I am not a huge DIY enthusiast nor, as I am the first to admit, am I particularly skilled in it. Yet, as temperatures in the UK soared last week, I took it upon myself to fit new hanging rails and shelving in the wardrobe. What may sound like a simple 15 minute job turned into a full evening of activity with stress levels rising in a direct correlation to the rise in mercury.
Once the new rails and shelving were in place and clothing neatly stored in the wardrobe, I felt quietly satisfied with my work, gave myself a metaphoric pat on the back whilst I sat down to enjoy a well deserved cool drink. It was at this point that my husband returned home. Before I could demonstrate my work, of which I was particularly proud, he asked me why the lights were on in every room, at which point my sense of achievement and satisfaction quickly deflated.
There was of course a valid reason for my husband’s comment. Following the arrival the previous week of an extortionate electricity bill we had made an agreement to do all we could to make energy efficiencies (I could have conserved a lot of energy had I not decided to reconfigure the wardrobes) and all week I had made a conscious effort to turn off all lights, TVs and other electrical equipment in rooms not being used. But as I flitted from room to room, as I fitted the wardrobe rails, I had inadvertently left the lights on in rooms as I left them.
What does all this have to do with the success of an organisation? As we all know, the success of any organisation is dependent on the performance of its people. As managers we all have responsibilities to coach and develop our staff to drive exceptional performance. Whilst I am not suggesting in any way that it is my husband’s role in life to coach my behaviour, nor am I innocent of making similar criticisms of him or others close to me. This incident highlights that we are often bad at positive reinforcement in our personal lives, concentrating on behaviours we don’t want to see rather than encouraging those we would like to continue. The (albeit minor) criticism and focus on the one time where I had left the lights on, after a whole week of making an effort to turn them off, wiped out any sense of achievement at having managed our storage problems and moreover left me disinclined to take the initiative to undertake further home improvements. Translated into the workplace, coaching ‘backwards’ where excellent work goes unrecognised, whilst poor performance or conduct is punished, can lead to a highly disengaged workforce.
Whilst we all seem to demonstrate positive reinforcement instinctively with children, particularly babies and toddlers, clapping and congratulating them when they learn something new or demonstrate positive behaviours, we seem to find it so difficult to positively acknowledge the behaviour of adults in a similar way. I am not advocating breaking out into spontaneous applause in the workplace, but rather that we make efforts to recognise excellent performance, celebrate successes and make employees feel valued for their contributions, using positive reinforcement to develop and encourage positive behaviours rather than coaching ‘backwards’.
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