howtogivepositivefeedback.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe

You're listening to the MentalNotes podcast. In this edition, MentalNotes founder Scott Dow explains how to give positive feedback.

There's a huge difference between a superficial complement and really effective positive feedback. I'm about to explain that difference and I'm going to share how you can practice giving high impact positive feedback.

Here's what a superficial compliment sounds like. You did a great job, or nice work. I want you to stop and think about the positive feedback that you give. How much of it sounds something like that? When you give a superficial compliment, you're feeding your employee empty calories. There's no nutritional value. You've given them a cookie. It tastes good in the moment, but it won't nourish them in any meaningful way.

Positive feedback is a form of positive reinforcement, and positive reinforcement is meant to reinforce a specific behavior. So to be effective, positive feedback needs to make it more likely that the person will repeat the behavior in the future.

Let's go back to that superficial compliment. You did a great job. Now I want you to ask yourself what's missing. If you said the behavior, you want to reinforce, then you want a cookie.

Here's what effective feedback sounds like. I like the way you set the meeting up. You summarized the key points up front before diving into the data. That made your presentation very easy to follow. Now in about 30 words and one breath, I gave context behavior and the benefit. The context is the meeting. The behavior was summarizing key points up front. And the benefit was making the presentation easy to follow. Now, if you are on the receiving end of this feedback, which would you prefer? The superficial complement or the specific positive feedback?

Which is more likely to reinforce your behavior?

So how do you practice this? Start by writing down the key ingredients. I'm going to review them again. Context, behavior, and benefit. Now a lot of feedback is given virtually through email or messaging. It's not the best way to give feedback, but it's an effective way to practice. You can take your time and craft thoughtful feedback that includes context, behavior, and the benefit. Before long, this technique is going to become second nature, and you'll be easily able to deliver it live.