Making The Right Call
I was at a Thunder game recently when a colleague said something that stuck with me. It occurred to him that players were often unhappy with the referees because all the referees ever do is blow their whistle at them for making a mistake of some kind. Basically, the refs only point out when players do the wrong thing.
Contrast that with the coach and the other players. As I watched the game, I noticed the players on the bench and the coach celebrated every time a shot was made. Also, the players on the floor give various kinds of encouragement and recognition, both for good shots and for failures like fouls and missed passes.
Simply put, the ref is not part of the team.
In my various roles as a leader, corporate and personal, I realize, at times, I tend to be a ref instead of a coach. It is an easy trap to fall into. Leaders are responsible for failures in their organizations and communities. Pointing out and correcting mistakes before they become failures makes sense and is necessary.
It becomes a problem when blowing the whistle is all you do.
Leaders should be coaches, not refs. Coaching combines the necessary corrections with a much larger quantity of teaching and encouragement. Research shows the ratio of encouragement to correction should be at least 5:1. According to the Harvard Business Review, the most successful teams average 5.6 positive comments for every negative comment.
Positive reinforcement is significantly more motivating than negative feedback. Blowing the whistle is necessary when someone on the team needs to start or stop something immediately to prevent serious consequences. However, reinforcing what people are doing right will produce more of those behaviors and choke out things you don’t like far more effectively than criticizing will.
Encouraging words are one of the primary ways a leader can demonstrate they care for and respect the people on their team. Positive encouragement should be specific and honest. Saying “Good job!” is not nearly as effective as saying “I really appreciate the diligence you demonstrated in getting us past that problem. Thank you!” Tying specific behaviors to core values or characteristics increases the value of the feedback and creates positive expectations for future behavior.
When it is necessary to blow the whistle, make sure the constructive criticism is specific, actionable, and focused on improvement rather than personal attacks. An easy way to remember the important aspects of healthy correction is to remember we want the people we lead to feel SAFE, so our correction should be:
Specific: We need to provide specific examples AND suggestions for improvement
Actionable: We must give practical steps the person can take to improve
Friendly: We must deliver our correction in a friendly and encouraging manner
Empathetic: We must consider the person’s emotions and self-esteem
Finally, while being encouraging during criticism is important, the concept of the “sandwich method” of putting negative feedback between two positives is often misused. The encouragement surrounding constructive criticism is meant to give actionable steps and communicate your belief in the ability of the person to overcome the problem. Just remember that most of the positive will be overshadowed by the criticism. Make sure you make your five positives stand-alone encouragements and not connected to your one negative.
Great leaders are coaches, not refs. We are part of the team, not above or outside of it. When leaders make the right call and use encouraging words to build their team members into the best versions of themselves, it creates an environment where people thrive and teams succeed the Bison Way.