They like praise – why can’t they take criticism?

Dear Bob …

I recently got promoted as a middle manager. My workplace has a very high employee turnover. My predecessor was very sweet to the present employees as most of them were in their honeymoon period (new recruits when she was the boss) as a result of which they expect the same kind of treatment from me. Besides, they do have a problem accepting me as I was their colleague until last year.

My immediate boss is very snobbish and encourages me to crack the whip, while she herself loves to play the ‘good guy’.  I often use motivational strategies to boost employee morale and they love that. The problems occur when I point out flaws about their work, or when deadlines are not met. I am totally confused.Why would they not accept me as their critic when they have no problem with me being their cheerleader?

I have spent 7 years in this organization. Each day I dread going back to work. I’m already looking at a change of jobs. Is it time for me to move on?

– New manager

Dear New …

From your description, here’s what I think might be going on: You don’t yet have enough tools in your explain-to-my-employees-how-they’re-doing toolkit. Neither cheerleading nor criticizing is particularly valuable. You have better alternatives.

Cheerleading, by which I think you mean relatively unspecific praise (“You’re a terrific group of people and you’re doing great things!”) is a bit like serving cake icing. It tastes really good, but its primary nutritional impact is to encourage development of adult-onset diabetes.

Criticizing, by which I think you mean pointing out deficiencies, does let employees know their work isn’t what it should be, but without helping them understand what “what it should be” looks like, let alone how to get there. They feel bad without much guidance about what it will take to feel good again.

Here are the alternatives, which might initially seem like the same tactics under different names but are really quite distinct: Offering approval and coaching.

The difference between cheerleading and approval is the difference between generality and specificity. “That’s terrific,” is cheerleading – vague and general. “That was a terrific report. Your evidence was comprehensive, your logic was airtight, and what I especially liked is that your recommendations are entirely practical,” is clear and specific. Employees respond to approval in very positive ways. In particular, since you’re clear about what it is that you approve of, the individual or team it’s directed at knows (a) that it’s sincere, and (b) what they’ll have to do to receive more of it. Meanwhile, everyone else who hears you give it knows that (a) it’s possible to receive your approval; and (b) what they need to do to get some.

An important dimension of approval is that it is isn’t just specific in terms of subject matter – it’s specific in terms of who it’s directed to. You cheerlead the entire group. You provide approval only to those who have earned it.

Now for coaching. The difference between it and criticism is immense. When you criticize, your true intentions don’t matter – what the person criticized will experience is unproductive fault-finding.  When you coach, you first offer more balance – you find and comment on what’s good and valuable along with what needs to be improved. And second, you make clear that your goal is to help employees improve. So:

“I know all of you have been working very hard, and it’s clear we’re making progress. That’s the good news. What concerns me is that too much of our effort goes to what I have to call improvisation – to whatever tasks happen to occur to someone that day, instead of our working to a plan. I’m going to guess that if we did a better job of planning we could cut our workload by ten percent and still move forward faster.”

“My part of this is to work with our business counterparts to improve our governance process, so you spend less time distracted by telephone calls that interrupt important work with priorities that are only high because of who is on the other end of the line. Your part of this is to make sure you’re working to a plan and a design, or following and perfecting well-defined procedures when that’s the right answer. We have to stop making things up as we go along and start working in ways that help us become more efficient at what we do.”

One other coaching technique that’s important for achieving the best results: Help employees coach themselves. “I see a problem and I’d like everyone’s thoughts on what we can do about it,” works much better than, “I see a problem – here’s what we should do about it,” for two reasons.

The first is that it creates a sense of empowerment among employees – the knowledge that the have some influence over their environment. The second is that you’ll end up with better answers.

– Bob