One of my pet peeves is the fact most feedback we provide to others about how they are doing is negative.

Social media is a great example of this, while positive reviews of things have a few positive comments typically negative reviews are both more common and more detailed.

My own experience, and many psychological experiments have proven humans first instinct is to provide negative feedback. Positive comments are usually the result of conscious effort, negative feedback flows naturally.

Focus on the Positive

Years ago I discovered my suggestions for behavioural change rarely worked when focusing on things I perceived to be below my expectations or basically in my view, bad.

On the other hand positive comments led to continuous improvement focused on the foundation of things that were perceived to be good.

In short, as an effective leader, I found little point in commenting on the negative or opportunities for improvement. By focusing on the winning behaviour I noticed consistently it not only became more frequent but also more effective.

Motivation

Success motivates us. Focusing on success when providing advice to others intrinsically includes an element of positive motivation. Not so when telling someone they are doing it wrong, usually in this case change is only motivated by consequences.

Consequences may work for a while to motivate change but observation shows this approach is typically not sustainable. The fear of negative impacts slowly fades away.

It may go against your natural instincts but I strongly urge you to give this approach a try. Drop the opportunities for improvement or changes in behaviour you want to and focus on the behaviours that are worked – provide positive feedback EXCLUSIVELY.

I think you will surprised by the results.