This week, I had the opportunity to learn more about positive feedback, as opposed to last week where I learned more about negative feedback. The two articles I read were Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise? and Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!"
First, Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman. This article is interesting because it delves further into the ratios of positive vs. negative feedback that managers give. I found one thing interesting that managers often decide not to give positive feedback because they want to be seen as the tough boss that tells it as it is; however, many times, people rave about the great boss they have and how they can feel comfortable talking to them when they mess up. It would be interesting to see more employee side surveys where they see which kind of manager employees would rather have, then they compare the efficiencies of the two groups. Alternatively, it would be interesting to see the same idea tested out on children as they might be easier to study.
The second article is more focused on child development, and it is called Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!" by Alfie Kohn. He goes into detail about why such a short response to positive actions can be manipulative and overall short selling ourselves to kids. Two interesting ideas are that it creates praise junkies and that it decreases motivation overall. The idea behind the first one is that children will do tasks only to hear praise. This is interesting because when training dogs, people are told not to give the treat to the dog every time that the dog does the trick or does something correctly, because then they won't understand the intrinsic value of the act, but rather, they will just care about the reward. The other idea is that when we just give basic rewards, children will eventually be less motivated overall because the reward isn't that amazing, and it doesn't mean as much as it used to. The counter idea would be producing feedback that isn't the same every single time, and making a better feedback cycle, thus, incentivizing the work itself, and not the result.
The positive feedback articles were definitely interesting to read, though, as per usual, I always wish there were more studies done within the articles themselves.
First, Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman. This article is interesting because it delves further into the ratios of positive vs. negative feedback that managers give. I found one thing interesting that managers often decide not to give positive feedback because they want to be seen as the tough boss that tells it as it is; however, many times, people rave about the great boss they have and how they can feel comfortable talking to them when they mess up. It would be interesting to see more employee side surveys where they see which kind of manager employees would rather have, then they compare the efficiencies of the two groups. Alternatively, it would be interesting to see the same idea tested out on children as they might be easier to study.
The second article is more focused on child development, and it is called Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!" by Alfie Kohn. He goes into detail about why such a short response to positive actions can be manipulative and overall short selling ourselves to kids. Two interesting ideas are that it creates praise junkies and that it decreases motivation overall. The idea behind the first one is that children will do tasks only to hear praise. This is interesting because when training dogs, people are told not to give the treat to the dog every time that the dog does the trick or does something correctly, because then they won't understand the intrinsic value of the act, but rather, they will just care about the reward. The other idea is that when we just give basic rewards, children will eventually be less motivated overall because the reward isn't that amazing, and it doesn't mean as much as it used to. The counter idea would be producing feedback that isn't the same every single time, and making a better feedback cycle, thus, incentivizing the work itself, and not the result.
The positive feedback articles were definitely interesting to read, though, as per usual, I always wish there were more studies done within the articles themselves.
Drill Sergeants are often known for harsh NEGATIVE feedback, in order to seem "tough". Source: US Army
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