Alisa Cohn: preference

Transcript context

…Feels very reasonable to me. Is there anything else along these lines? I think what I want to say is that the conversations you need to have at work are not just difficult conversations. What I call them is sort of delicate conversations because what I think people also shy away from is just simple praise, specific praise. And I think it's really important to get in the habit of pointing out what your people are doing well as carefully as you need to prepare for pointing out what they need to improve. And sometimes leaders feel like, "Yeah, it's all working. It's all working. I don't have to tell you." Or if I do tell you, it's kind of like "Good job." Right? One time a leader or a manager I was doing in a training program, she said, "I don't like getting positive feedback. I only like getting negative feedback." And I said, "How come?" And she said, "Oh, positive feedback is just like, oh, good job. Negative feedback, you can learn something. You get something from it." So the positive feedback should have the same standard, which is, "I saw the way you ran that launch, it was fantastic. All these different benefits came from it. You're so organized, keep doing that." Or "The way you're keeping your peers in the loop, considering you've only been here three months is extraordinary. I've never seen someone so communicative. It's fantastic. Keep doing that. That's really working for you." If you do that often enough, you do get in the... First of all, it's positive, obviously. You become in the habit of getting better at positive feedback, which is extremely motivating to people at work. It helps them see their progress because that person I just mentioned, she's barely keeping her head above water and she's having trouble fitting in or whatever, but you come around and point out the things that are working. Again, it's very morale boosting. She knows where she stands, and then one day, if you have to give her these difficult messages, you've already sort of laid the reservoir of goodwill. I love giving positive feedback. It's obviously so much easier, but to your point, it's like you have to really think about how to do it well. It's not just a, it's not that easy if you do it well, which is a really good point. And [inaudible 00:37:49] needs scripts for how to give really good positive feedback and have great conversations.…

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