Attention is currency, 2: Content an Cadence

In the last essay, I spoke about how the direction of attention can determine its effectiveness.  In this essay, I will address two other related elements that will drive how impactful any attention is, the content and the cadence.  Content is not just about positive or negative messaging, but the actual substance of the messaging.  Cadence is certainly partly about whether it happens with any regularity, but also about whether the attention feels performative or genuine. 

Content

In the last essay, I dove deeply into the value of positive and negative reinforcement.  I did not, though, address a corollary issue with this feedback, which is the value of the information in the message.  It is easy to understand the negative side of this; if I said, “You suck!” you would rightly take issue with this, as it is not constructive.  In fact, we have so altered the connotation of the word “criticism” to require us to modify it to “constructive criticism” so as to differentiate it from general douchbaggery. 

What is interesting is that the opposite is rarely identified.  If I said, “You are awesome!”  you would probably say, “Thanks!” and go on with your day, feeling broadly better about yourself.  But the positive comment is just as vacuous as the negative one.  It doesn’t tell you why you are awesome, but we never feel the need to differentiate “constructive praise” from the other kind. 

You may think I am needlessly nitpicky here.  If the comment is meant as a throwaway line, akin to “thanks for your help” or “I appreciate your sacrifice” it is most often attached to some broader conversation where its meaning is assumed.  If I helped you move and at the end, you said, “You are awesome!”  I would assume that this is your acknowledgment and appreciation for my help.  It might also be said in more broad settings to underscore a positive comment made.  I say, “I agree with your idea about changing the amortization calendar of fungible assets,” and you say, “You are awesome!”

This translates well to the workplace.  Using broad statements when the language is both tied to a context and sent laterally to an equal, is effective and valued.¹ But, if there is a power dynamic or no context, then these broad statements are meaningless.  If my boss says that I stink or am awesome, I want to know what behaviors I need to discard or duplicate.  If you tell someone on your team the same thing, they will also be trying to crack the code of what, exactly, elicited the comment.  I have implied this previously, but let me state explicitly now, that attention—positive and negative—is designed to change behavior.

Everyone understands how criticisms are meant as behavior modification, some more successful than others, but fail to appreciate that compliments are also meant as behavior modification.  A friend of mine went to the grocery store.  She saw a stray cart in the parking lot and grabbed it and took it in, so she would not have to fight with the puzzle of interlocking carts in the store.  When she went to check out, the check-out person had noticed what she did and said, “Thanks for grabbing that stray cart!  You made our job easier and the parking lot safer!”  That was it, no big production number.  My friend accepted the praise, paid for her stuff and left.  But ever since then, when she goes to any grocery store and she sees a stray cart not in a corral, she will grab it and take it in to use it.  While it may not have been her Machiavellian ploy, the check-out person did some behavior modification on my friend by calling out the good thing she did.

So, when a boss simply calls out a broad affirmation or critique, it gives the staff no sense of what modification is intended.  If there is no context, the staff will fill in the gap with whatever they think is appropriate.  I once called out a member of my team for being great, assuming that they knew it was for the work they did delivering last-minute training, but they thought it was because of the delicious thing that they brought to the meeting potluck.  Luckily, this miscommunication was quickly identified, and I was able to redirect the compliment and provide a second compliment for the broccoli salad she made.

Even if there is a context, without clearly articulating the reason, a compliment can lead to misunderstandings.  A boss compliments a team member for the quick turnaround on a needed report.  Was this because:

• They dropped everything to make it a priority?
• They took charge and were the field marshal?
• They worked well with the team?
• They took direction well without fighting for control?
• The final report looked professional and not like it was thrown together at the last minute?

Without context, not only is the boss not modifying the right behavior, they may be modifying the wrong behavior.  Sometimes the boss does not even know HOW the sausage was made, so the compliment may not land in the right spot.  This is all the fault of the leader who just tosses out praise or attention without crafting it to deliver the right modification.

Further, if a manager calls out general praise of a person to a group without specifics, it will not have the value that the manager thinks it will.  By saying at a team huddle, “I just want to call out Jack.  Last week, Jack, you did a great job!” without specifics, everyone including Jack will just think you like him.  No one will learn from the praise.  In fact, there will be those who will completely discount the praise, accusing Jack of being a brown-noser or teacher’s pet.  By calling out the reason—Jack, you did a great job doing service recovery with that one irate family—you tell the team what to do to earn your praise.  They can choose, then, whether they want to do it themselves, or simply thank Jack themselves for doing something that they didn’t want to do.

None of this is to say that broad praise is not valuable.  Having the system CEO call out a significant reduction in slips-and-falls or surgical site infections, is fantastic, even if he doesn’t know exactly how this was achieved.  But as that information slides down the hierarchy, it needs to be modified with cause-effect language.  (“I know that no one likes refresher training, but thank you for doing it with no complaints, as it really paid off.  Oh, and special thanks to Jack, for organizing it.”)

Now some of you may take issue with the fact that I see all this as manipulative.  To that I say three things:

1. All feedback is meant to affect future behavior which is the very definition of manipulation.
2. If the feedback is genuine, constructive and targeted to the right person in a language they can process, that may be manipulative, but it is also respectful. 
3. The problem is if this feedback is exclusively one-sided, dishonest, or delivered in an unhelpful manner.  Be angry at the content and objective not the word.

Cadence

For this attention to really find purchase, it cannot be a one-off or random thing.  Sometimes you will plant exactly the right seed in exactly the right soil, and it will sprout.  But a successful gardener knows that not every seed will germinate.  Every proud lawn-owner will know that you have to over-seed.  If, as a leader, you only call out something once a quarter, you can be assured that your team will care about it once a quarter.  Unless you only call it out once a quarter, but after it is too late, in which case, you can be assured that your team will never really care about it. 

Some will push back at this sentiment, saying that you cannot be expected to speak about all things at all times.  Except that you already do.  At a daily unit or clinic huddle, you call out the likely discharges who could get discharged before 11am or how important it is to stay on schedule given the patient load.  Saying that you could never talk about service as frequently as you talk about timely discharge, or fall-mats, or the 5-whys, or no-shows is simply telling me that it is not as important as these other things.  Further, if you talk about these things as separate entities, as simply agenda items, then you are not being a successful communicator to begin with.  It feels like you are reading a grocery list which does not breed connection or purpose to the tasks.

This agenda-item approach may build a consistent cadence but does not feel organic or meaningful.  You need to build a routine, but not have it feel routine.  While I like it when leaders read positive comments at meetings, if you don’t build on that comment and explore its value and meaning, the staff is not internalizing the behavior modification.  It is a nice feel-good story that falls between the introduction of new staff and the request to keep the breakroom microwave clean. 

One big mistake people make is that they think that to make it memorable, it must have massive production values.  But it just must have value.  I was in Washington state and during a presentation, I told a story about an positive interaction I had that very morning with a member of the registration staff.  The CEO was in my presentation and later that day, he took the c-suite to her desk and gave her a standing ovation.  This wasn’t a one-off, as this CEO realized that he did not have a fantastic budget so he focused on stuff like this that would connect with the targeted staff and were public displays that would get patients excited and coworkers interested in how to get that same treatment.

I have likewise seen senior team meetings include thank-you-note-writing as part of their work, to call out moments of joy.  I remember a nurse manager who would call a staff member’s mom to let them know about a great thing their son or daughter did at work.  There are buttons, pins, (one place even had a rotating tiara) to identify and celebrate.  Now these things need to be done more than ONCE, but the cadence is less important, if the message is clear and meaningful.

There is one other core value in this for your team.  It shows that YOU are paying attention.  Staff can often feel like ghosts in the machine, only singled out for bad things.  But by focusing on consistent meaningful and targeted communication, you are telling your staff that you do pay attention.  More than that, it tells your staff that you do know the difference between average and excellent and things that go above and beyond.  Of course, this assumes that you DO pay attention and DO know the difference between punching a clock and being fully present. If you don’t, then don’t expect your team does. 

¹I should point out that, yes, there are those who will attach a positive affirmation with some sort of power dynamic.  I have gotten push-back from someone I thanked and appreciated because they thought my appreciation implied that I was judging their performance, which I had no right to do because I was not their boss.  Aside from the insanity of this notion (so they never show appreciation to their significant other?), it seems like these folks are just looking for opportunities to be offended or outraged.  My usual response when they get their hackles up is to simply respond, “it was a compliment, just accept it.”