Carrots and Sticks

Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash

 I hear many employers complain about the "everybody gets a trophy" mindset of "young people today." Our younger employees (and really, the Millennials many complain about are not that young anymore) want many of the same things we do, they are just more willing to ask for it. Everyone wants to be recognized for doing a good job.

Some of you have probably heard the expression, "The absence of pain is its own reward." In other words, if no one is yelling at you, life is good. You have probably also heard, "What gets measured, gets done." The stick aligns with the first statement. The stick tells an employee the minimum bar. If I go below this, I'll get yelled at. So the goal is to stay above that line. However, the stick doesn't tell me what you really want, just what you don't want.

This brings us to the carrot. We tend to think of the carrot as money, but the carrot is recognition. Yes, money can be a carrot, but truthfully, it isn't the most effective carrot over the long term. The carrot is feedback to show what gets measured, gets done. In other words, I know what you want, so I can give it to you. Carrots allow us to raise performance, not just get it to exceed the minimum required.

We Boomers may have grown up in the era of the stick, but we liked the carrots too and we worked at our best for those who served them to us. Some methods are more effective than others, especially if you are trying to change behaviors or raise performance to higher levels. You need to tell people exactly what they did that you are pleased with and why it's important. If I know what you are happy about, I will likely repeat that behavior again.

Regular servings of carrots will get you more than regular beatings with sticks.

The Feedback Sandwich--No

Photo by Victoria Shes on Unsplash

Yesterday, I was again in a training event where I was told how great the feedback sandwich is. For those who don't know what a feedback sandwich is, it is a method used to address performance issues with employees that ostensibly saves their feelings and helps performance. Basically, you tell the person something they are doing well, then tell them the thing you would like to see them do better, then end with something they are doing well.

Although there are times when the feedback sandwich may be a useful tool, over time I have become convinced it is a tool for a lazy supervisor.

Look at the hotdogs on the left. I am not a hot dog fan. I don't eat them often, but when I do, I load them up with a lot of other ingredients (more than you see here) so I don't taste the hotdog. That's really what happens with a feedback sandwich. The good things surrounding the area for improvement, which is usually why we are having the conversation to start with, cover up the "meat" of the feedback. Consequently, our employee doesn't get the true flavor of the sandwich.

But you say, "The sandwich helps keep a person from feeling bad and ensures they know I see all of the good things they are doing as well as the bad." In truth, if you have a person that has a lot of angst over negative feedback, they will generally ferret out the negative, regardless of how small, and fret over it anyway. Most other people will focus on the first and last and treat the middle as a minor issue if they hear it at all.

We all want our people to perform at an optimum level. We all want our employees to be motivated. And no one likes to be an ogre. So how do we give feedback correctly?

First, we work hard to create feedback culture. Much of the reason people freak out over negative feedback is because they don't get much feedback at all. The feedback we give them isn't done correctly.

I don't want to make this post too long so I will not go into details on how to deliver feedback; I'll just say we need to give a lot more of it, most of it positive. We look at feedback as a negative thing. Instead, as leaders we should look at feedback as a critical leadership tool. A person cannot improve without feedback. Failing to give frequent feedback, both good and bad, is cheating our employees. We are holding them back from reaching their potential.

Regular, honest feedback, good and bad, helps people grow and to perform better. The more feedback people get, the more they look at feedback as part of the work culture and expect it. If feedback is done properly, it doesn't feel like a personal attack, it feels helpful, because it is.

Don't Ask The Question If You Don't Want to Deal With the Answer

I'm a consultant. Business owners come to me for advice. They don't always like the answer I give them. But it's their company--they don't have to use that advice. And that's OK. I reserve the right to do the same in my own company.

This happens to me when doing audits as well. When a company asks me to do any type of an audit, I always ask, are you sure you want to know? Because if you know something is not right, you have an obligation to fix it. If you are going to ignore what you find, then don't audit. You can at least plead ignorance. But once you know, it's hard to convince a government agency you were operating in good faith.

I was meeting with a group of people today to discuss employee engagement surveys. One of the people asked, "So, what if a company does the survey, and they fail?" Well, first, taking a survey and getting a poor result is not failure....if you use the information you get to make improvements. Companies only fail if they ignore the answers they get.

It's the same with employee satisfaction or engagement surveys. If you ask employees for their feedback, you can't ignore it. If you do, the employees figure you were just pretending to care what they think and the result is a further decrease in satisfaction and/or engagement. When you take these surveys, there are going to be negative responses. It's a given. No one and no company is perfect. However, you do need to go back to the employees and say, "Okay, here's what you liked and what you didn't. These are the specific issues we are going to tackle in the near term because they seemed to be the biggest concerns." Then get them involved in fixing the problems and keep them apprised of what is happening. Just the knowledge that the company listened and is trying to improve has a significant positive impact on employee motivation.

It's a waste of your time and your employees' time to ask them to complete a survey and then ignore what they tell you. If you don't want to know and don't want to take action, just don't ask in the first place.

The purpose of an audit or an employee survey is to make your company better. Properly used, these tools can not only improve compliance and engagement, but they can help you get better results in terms of profit--a win/win in my book.