"You are being noticed!" is one of the greatest tool of motivation, which can be practiced by any manager. This is a great tool which helps a lot in motivating and building team spirit.
It gives a significant boost in motivation, if every team members knows that he is being noticed for good and not good stuff. It helps in getting their correct visibility and self visibility. As a manager it is more important to get every one aware of their self visibility. Whereas giving appreciation for good stuff is important, it is also equally important to set the standard of appreciation. Appreciating for each and every thing depreciates its value, at the same time appreciating only for what is not expected or an innovation makes more value. I got a mail on Sunday early morning from one of my ex team member that there is a problem in one of our application and raised by support team. He has also mentioned his finding from logs and sends immediate fix for the same and asked to get its RCA and fix the root cause for the same. It was an amazing experience one manager can get that his ex team member was so much tagged with the project that even after moving from team, he has taken the ownership like he was in the team. I have appreciated his team spirit and sense of ownership and, he has got appreciation from our CEO on the same note. This has effected others in such a way that one another ex team member has offered his help in one of our bug fixing on very next day; and the same guy and his manager has denied to help just couple of days back by saying that they have enough tasks in his new team.
Giving feedback for improvement or anything done not good is equally important than Appreciating good things. Feedback is a great tool for self growth and improvement. Remember people asking for recommendation from their friend or colleague, it is also a medium of feedback. People love to get feedback about their area of improvement, while giving feedback it is important not to dilute the message and also giving feedback with positive note rather than complaining or negative note. One of the way giving feedback for improvement which I like to use, is to coach team member by asking questions. Get the person in a meeting room and tell him about his/her area of improvement by giving specific instances. After that let the other party explain the problem. Then I ask what would be the plan of corrective or improvement action, and in all cases the coachee himself comes with solution as well. And when we come out of the room both of us gets convinced with the problem and the approach to solve it.
Written by Amlesh Sinha
This article was originally published on LinkedIn.