needs cleaned.
Work environments can get stagnant, too. Happy, motivated workers help us deliver quality care, build strong relationships with referral sources, hold down costs and meet our strategic business objectives. Disenchanted employees withhold their bright ideas, insightful observations and selfless dedication. Negative feedback can contribute further to employee unease. Saved-up negative feedback — the kind typically captured on a retrospective annual review — can cause the most damage of all.
To help avoid the H.R. equivalent of goldfish listing in our practice, we’ve decided to shelve traditional evaluations and introduce a new performance management system based in part on positive organizational scholarship (POS).
POS is an established area of behavior research that seeks to explain and predict high performance. Traditional reviews are designed in part to identify, address and correct performance weaknesses. In contrast, a POS-type evaluation focuses solely on enhancing and leveraging employee strengths. The Harvard Business Review describes the effect on companies like this: "By understanding the drivers of positive behavior in the workplace, organizations can rise to new levels of achievement." POS researchers have found that employees respond to positive reinforcement and professional affirmation with creativity, enthusiasm, motivation, confidence, cooperation and loyalty.
In other words, initiating positive reinforcement appears to work sort of like turning on a filter in a fish tank. The stagnation gets sucked away.
For the past eight months, our practice administrator has been conducting an informal experiment in POS. He didn’t do this because our practice was an unpleasant place to work before, but because we recognized that it could be better. Specifically, we sensed that we were underutilizing employee skills and underestimating their ability to perform.
The experiment worked.
Our chief financial officer — now free to do her job without artificial constraints — submitted the most thorough and useful financial reports we’ve ever had. Another manager stepped in to handle some critical operational tasks when a sudden need arose, surprising us all with her knowledge, passion and ability to solve cross-functional problems. Two of our utilization review nurses emerged as excellent leaders, and one of our marketing people proved that she’s a better negotiator of advertising contracts than we ever gave her credit for. We still need to provide corrective feedback on occasion, but the tone of our culture has changed. Employees know that their interactions with us will be consistently different — focused on securing their help to meet common goals, not telling them what they did wrong. I’m pleased to report that turnover is down. Morale is up. Employees are more open, eager and encouraged than ever.
In other words, everything is going swimmingly. Now that we’ve tested the waters, we’re ready to make positive reinforcement the cornerstone of our official performance management tool. We’re not yet sure what form this final POS-based system will take, but we’re fairly certain that our new enlightenment will lead to a better Tri Rivers. This brings up one more point about goldfish.
When they’re happy and content, they play a basketball-like game with rocks. If our practice were a fish tank, I like to think I’d hear dribbling down the hall.
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