Criticism is good, but praise and appreciation are better! If you come to my yoga classes, you know how much value I put on kindness and praise rather than criticism.
Everybody seems to have nowadays a right to criticize anybody and anything. I argue that we humans improve better if we would receive more praise, and we would feel more appreciated and valued as a human.
If you work in a call centre, you know immediately what I am talking about. You get regularly assessed on the quality of your calls. Those that assess you seem just to tick boxes and even thus you listened to training material about empathy, they themselves are as empathetic as a cold stone. First, I feel they should all sit for at least a month and just take calls themselves before they are allowed to tick anything on their preconceived list and be immersed in the stress a person must endure daily.
A Harvard study shows that showing empathy to the stress your employees are facing is essential to build a positive working environment. As a person who is in power, you have a huge influence in how others are feeling.
So for example, does Harvard Business Review states in Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive by Emma Seppälä and Kim Cameron:
“Moreover, Jane Dutton and her colleagues in the CompassionLab at the University of Michigan suggest that leaders who demonstrate compassion toward employees foster individual and collective resilience in challenging times.” This article goes on further listing qualities of a positive workplace culture, that is caring and being interested in your colleagues' lives and work, providing support, offering kindness and compassion, avoiding blame, and forgiving mistakes, emphasizing the meaningfulness of work (hopefully there is one), and treating each other with respect, gratitude, trust, and integrity.
Totally contrary to this, I have heard people being told things like “imagine you have a raincoat on, and the rain cannot penetrate you” after admitting that they feel stressed with the many complaints and issues customers call about (sometimes because of inefficiency somewhere else and lack of resources). People are sometimes from the first day thrown in and take call after call without sufficient training or training that only covered the basics. They hardly have time to breathe in between, “it’s good that it is busy” they are told without any empathy, that yes, while it is good to be busy, it’s not good to be stressed without adequate support.
Somebody told me about one manager in who looked on purpose for "not so good calls". It’s a kind of lottery and if calls are chosen randomly, you may be assessed on an excellent call or an average one. Often you are forced to listen to the calls again and this in itself is trauma as if it is a call that agitated you, your brain remembers this, and you feel bad, although you may also come to the conclusion “Nah, f. this – I am out of here”, not happy to get moody angry people bothering me day in and out.
This outdated model developed sometime in the past and taken by the CIA and others as a model of how to recruit and assess humans is terrible. Of course, it’s important that a company gives good customer service, but good customer service is easy if the products and services that the company offers are of high quality. It becomes a very stressful job for those that must deal with angry customers and often are forced to read out reactive statements, have very limited decision power, and must act in an obsequious way. Psychologically, I think this model only works for those that are happy to be subservient and don’t possess much of intellect to rebel against it. Anybody who is a free spirit will soon feel demotivated or change to adapt, with long-term consequences that I would say are not good for the general wellbeing of that person.
Most people would consider themselves as a very friendly person (especially if you work in customer service or as a yoga teacher), yet we are all human, it is impossible to be always at your best. We all experience times in which we are excellent and times in which we are tired (and maybe stressed) and/or just average. Of course, there are standards, but I really believe if we would give more praise to our employees, colleagues, friends, and family for the hard work they do, they would be more motivated and happier, especially if the department is understaffed (and many people leave) and the salary is questionable or very basic.
If companies want to retain good humans, they must shift their old-fashioned model to making people feel more appreciated, valued, supported, and respected. Stress-producing bosses are literally bad for our hearts!
As a manager, you can foster this through positive social connections. Many empirical studies confirm that positive social connections at work produce highly desirable results. People will take less time off for sickness, are less depressed, and simply perform better. On the other hand, research has shown that poor social connections and toxic, stress-filled workplaces can lead to poor social connections and shorten life expectancy. As mentioned before, as a manager, show empathy and go out of your way to help. If you are unkind the employees activate areas in the brain that increase avoidance. You might be surprised how loyal your staff will be if you do so. You can encourage employees to talk to you. Trust is one of the most important factors, and employees that feel they can trust their leaders perform better. Fear only leads to negative consequences, so if you tend to do so, you better think twice. So yes kindness and generosity will lead to a positive environment and improve productivity in the long term and reduces your turnover.
If you want to distress, come to my mindful flow and restore on a Wednesday evening at 18:15.
Comments