The Magic of Honest Encouragement
Reinforcing Feedback as a tool for building competence, motivation, purpose & culture
In a nutshell: Reinforcing feedback is positive, honest, specific.
Reinforcing feedback can serve as a mirror for competence, fuel for motivation, milestones for progress and nourishment for positive culture.
Reinforcing feedback and constructive criticism can co-exist and can both be valued at the same time.
This month I have 100 blog subscribers. 100 people decided that they would like to have my posts reach them in their inboxes.
Now some might say 100 subscribers is so small that it’s kind of embarrassing for me to celebrate it. But, as trivial as 100 sounds in today’s world with millions of views, it is so encouraging.
This is all the reinforcing feedback I need to stay motivated and consistent in my endeavour to capture and share my learning.
And this prompted my post about honest encouragement or ‘reinforcing feedback’… used widely by teachers and one that I have borrowed from Responsive Classroom.
Some parts of this post may seem obvious. They are. But I still chose to write it anyway hoping it may make a few more people resist the tendency to only make the time to provide feedback when they have a complaint 🙂.
Feedback
Feedback is essential for improvement and growth. For individuals and organizations.
We strive to get lots of feedback. Often. We ask:
What didn’t work? What can we do better next time?
Sometimes, in our race to perfection, we forget to ask:
What is working? Why is it working?
For this post, I want to focus on the power of this subset of feedback - ‘Reinforcing Feedback’. The feedback that answers the questions - What is working? Why is it working? What should we keep doing?
What is ‘Reinforcing Feedback’?
Positive
Reinforcing feedback is feedback about what is working. As the name suggests its purpose is to use feedback to reinforce their understanding of what works.
Honest
It should always be Genuine/ Sincere
(not exaggerated or dishonest)
Helpful i.e. specific
And is helpful
When it is specific i.e. includes details
(not a vague ‘pat on the back’)
Reinforcing positive feedback and critical feedback for improvement are not mutually exclusive. Positive feedback must be bolstered by a healthy channel for direct and constructive feedback on performance and improvement.
When I talk about the importance of reinforcing feedback at work, people often assume that it means we can’t be honest and transparent. No. Or that we are just being too soft, promoting fragility. No.
Ray Dalio (I love his principles), the reputed founder of Bridgewater associates, often credits the success of his company to a culture of ‘radical transparency’ and ‘idea meritocracy’. It is important to recognize that neither of these ideas are in cultural conflict with a culture that values reinforcing positive feedback (that is honest ofcourse). Both can co-exist in a single organizational culture.
WHY IT MATTERS
From my experience Reinforcing feedback can work its magic in many ways:
1. Mirror for Competence
Feedback on what is working can help individuals (students and team members) build competence.
It is obvious that corrective feedback is useful for improvement, but we often forget that telling someone whats working can be helpful. It helps them understand what they should continue doing.
During our teacher PD sessions we often say ‘Stop telling students only what they should not do, tell students what they should do too’.
I have experienced this first hand, from two of my previous bosses (School Principals). My first Principal made it a point to share positive feedback about my teaching, when it came to her from parents. Parents shared positive feedback related to trust, approachability and humor that I was unaware of as a teacher. Hearing this helped me do these things more consciously in my classroom. My second Principal, emphatically pointed out some leadership strengths to me, which made me see school leadership as a possible pathway. I hadn’t considered it before.
This is also why it is so important for reinforcing feedback to be truthful and specific. Through it we are sending feedback to people about their areas of strength or competence, and dishonest feedback can mislead people about their current abilities and what they should be working on. In the long run it is more harmful than helpful.
Also, vague feedback like ‘Good work’ isn’t very useful for building competence. Detailed feedback that helps the person identify - what action/work was helpful or why their work helped - this will help them build competence.
Use reinforcing feedback as a mirror, that makes strengths and competence visible to individuals and teams.
2. Fuel for Motivation
Reinforcing feedback serves as a powerful motivator. When individuals receive positive feedback, they are encouraged to continue their good work. This type of feedback can reignite passion and enthusiasm for their tasks, leading to increased productivity and job satisfaction.
In a check-in with one of my school leaders last month, she started the meeting off by telling me about how 3 of her team members navigated a challenge by collaborating exceptionally well. Usually, it is most natural that all the worst problems fill our check-in space, because those are the ones around which consultation/ mentoring is important and most needed. We did get to this problem-solving part, but she invested the first two 2 minutes in reinforcing feedback - that our teacher development efforts were having an impact on team collaboration. This simple positive feedback was so energizing for me!
Never use encouragement at the cost of honesty. Authenticity in feedback ensures that motivation is built on a solid foundation. Insincere praise or positive feedback is short-sighted manipulation that undermines trust and relationships in the long term.
Use honest encouragement as fuel to motivate, feedback that energizes individuals and teams.
3. Milestones for Progress
Reinforcing feedback can also be used as milestones, marking progress towards a goal. Often individuals or teams work on big goals that take a long time to be realized. Reinforcing feedback about progress can serve as markers of progress towards big goals. This feedback makes progress tangible and helps sustain motivation while working towards them.
In our school, we often remind ourselves that we are running a marathon, not a sprint. Ambitious dreams (like digital transformation in education, promoting inclusion and schools as learning organizations) will take years to be fully realized. Reinforcing feedback can look like a presentation that highlights positive progress reviews (we review OKRs), data and comments. When shared with contributing teams, it energizes and sustains the drive towards goals and larger purpose.
I’ll say this again here… valuing reinforcing feedback doesn’t imply that we avoid negative feedback that can be used constructively to improve or for accountability. Both can be valued and co-exist in organizations.
Use reinforcing feedback to make progress tangible and sustain motivation in teams and individuals, especially while working on bigger goals.
4. Nourishment for Positive Culture
Finally, reinforcing feedback serves as nourishment for a positive culture. When teams and organizations make it a habit to honestly share ‘what is working well’ in addition to ‘what is not working’, a safe, positive environment is created for collaboration. Team members build the skill of noticing good work and not just problems. New team members learn that both are important. In this environment, trust and interpersonal relationships are strengthened. This lays a strong foundation, especially when individuals and teams collaborate towards achieving challenging goals.
I feel proud that I see this culture in our organization today. There are many small things that have led to this, but I will share two here.
First, is the way all our feedback forms are designed. We ask key stakeholders for feedback on literally everything. Most often this happens through a google form. On every feedback form, we first ask ‘what worked/ what did you like about ….’, and then we ask ‘What didn't work/ what can be improved’ and ‘Do you have any suggestions’. This intentional design helps key stakeholders pause and think about positives before we think about what didn’t/ suggestions (something that all humans tend to do more easily).
Second, we embed this into our meeting culture. About once a month our team of about 280 teachers meets online for a ‘Whole School Meet’ - where we share best practices across our teams. We start the meeting with 5 mins of ‘Hurrah’ time. During this time everyone can send a ‘recognition’ to any other person on the team via our online HR system to recognise their positive contributions. I get notified when my direct reports receive or send a recognition, and I get a flood of emails in my inbox. It is an energizing burst of positivity that fills my heart!
Of course, Positive Reinforcement will only be nourishment for culture if it is honest and authentic.
For all of these great win-wins listed above, may you and I make the time in our busy days to share honest encouragement with our children, partners, parents, friends, colleagues and bosses!