Balancing Positive & Negative for Greater Return

In a typical year, how often do performance and compensation conversations happen? Most people would likely say once, at the annual review. A growing number of professionals point to quarterly performance review meetings with a compensation discussion disconnected from the review.

But let’s be honest – in most scenarios, these performance/compensation conversations are infrequent and can be fraught with emotion. How many performance review meetings have you been in where the recipient of the review becomes defensive over even a hint of constructive criticism, likely driven by concern that any negative feedback will also negatively affect any potential merit increase?

We all know this, and that’s one reason why employee recognition solutions have stepped in to fill an obvious need for more frequent, timely and specific feedback. Of course, this feedback is positive by nature, and that’s also by intent. Much research shows the importance of increasing the ratio of positive feedback to negative. Look at this piece by best selling author Ken Blanchard in Workforce:

"The factor that made the greatest difference between the most successful and least successful teams was the ratio of positive comments to negative ones. Top-performing teams gave each other more than five positive comments for every criticism, while the lowest-performing teams gave each other three negative comments for every positive one.

"Research by John Gottman, a co-founder of The Gottman Institute who has studied relationships for more than 40 years, also found the 'magic ratio' of interactions to be 5 to 1. When there are five times as many positive interactions as negative, the relationship is likely to be stable.

"The reason why so many additional positive comments are needed for each negative one is important: People are conditioned emotionally to absorb the negative more deeply than the positive."

A 5:1 ratio of positive to negative comments or feedback. If our employees consistently experienced more positive feedback throughout the year, how might that change the performance/compensation discussion? Certainly, the manager giving the performance feedback would have a more complete and detailed assessment to review (and less reliance on memory alone). Ideally, the recipient would also be more open to constructive feedback as well.

And this has real bottom-line impact. Mr. Blanchard also references this research in the article (emphasis mine):

“Gallup Inc. research has concluded that a lack of recognition or praise for doing good work is responsible for a 10 to 20 percent difference in revenue and productivity. What’s more, employees who report that they’re not adequately recognized at work are three times more likely to say they’ll quit in the next year.”

That’s considerable lost revenue and talent, all from an inability or lack of desire to simply say “thank you.”

Think back over the last 6 months, one month, even one week at work. What’s the ratio of positive to constructive feedback you experience? What do you think is the average for the people on your teams or throughout your organization? Now contrast that with expectations of employees around compensation and the conversations you likely hear about deserved merit increases, etc. Do you see a trend?

As Globoforce’s Head of Strategic Consulting, Derek Irvine is an internationally minded management professional with over 20 years of experience helping global companies set a higher ambition for global strategic employee recognition, leading workshops, strategy meetings and industry sessions around the world. His articles on fostering and managing a culture of appreciation through strategic recognition have been published in Businessweek, Workspan and HR Management. Derek splits his time between Dublin, Montreal and Boston. Follow Derek on Twitter at @DerekIrvine.

Comments

[Jay Schuster]

I have always thought that the 'secret sauce' of performance feedback was how accurate the feedback was about concrete performance issues and what the performance feedback 'giver' provided to the person who's performance was to be reviewed could do to improve on any 'negatives' uncovered. The accuracy of the feedback and the 'help' provided seems supported in the research as well.

If the reviewer feels it is important to 'tilt' the feedback to positive, perhaps this could 'muddy up' the accuracy of the coaching experience. Help me with this one somebody.

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

Well, Jay, I expect that giving relatively constant frequent periodic positive feedback would not be counterbalanced by a remedial action plan focused on two or three specific items needing improvement. Praising good stuff doesn't preclude correction of serious negatives. Of course, must beware of the "oreo approach" (a quick thin negative carefully hidden between heavy layers of two positives), lest performers miss the point.

Someone else may have different ideas...

[Jay Schuster]

Thanks, Jim. Looks like the posts are coming down faster and faster.

I am going to 'drop away' and not comment going forward. I can't keep up with the 'mile-a-minute' posting changes.

FAR too old a fart these days. Goodbye.