By Dean B. Wisecarver

In the last issue of Re-marks you heard the true story of Pam, whose history illustrated the tremendous influence a manager’s style has in creating an employee’s attitude. If you missed that issue, browse back to review Shaping Workplace Attitudes- Part One. What follows below in Part Two is a discussion of six fundamental lessons her story offers us, along with some practical steps we as managers can take and use in our every day interactions with those around us at work, steps that can dramatically effect workplace attitudes. And, as you will quickly see, these steps are equally effective at home too! 

1. People build on what they believe they are good at and appreciated for, not what they have been told to fix or correct. 

This is a simple statement. Don’t read more into it then there is. People build on what they believe are their strengths. Part of “building” is correcting or fixing things that could be done better. The more a person believes he/she is already good at his/her job, the more likely it is that he/she will take positive steps to improve in areas that need improvement. Thus, helping a person improve his or her job performance requires the supervisor to give as much or more attention to what the person does well as to what needs to be improved.

In Pam’s case, while she was being constantly criticized for her performance, she never really improved. In fact, she showed no desire to improve and what she did fix she fixed begrudgingly. Once Gene and I started recognizing her for what she did well, she began not only to improve on things we brought to her attention, on her own she began identifying what she needed to improve and took steps to do so.

2. Management almost always gets what it deserves.

I’m a big believer in self-fulfilling prophecies – the Pygmalion effect or the “My Fair Lady” syndrome. If you treat employees as failures, they become failures. If you treat them as quality, productive, successful employees, they become quality, productive, successful employees.

In Pam’s case, we took a young, enthusiastic new employee who wanted to do a good job and in the course of about two weeks turned her into a dour, socially isolated, incompetent employee who couldn’t care less. She was the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy, behaving exactly as she was treated. Our manager got exactly what he deserved. Later, with positive recognition and support, she became a productive, self-assured, self-improving employee that took pride in her work. She lived up to the expectations Gene and I set.

3. If you want people to take pride in their work, you need to give them reason to feel proud.

As a manager and consultant, I’ve often heard other managers say, “These people we hire today don’t seem to take any pride in their work.” To me, this is a big red flag. Managers who offer this lament are usually just standing around waiting for something to happen rather than doing what is necessary to make good things happen. It’s simple. If you want people to take pride in their work, you have to give them lots of kudos for what they do well and right. If you wait around for them to find that pride on their own, you are being seriously naïve and you’ll always be disappointed.

In Pam’s case, Gene and I made certain she knew about the good things she did, so she could take pride in her own accomplishments. Once she felt good about herself and her successes, she was highly motivated to keep getting better because she liked the esteem she’d gained and she didn’t want to blow it. Simply put, she built on what she came to believe she was good at, not on what she had been constantly told to correct, and that’s what made her successful and proud of her work.

4. Feedback to employees should be balanced to reflect reality.

If an employee does 90% of his/her job correctly and well, then 90% of the feedback he/she gets from the supervisor should be positive – kudos, thanks and pats on the back. If 10% could be improved, then 10% of the feedback should be in the form of coaching on how to get better. Providing performance feedback in this way is balanced and it is inherently fair because it reflects what’s really happening. In real life, I find that most supervisors and managers do just the opposite. They tend to focus 90% of their feedback on the 10% of things that could be improved and maybe offer 10% of their feedback on the 90% of things that are done consistently well. It’s no wonder I often hear employees say things like, “Yeah, I had a good day. My supervisor didn’t say anything to me and, believe me, no news is good news.”

In Pam’s case we probably focused a bit more on the positives at first, that’s true. Still, we didn’t ignore the things she needed to improve; we simply put them into perspective by balancing our feedback. As is true with most employees, including the worst performers, Pam was already doing more things well than poorly, so finding things to reinforce and compliment was not difficult.

5. Performing work exactly as expected is cause for celebration, not ambivalence.

When I talk about complimenting, praising, and thanking someone for things done well, I’m not talking about things done above and beyond the normal expectations of the job. I’m talking about recognizing work or tasks done exactly as we want and expect them done.

Life is full of examples. When I was first married, taking the garbage out was an act of love. My bride recognized this and would coo and thank me each time. But, over time, this changed. Years later, I never heard from her until I forgot to take it out. Not surprisingly, it became a chore, a burden to me. Likewise, I guess I inadvertently made normal acts of love like preparing meals a chore and burden for her. To our credit, we’ve worked to reverse our ambivalence and are much more attentive to and outwardly appreciative of the little, normal things we do for each other. We revived our marriage by recognizing anew in each other those little duties as acts of love.

The same thing happens at work. As supervisors, we can become ambivalent about an employee’s efforts to meet expectations and drain from them any enthusiasm for doing normal things well, or we can get into the habit of celebrating normal things done well and allow an employee to take pride in accomplishment. In my opening story about Pam, you may remember this line: “In retrospect, I believe a big part of our success was that Gene and I developed our own little habit of quietly thanking her for all the good work she did. Not work that was exceptional, just work that met our expectations.” Those quiet words of thanks were a simple but very recognizable form of celebrating her success at doing exactly what was expected.

6. As a manager or supervisor, you have tremendous influence over the attitudes of those you supervise.

This statement is the crux of the entire article. Whether you know it or like it, as a manager or supervisor, you have a powerful role in shaping workplace attitudes. You can use this power to help employees become productive and successful or you can ignore it (or abuse it, as Jim did with Pam) to allow poor attitudes.

Good, effective managers I’ve met over the years seem to understand the lessons I’ve outlined above. The people that work for these managers come from varied backgrounds and probably have their own personal faults and problems outside of work. But at work, under this style of management, magic happens. They become outstanding performers. They love to come to work. They tend to be exceptionally loyal and stay even when they could make considerably more money elsewhere. They treat customers with respect and care. They treat each other with respect and care, too, which adds a real sense of teamwork to the entire operation.

As the advertisement asks, “What’s in your wallet?”