Participative Positive Reinforcement©: The Power of Peer Reinforcement

Questions about how to positively reinforce someone (usually a question about what to say) and what to reinforce (what behavior should you reinforce) are frequently Googled. We arrive at our confusion by honest means—being reared in societies that have only recently evolved toward humanism; societies in which the model for management, parenting, and governing has been punitive; “spare the rod and spoil the child.” We tend to focus on the negative; on what is wrong—what’s been done improperly. Human history is one of grudging sparseness toward human accomplishment, manifesting a laconic reticence about commenting on the positive things others have done.

In the 1953 movie, Hobson’s Choice, Charles Laughton plays Henry Hobson, the overbearing and autocratic owner of a bootmaker’s shop in 19^th century Lancashire. In one scene, Mr. Hobson castigates one of his best customers (in her absence, of course) because she told the man who made her boots (“the finest I [sic] have ever put on my feet") how well he had done. After she leaves, the enraged Mr. Hobson erupts to say, “Doesn’t she know better than to praise a workman to his face.”

As anachronistic as that sounds, this attitude lies at the core of 20^th century management practices. The apprentice that worked for a master craftsman became a frontline employee in industrialized Europe—a technological evolution that occurred over several hundred years. Humanistic management practices did not co-evolve with industrialization. Victorian era factory workers were harshly ministered by their “overseers.”

Approval and attention (positive reinforcement) from “respected and liked” authority figures influence us to do positive things—at work, at school, and on the playing field. When we don’t like the person in charge because they have treated us disrespectfully or unfairly, we get our positive reinforcement from other sources--from the work (many of us like what we do) or from our peers (socialization is the only reinforcer many people have at work.)

Although we used to assume that “difficult” managers (mean, threatening, eccentric, moody, perfectionistic, or hard to please micromanagers) exacted high levels of performance from their subordinates, we now understand that their style creates barriers to employee engagement, resistance to change, suppresses creativity and idea generation, and elicits anti-social behavior toward the organization and management. Many employees find it positively reinforcing to do things (surreptitiously of course) that aggravate disliked supervisors, and their peers will generally encourage them for doing so ( peers are reinforcing undesirable behavior.)

Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) is traditionally implemented by training managers and supervisors in how to deliver feedback and positive reinforcement. In an OBM initiative, management is expected to change employee behavior (increase the frequency of value-added, discretionary performance behavior, and decrease the frequency of inappropriate, counterproductive behavior) by positively reinforcing employee key improvement behaviors and ignoring (using extinction strategically, that is purposefully ignoring employee behavior that is causing social or job performance problems) unwanted employee behavior.

It’s a good plan, and it works well when the supervisor has a reinforcing relationship with the employee and when the employee’s peers are supportive of the supervisor (they are “engaged” in the organizations best interests). Unfortunately, since most organizations do not hold supervisors accountable for their interpersonal style (measure, monitor and manage its quality), many supervisors do not have positive interaction histories with employees and therefore cannot positively reinforce them.

For instance, if a well-liked supervisor passes by your workstation, holds up a piece of paper, points to it with a big grin, and gives you a thumbs up—you would probably smile back, have a brief rush of positive feelings, and go back to work.

If a distrusted, disliked supervisor did the same thing, you would probably look perplexed and feel the same way. You might ask one of your co-workers, “What’s old Jenkins up to? He just pointed to a piece of paper and grinned at me. I guess he gave me a bad performance review and he’s gloating.”

“That idiot doesn’t even know that the cam adjuster on #24 is about to go. When it does, we’ll get a couple of hour’s downtime. You still owe me for that last game of Gin.”

I am not demonizing frontline employees. When their supervisor does not reinforce them, they will find a way to get positive reinforcement—attention and approval—usually from their co-workers. They will often do and say things that are antithetical to the best interests of their department and the company—and, they will not feel guilty about it. When we feel mistreated by management, we feel justified in our actions. Passive aggression—ignoring opportunities to circumvent a problem or add value—does not conflict with our work ethic.

Participative Positive Reinforcement© avoids many of the problems associated with management-driven OBM initiatives. By involving employees in the process—from the very beginning—they become owners, stakeholders in the outcomes. There are definite advantages to sharing the knowledge—orienting every employee to the benefits of behavioral principles. Interestingly, non-management employees are far less jaded about behavioral causation than their managers.

Although frontline employees have been the targets of many disparate and theoretically conflicting behavior change initiatives (that’s what “motivational” programs are; their purpose is to change employee behavior—increase the frequency of productive behavior—decrease the frequency of non-productive behavior), their minds have not been anesthetized by conflicting management theorems. They are sensitive to the psychological value of positive reinforcement. They are apt pupils and eager to play a meaningful role in something that interests them—something they can use at home and in their lives generally. Many see Participative OBM as an opportunity for personal growth.

The point is, employees can become productive partners in an OBM process—positively reinforcing each other and their supervisors and managers for positive behavior change—for performance improvement. Partnering with management strengthens relationships at all levels, increases the frequency and relevance of positive reinforcement, and engages everyone in a mutual effort to serve the customer, build better products, and increase profitability.

Less than 10 years ago, most organizations believed that it was up to supervisors to manage employee safety, and that the safety director was responsible for employee injuries—the same kind of expectations created by a traditional OBM’s approach to positive reinforcement and employee behavior management. Then, behavior based safety (BBS) came along; all employees were given meaningful roles in safety management. Safety management became participative; managers and employees partnered in the endeavor to ensure everyone went home injury-free. Positive reinforcement’s potential to improve performance and discretionary effort will best be fulfilled when all employees are part of the OBM initiative--when positive reinforcement is practiced participatively.

What the (βleep) do I know About Positive Reinforcement?

I have implemented positive reinforcement systematically at more business sites than any practicing OBM consultant. What relevance does that have for this blog, my comments about the best way to positively reinforce an employee—what works or does not work in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM)? It means I’ve made more mistakes than you can ever make and I may have learned something from them.

Behavior change—that was my objective. I walked into over 100 separate business sites over a 35 year period and baselined their key performance variables; quantity, quality, timeliness, waste, efficiency—I took a snapshot of their business scorecard because my job was to get all those numbers up. I was being paid by the plant manager or corporate leadership to reduce turnover and absenteeism and at the same time get all the performance numbers up—significantly!

After baselining the key business performance metrics, I trained every manager and supervisor on site in behavioral principles—how to operationally define and identify value added job behaviors in every department—every job; how to measure behavior, to quantify the frequency of value added behavior that would drive performance data up for big improvement gains. Then, I trained all the management team in performance feedback and how to deliver positive reinforcement.

Each manager and supervisor walked out of my workshop with a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) that included the key performance variable he or she was going to improve, goals for improvement, a feedback graph that would be publicly posted in their department, and a script for what they would say to positively reinforce employees for specific behaviors and results. That’s right—we figured out ahead of time what the supervisor or manager was going to say to an employee if they saw them exhibiting discretionary effort or a value added behavior.

Did it work? You bet it did, because I was on site 4 days a week—in the workplace—on the floor, ensuring that graphs were up to date and accompanying supervisors on visits to deliver positive reinforcement to employees. One Ford plant in which I implemented positive reinforcement strategies employed over 2000 people. It became the most efficient car assembly plant in the world (that’s right—better than Japan) 6 months after I implemented an OBM process. Some of the improvement data in distribution centers, manufacturing plants, banks, insurance, mines, utilities, nuclear, auto assembly, and textiles was so dramatic that corporate bean counters challenged the data—claiming that the numbers were being falsified.

Were these powerful change and improvement results due to positive reinforcement? Unfortunately no, in my opinion. Mostly because the delivery method had questionable credibility. Supervisors with negative interaction histories went out on missions to positively reinforce their subordinates because they were being required to do so. One year after I left the Ford assembly plant, almost all signs of OBM had vanished. Just because it worked, did not mean it was going to be adopted by management. All organizational initiatives bring energy, interim behavior change (behavioral white noise due to uncertainty and changing expectations), sometimes excitement, often hope, increased job attention (who knows, people who don’t play along might get fired) and increased management attention to performance (a negative reinforcer; employees will perform at higher levels to avoid negative consequences related to the attention their performance is being given.)

Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) is being implemented in much the same way today as it was in 1973 when I implemented it in 10 textile mills. Implemented in the way I used to do it, positive reinforcement and behavioral principles were Band-Aids—quick fixes that failed to address the underlying problems—the systems, process, and values viruses that infected the organization at its core. To apply positive reinforcement strategies without addressing the organization’s underlying core values, is futile. Like 95% of the OBM projects installed in the last 35 years, it will not sustain itself. Parts of it may be adopted by this or that person, but in the end it will not be institutionalized. Even organizations with strong OBM internal champions will eventually deconstruct.

Have I become a naysayer—cynical after witnessing my failure and the failure of dozens of OBM consultants? Emphatically no! I believe more strongly now than I ever have that the way to optimize human performance potential and discretionary effort is through positive reinforcement. I witnessed hundreds of instances in which supervisors or managers effectively positively reinforced an employee for something they did. The supervisor did it naturally, in most cases spontaneously, and from the heart; and, the employee glowed—they were transformed, imbued with the joy of being validated, approved of, and recognized for having done something of value. Genuine, heartfelt, sincere positive reinforcement is the strongest motivator on the planet.

Unfortunately, the supervisors who are positive reinforcers by nature are in the minority. The rest of us have to apply ourselves to this challenging task and it is almost impossible if the organization in which we are working is not supportive of our efforts. Several things need to be in place to provide supervisors and managers with an environment that supports their efforts to manage positively:

• Values—the respectful, compassionate, and humane treatment of all employees is uncompromised. Sensitivity to employee feelings and wellbeing must be the core value of the organization.
• Leadership—men and women whose actions are guided by the value of their employees and reflect that value in their actions and decisions.
• Individual accountability—each manager and supervisor’s upward mobility and compensation—their career is contingent upon their ability to treat their employees with dignity and respect. It is the core denominator in their performance evaluation.
• Positive reinforcement--supervisors and managers need to be reinforced as they progress through the shaping steps to create reinforcing relationships with their employees.
  

Even if we have all these organizational supports in place, if a supervisor is not a natural positive reinforcer (most of us are not) how does he develop skills in natural reinforcement? The answer is covered in many of my past blogs, but in short, we must set the stage for a supervisor or manager’s success. A context, an environmental arrangement must be created; supervisors must be provided with a shaping process—a set of incremental opportunities where they can gradually change the way they talk and listen to their subordinates.

Supervisors and managers can be provided a workshop during which they learn how to have productive, reinforcing work dialogs that will ensure they can provide their subordinates with meaningful performance feedback, effective performance antecedents (instructions, directions, priorities) and deliver sincere, appreciative positive reinforcement when it is appropriate. A prescriptive, incremental behavior change plan can allow each supervisor and manager to learn new behavior at his or her own pace. The final outcome is that any supervisor, regardless of their past interpersonal behavior, can become successful at talking and listening—positively reinforcing those who work for them. In a natural context; with genuine feeling.

So, what the (βleep) do I know about positive reinforcement? I know a lot about how to do it wrong; how it can fail; why employees don’t receive it well; why supervisors want to avoid doing it; and finally after many years—how to do it right.

The Case for Participative Positive Reinforcement©

In the last 30 years, I’ve implemented performance improvement initiatives in a wide variety of business environments. My objective has been to train leadership, managers, and supervisors to apply behavioral technology—behavior change strategies derived from 70 years of scientific research on human behavior. Prior to implementing behavioral technology in business and industry, I had worked in a mental hospital for several years using behavioral principles to help patients decrease the frequency of problem behaviors (behaviors that were seen by the public as “crazy,” inappropriate or destructive) and increase the frequency of productive behaviors (behaviors that allowed them to socialize appropriately, hold down a job and function at home and in their community.)

Most of our patients had previously been treated in hospitals that used traditional “cures” for problems like debilitating depression, anxiety, phobias, and psychotic episodes. The patients had been in therapy with psychiatrists (the approach they use is caricatured and satirized on television and the movies where the patient lies on the couch and the physician sits in a chair taking notes) without achieving significant improvement. Statistically, our hospital was the most successful in the state; we had the best rate of patients discharged back to their community. Patients changed their behavior, left the hospital to function in the community, and very few had to return to the hospital.

Interestingly, one behavioral problem seemed to be present in almost every patient and in every clinical diagnosis; our patients had a problem talking and listening effectively with others. Many patients would not socialize at all—others would socialize, but they would say inappropriate things and turn others off. We see some of the same behavioral problems in organizational settings; some would humorously comment that human interactions at work are just as crazy, and it is hard to defend that allegation. We have all seen some pretty inappropriate verbal interactions in meetings and elsewhere.

It is worthwhile to compare the results of the process we used to change behavior in the hospital with its results when used in business and industry to change employee behavior. Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) is the term that applies to the systematic application of behavioral principles to organizational behavior and performance improvement. Positive reinforcement is the touchstone for OBM’s application; it is the overarching principle that differentiates OBM from other organizational change initiatives. The problems that are similar include:

• Socializing—interactions between supervisors and employees; ineffective supervisory styles contribute to many organizational performance problems
• Total involvement—everyone should be part of the solution. Everyone should be facilitating change by designing the solution and applying positive reinforcement to value added behaviors

When we applied behavioral principles in the hospital, we trained everyone—all the staff, at every level—in behavioral technology. That technology included:

• Pinpointing patient behaviors that were causing the patient a problem; pinpointing behaviors for each patient that would help them function better and become a productive person back in their community
• Listing those behaviors for each patient on their “improvement plan”
• Observing them as they talked and interacted with staff and other patients the counting and recording the frequency of behaviors on their plan(checking off on their behavioral improvement plan)
• Providing them with regular, timely quantitative feedback on the frequency of appropriate behavior
• Positively reinforcing the patient—immediately, in real time, in the moment—when we saw them doing any of the behaviors listed on their improvement plans

Our remarkable success at this hospital was due to two equally important factors. The first was that we were using behavioral technology; we were systematically, precisely applying positive reinforcement to the specific behaviors that would make each patient successful. Secondly, everyone was part of the process; clinical assistants with 10^th grade educations had received one day of training in behavioral principles and were effectively applying behavioral technology with patients. Everyone participated in the weekly meetings where we reviewed each patients progress, tabulated the frequency of each behavior being observed and recorded, discussed the addition or deletion of behaviors, and discussed the frequency of positive reinforcement being delivered. In fact, the patients would help each other by purposefully reinforcing the behaviors on one another’s improvement plan. Everyone was participating and contributing to the success of the patients.

In retrospect, the thing that everyone in this environment understood was how to pinpoint behavior that would make the patient successful—get the patient out of the hospital and back into the community. For instance, if a patient was withdrawn and debilitated by an inability to socialize, all staff (and other patients) would positively reinforce Mr. Jones for:

• Smiling as he passed another patient or staff
• Greeting another patient or staff while passing
• Approaching a group of patients or staff who were talking and standing or sitting with the group
• Interjecting a comment while in the group
• Initiating an interaction with staff or another patient
• Inviting a staff member or patient to play cards, ping pong, or other recreational activity

This worked extremely well. Even the most withdrawn patients were soon out on the unit socializing with the other patients.

As I started using Applied Behavior Analysis (OBM) in business and industry, I experienced immediate success; there were dramatic changes in quality, waste, productivity, and customer service. My fellow consultants achieved similar results. Unfortunately, I began to see that after we left a client the systematic application of the principles were eventually abandoned; sustainability was a definite problem. I began to suspect that the problem was not with the client, but our process for implementing behavioral technology into the organizational environment.

A typical OBM initiative would begin by:

· Data basing all the key performance variables (as key metrics for evaluating success),

· Training leaders, managers, and supervisor in the process and principles (identifying key improvement behaviors, providing positive reinforcement for behavior and results, etc.), Frontline employees had no specific role in the process. They were given an orientation class of 2 to 4 hours and then sent back to work.

· Posting feedback graphs of key performance variables for employees to see, and then leaders, managers, and supervisors were supposed to positively reinforce their subordinates for improvement and results.

· Planning tangible reinforcers—t-shirts, caps, jackets, celebration lunches—were planned and delivered for performance results. Frontline employees had no meaningful role in the process. .

Over several hundred separate implementations in every type of business and industry, the same problems reoccurred:

• It was difficult to engage leadership in the process; they would promote it but not practice it. The focus on "behavior," seemed too simple, but more importantly they felt that they should not have to reinforce their subordinates--who they expected to be self-motivated; considering the way we presented OBM to them at that time, that was not an unreasonable response.
  
• It was hard to get supervisors and managers to positively reinforce their subordinates; many had management styles that conflicted with reinforcement-based management. They were uncomfortable “going out” to “say something positive” to an employee.
• Employees distrusted the process. Past relations with their supervisor had not been positive, so he or she had no ability to reinforce the employee. Positive things supervisors said rang hollow and insincere.
• Peer reinforcement had a stronger influence on employee performance than supervisory reinforcement. Employees who attempted to improve performance were often punished by their peers for “fraternizing with the enemy.”
• Performance goals seeded with tangible reinforcers—celebrations, caps, jackets—often engaged employees over the short haul, but once the consultant left—the process was gradually dropped. Sustainability, the institutionalization of behavioral technology into management practices, was non-existent.

Over 90% of the companies where OBM was implemented failed to sustain the initiative—failed to integrate behavioral principles and tools into organizational systems and processes. I determined there were key changes that needed to be made to OBM implementation to equal the success in business and industry that we had achieved in the hospital:

1. OBM, behavioral principles, must be implemented participatively from the start. All employees need to be part of the process. Everyone should be using positive reinforcement, developing improvement behaviors, providing and receiving feedback. Employees need to be able to pinpoint value-added and put them into a systematic improvement plan. They need to develop reinforcement plans and skills to use on each other and they need to pinpoint behaviors to reinforce their bosses and peers for doing. Once employees understand behavioral technology, they can work as partners--solving problems and finding new value-added, discretionary behavior.
   
2. Positive reinforcement can only be effective if the person attempting to do the reinforcing has some “positive value” to the person he or she is trying to reinforce. A reinforcing relationship is required before a manager or supervisor can effectively reinforce a subordinate. If an employee dislikes their supervisor because of his or her past interpersonal practices, supervisory attempts to intermittently use positive reinforcement are not going to have a positive effect.
3. Effective positive reinforcement needs to take place within a natural context. When supervisors and employees are talking about work, contribution can be referenced—things that employees have done can be alluded to within the flow of natural interaction. When supervisors are discussing resources, technical problems, interim issues, safety, providing directions, and reviewing company communications they are provided ample opportunity to refer to instances where the employee’s behavior has facilitated performance, to say "that worked," or "do you have any other ideas like that one," or "that will put us ahead of schedule this month." The respect and meaning that so many of us want is only available when we are partners with management in the service of the organizations objectives. The only path to optimum employee engagement is through a partnering relationship between management and employees--an end to us and them and the discovery of "we."
   

I believe these 3 major changes will revolutionize the efficacy of OBM and substantially increase the probability that an organization will incorporate the strategy into their systems and processes. Everyone will have ownership, peers will reinforce each other for making the process effective, and leaders managers and supervisors will have a comfortable process for gradually building reinforcing relationships with the subordinates.

I’m not sure why it has taken business and industry so long to learn some of the most important lessons of organizational change—one being that the key to accelerating change is to engage as many of your employees as you can in the process. Let them plan, brainstorm, problem solve and above all let them envision the objectives of change. Allow them to build a positive picture of where you are trying to lead them. Give them time to see the strengths of their culture and their organization, and use those strengths to visualize an inspiring future—one that is reachable because it is being created on the foundation of existing skills, talents and past successes.

I believe that OBM should be implemented participatively and that management reinforcement should be taught as a relationship skill. Many organizations have tried to implement OBM initiatives over the years and foundered. Their instincts were good about the value of positive reinforcement for organizational performance improvement, management employee-relations and job satisfaction. It is not to late to rejuvenate crumbling initiatives--to re-energize listless systems in which management and employees have lost interest. Re-engineering, redesigning, and relaunching OBM efforts can lead to re-newed success and vigor.

Let me give you a formula for getting people interested in redesigning and relaunching your OBM effort. Tell everyone--employees and management and anyone else that has to be sold on reintroducing the concepts and principles--"we implemented an effort that was intended to ensure that everyone received meaningful positive reinforcement for doing things that help us all succeed--as individuals and as a group. We don't think it fulfilled its potential. We now believe there are some things we can do differently that will ensure that it will succeed and we want to talk with you about those things."

In other words, let everybody be a part of re-energizing your OBM process. Present your logic and your reasoning. Let them partner with you in the reasoning; let them become enthusiastic about rediscovering a solution. Trust in the wisdom of the group.

This blog will continue to promote the strategies that I believe will enhance the efficacy of OBM applications. Participative Positive Reinforcement © may perhaps become Participative Organizational Behavior Management (POBM)—maybe not. But the power of positive reinforcement is so important to organizational performance, employee engagement and employee psychological well-being, that we must continue to explore methods to institutionalize it.

Reinforcing Work Dialogs: The Emotional Catalyst for Employee Engagement

I begin this blog with a declaration that I intend to validate throughout the body of this entry: The key to employee engagement is emotional commitment which is in turn most closely linked to discretionary effort. Rewards, transactional positive reinforcement (supervisor occasionally using verbal reinforcement), and incentives in general do not change behavior in the long term; the biochemistry of the brain—serotonin, dopamine, and other neurotransmitters—the chemicals of employee engagement, of emotions and learning—are most effectively catalyzed through ongoing manager activities and attributes. Reinforcing work dialogs, which in turn build reinforcing manager-employee relationships, are the most effective means of eliciting employee emotional commitment to the job and the organization.

In 2004, the Corporate Leadership Council published a study—Driving Employee Performance and Retention through Engagement: A Quantitative Analysis of the Effectiveness of Employee Engagement Strategies. They surveyed 50,000 employees in 59 organizations within 27 countries. These data support the results of many other studies on employee engagement: Individual acts of reward and reinforcement do not compensate for a negative relationship with one’s organization or one’s manager. The best way to achieve emotional commitment from employees is through the creation of an emotionally nurturing organizational environment—a “reinforcing environment,” a history of reinforcement--a reinforcing relationship.

Neuroscience and neuropsychologist—through new technologies like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission topography (PET), and wave analysis can study reward and fear centers in the brain—in real time. The results of their research are finally being translated into management practices. The March, 2008, issue of H.R. Magazine has an article entitled, “The Brain at Work.” The article describes what happens in the brain when we have differing experiences at work—when someone says or does something positive or does something we don't like.

The article reports that when employees experience “social fairness and respect,” the neurotransmitter serotonin is released in the brain’s “reward pathway” creating a sense of well being in much the same way drugs and alcohol do. The association between a pleasant sensation and an environmental stimulus (someone saying or doing something we like) conditions a positive association with the stimulus (the person who said or did something we like). We feel good about that person—the positive emotion that facilitates emotional engagement.

When we are exposed to positive stimuli—when serotonin is coursing through our axioms and dendrites—the brain is in a positive mode to think, decide, create, and learn. Negative stimuli—someone criticizing, mocking, berating, or disrespecting us—create an opposite effect; our brain falls into a fetal position and its efficiency is crippled. Learning is facilitated by the neurotransmitters that are secreted when employees are provided some ownership in change processes; if they are told what to do, facilitative connections are repressed and resistance is evoked. Neuroscientists seem to be corroborating what our intuition tells us.

Since positive emotions are associated with high levels of employee engagement, and subsequently discretionary effort, it is clear that effective positive reinforcement enables that emotion-building process. Although the article states that “social fairness and respect” create serotonin-induced positive emotions, the author neglects to point out that social fairness and respect are abstract concepts which cannot be directly observed. Only the verbal behavior that represents them can be directly seen, heard, and perceived. I only know that you are fair if you “say or do” (a behavior) something that I hear and interpret as fair; that’s when the neurotransmitters start to flow.

My perceptions of being fairly treated and respected are acquired one behavior at a time. If you say 10 thoughtlessly critical things to me, one positive comment does not lead me to feel respected. Many organizations are trying to use rewards and recognition strategies and management positive reinforcement policies to compensate for negative organizational strategies and policies or for dysfunctional supervisory-employee relations--circumstances that create negative employee emotions and disengagement. In the end, it does not work. It is expensive and you add a new problem; the institutionalization of tactics that do not solve your original problem and money off the bottom line.

A supervisor, manager or leader is in a pivotal position to compensate for punitive organizational policies and practices through diplomatic verbal comments—using reinforcing work dialogs. Similarly, supervisors with poor interaction skills can destroy the well-intended efforts of organizations who have committed to positive employee strategies and policies. Conversely, a supervisor is well positioned to help employees sidestep the negativity of a toxic organization. No matter what you do to make your organization one that fosters employee engagement, the failure to create meaningful dialogs between your supervisors and employees will restrict your best efforts. The issue will not go away.

The Reinforcing Work Dialogs I have been discussing in the past few blogs are a powerful tool for creating employee emotional engagement in the organization. They provide a vehicle for continuous, interactive, participative feedback and communication from one’s supervisor or manager. The dialogs provide a comfortable, credible context for positive reinforcement—positive comments about employee performance and contribution—for demonstrating respect for the person and valuing of his or her job.

Positive reinforcement, properly delivered, is a continuous source of performance-encouraging, relationship-building serotonin. The neurology of fairness and respect reside in one’s history of interactions with one’s boss. Sparse contact, little or no communication or feedback, autocratic social style—all this creates the context that makes transactional reinforcement (the occasional positive comment about one’s job) destructive instead of constructive.

The reinforcing relationship created by effective work dialogs, creates the foundation to optimize employee emotional engagement and to support and facilitate all the key employee engagement drivers. It provides supervisors with an opportunity to reinforce discrete contributive behaviors--one behavior at a time.

Reinforcing Work Dialogs the Key to Engagement

A meta-analysis of survey results from America and Europe reveals that about 30% of all employees are actively “engaged” with their companies. The engaged employees are the ones who provide the discretionary effort. The “disengaged,” are doing their jobs, but often just that—doing their jobs.

A Hay Group study found that engaged office workers were up to 43% more productive and that companies with high engagement scores were much more profitable. Key drivers of engagement of interest to anyone who has been reading my blogs are listed below. They are interesting, because they can be accomplished directly and indirectly through reinforcing work dialogs:

• Employee perceptions of job importance
• Regular feedback and dialog with superiors
• Quality of working relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates
• Effective internal employee communication
• Employee clarity of job expectations

Two engagement drivers—“inspirational leadership,” and “opportunities for advancement,” are important, but they cannot be immediately influenced in real-time—today, by supervisor and managers on-the-floor, on the front lines--something that reinforcing dialogs can do.

Rewards and Recognition practices are often linked to employee engagement, but there is credible evidence that various forms of recognition are eschewed if certain key organizational elements are not in place. In other words, if the organization has the above important ingredients for engagement, rewards and recognition practices are icing on the cake; if you are hoping that rewards and recognition strategies will compensate for missing engagement drivers—you are going to be disappointed.

No one reading this blog would leave a company where they had a wonderful boss to go to work for a company where their supervisor was negative, but where they could receive plenty of awards and kudos from the company for doing good work. Sometimes, even big raises with bonuses will not move us away from a good boss. Many of us have sold our souls to the devil before—went for the money—and suffered the consequences of being treated like chattel.

There is just no way around the truth; you can dissemble and recalculate and rationalize and equivocate, but in the end “the truth will out.” A boss who has an “engaging” manner—one who can create a “reinforcing” relationship with his or her employees is the deal maker or the deal breaker. Additionally, having frequent, meaningful give and take discussions with your employees about the work and their performance satisfies all but two of the key drivers. One key objective of developing “reinforcing work dialogs” is to gradual build (often rebuild) the relationship between bosses and their subordinates.

Positive reinforcement is the key to engagement. When adapted properly (as in reinforcement dialogs), it enables most of the engagement drivers, plus it facilitates a positive relationship with one's supervisor--one of the more important drivers. In contrast, traditionally delivered positive reinforcement--the occasionally delivered significantly solitary gratuitous comment-- does more harm than good. It creates a barrier to honesty, trust and the genuine partnering that is in the best interest of the company.

The 5 Step Self-Development Model we have been discussing provides a perfect medium for a supervisor, manager, or leader to incrementally master reinforcing work dialogs. Or if you are lucky, your company is implementing a structured, systematic initiative to develop their entire management team’s ability to have reinforcing work dialogs. These steps are distributed throughout my blogs, but when embedded in a Participative Positive Reinforcement© (PPR) initiative they look as follows:

1. Survey and Assess

a. Evaluate your management team for interaction skills and leadership practices.

b. Create baseline data for key performance variables to track success and ROI.

c. Launch your development effort with high levels of employee communication and interactive task group meetings to develop key dialog points for daily discussion.

d. Create a list of key points to be covered in Step 2 of the process—the beginning dialogs.

e. Select one person from each work group or department to collect associate responses to the process—what they like and think has value.

2. Training and Practice

a. Management team attends orientation and skills training class.

b. Begin having performance dialogs, limiting the discussion time and topics

c. Focus on technical aspects of the work. Limit discussions to equipment, process, and safety conditions. Stay away from comments about the employee’s performance.

d. After two weeks, meet with employee group leaders to discuss pros and cons. List what was useful and worked well. What helped them? How well did the supervisors do in terms of interpersonal style?

e. Share feedback with everyone and adjust the discussions points if necessary.

3. Begin Positive Reinforcement

a. Supervisors start providing brief comments about things the employees have done that make a difference—that add value. Do not use language that resembles evaluations; provide positive descriptions of what they did and the outcome. “That new way of exchanging the filter saves us a lot of time.” “Reviewing that report before we send it to IT has decreased the turnaround time.”

b. Start collecting good stories about successes to share—stories about how the new working relationship is leading to good things.

4. Evaluate and Adjust Process

a. Encourage employees to verbalize positive outcomes—benefits that the increased contact with the supervisor has created; what good things are coming out of this?

b. Bring together employees and supervisors to work on intra-departmental problems. Have a facilitator present.

c. Create cross functional groups—supervisors and employees from different departments can get together and work on problems and opportunities that span all departments.

d. At this point, the supervisory/employee relationship should be strong; there should be a good level of trust and positive feelings. The supervisor can start to tactfully present opportunities for improvement in the employee’s performance. They should be discussed as impersonally as possible: “I think if you do this first, it will decrease the job time.” Not, “If you’d start doing this I think you could get it done faster.” Or, “I think you’re doing it wrong and that’s what’s eating up your time.”

e. The key to successful corrective feedback is the ratio. Make sure there are plenty of positives before you start making improvement suggestions.

f. Employee feedback on the process will provide you with information that will tell you how they perceive your efforts.

g. Continue to track key performance variables.

5. Find Your Comfort Level

a. Some supervisors are now prepared to provide more personal positive reinforcement statements that will be well received. Showing some enthusiasm in making statements about what an employee has done and the positive outcome is probably going to have the desired effect.

b. Continue to stay away from evaluative, first person statements that implies a status differential instead of a partnership. “I really like what you did on that report. You’re really improved the clarity. Good work.” More desirable, "Everyone said that the change you made to the report has increased its clarity."

c. Continue to steer clear of statements that imply evaluations, assessment.

d. Use positive reinforcement coaching skills learned in training class as the employee when ready.

Participative Positive Reinforcement©: The Untapped Profit in Employee Behavior

I have summarized some of the benefits of natural reinforcement--weaving reinforcing statements into regular work discussions. The last couple of blogs have been about how to integrate positive reinforcement into your company's culture with a planned initiative. As you review the distinctions I have made about my technique compared to traditional methods, keep in mind that I am presenting a method that ensures your management team uses positive reinforcement--this is not about rewards and recognition systems.

When I state below that traditional positive reinforcement practices do not link positive reinforcement to organizational performance, I am speaking specifically about verbal reinforcement, not awards and t-shirts. Reward and recognition services and products providers proclaim with much fanfare how rewards and recognition drives profitability. They assume, as do most readers, that positive reinforcement is being delivered in this melee of awards and cash incentives. It says something about how well external inducements incent people to contribute, but it says nothing about whether any manager or supervisor is positively reinforcing employee value-added behavior in real time--in the workplace--as it is happening.

The key issue is that rewards and recognition practices are leaving a lot on the table-- they do not provide a system that ensures supervisors and managers will deliver verbal positive reinforcement. That's where performance improvement has remained untapped--that is the missing link in total rewards practices. Even if their programs include some traditional reinforcement training, it does not engage supervisors and managers--if anything it drives them in the other direction.

When a supervisor says to an employee, "I see you tried some new material in your last presentation; how did they respond," that's reinforcement. No, he didn't say good job; no, the supervisor did not gush or wax poetic; he just noticed. How many people would love it if their boss noticed the extra effort they put into something? Suppose the boss gets mushy and says, "There were some clever ideas in your new PowerPoint." That is also positive reinforcement--real, natural, believable, fulfilling input from the boss.

That is why work dialogs--discussions between supervisor and employee are so important, because it presents so many opportunities for the supervisor to make observations like the one above--so many opportunities for real, genuine positive reinforcement. If you follow my implementation guide, you will prepare your company for participative reinforcement--relationships and discussions in which supervisors and employees can bring out the best in each other.

Below, I have listed some important distinctions between traditional reinforcement and the new world of participative reinforcement. Over the next few blogs, I will discuss the training, measurement and follow up that will make your organization the most reinforcing in your industry.

Traditional Reinforcement Training

• Supervisor responsible for his or her improvement
• Supervisor selects employee behavior to reinforce
• Supervisor attempts to change his behavior and the employee’s behavior
• Positive reinforcement is a transaction, an event
• Supervisor is uncomfortable with “changing his personality”
• Employee is target of a tactic, technique applied “to” them
• No direct means of measuring supervisor’s skill improvement
• Positive reinforcement is not linked to organizational profitability
• Positive reinforcement is positioned as a supervisory skill
• Reinforcement often perceived as artificial, fake, and insincere
• No means for specific feedback on reinforcement skills
• Supervisor must improve without support group
• Tangible recognition and reward items linked to the initiative
• Initiative is perceived as “motivational” effort separate from organizational culture

Reinforcing Dialogs

• Supervisor and employee share responsibility for initiatives success; the process is participative
• Value-added behaviors are selected with input from employees
• Employee and supervisor work together to change each other’s behavior; they exchange feedback
• Positive reinforcement is part of a natural process--work discussion
• Supervisors are comfortable with process because it is transparent; everybody knows the objective
• Employee partners with supervisor to achieve success; from beginning to end, they work together
• Both supervisor and employee work on self-development
• There is a measurement system for directly tracking everyone’s progress; you know whether employees are receiving positive reinforcement
• The positive reinforcement initiative is tracked simultaneously against key organizational performance indicators; when employees get reinforced, the data shows it
• This is a team-driven process; Participative Positive Reinforcement©
• Reinforcement is natural—an outgrowth of the discussion—a factual comment; no pushback from employees and supervisors because it is contrived
• There is specific, quantitative feedback from both participants behavioral targets get tracked
• Everybody involved—a public initiative with total involvement and support; the new vision is participative reinforcement

Positive Reinforcement the Way Nature Intended

A “total rewards” culture—an organizational culture that engages all employees—that enables optimum employee performance potential, is impossible if leaders, managers and supervisors do not have reinforcing relationships with their subordinates. A “reinforcing relationship,” is the result of empowering dialogs between employees and supervisors; it is an on-going, egalitarian conversation between two members of a team—equally committed to the best interest of the other and their company.

A reinforcing relationship evolves when two people work together—each committed to facilitating the other’s success. They interact productively, with respectful statements that express regard for the feelings of the other. Mutual dignity and respect are projected in their words and phrases. A reinforcing relationship is the product of two people talking “with” each other, not “at” each other.

The games, the defensiveness and posturing are left behind; supervisor and employee adopt a new tact. They talk about the work like two carpenters starting to frame out an addition on a house—“I’ll do this, and you can do that and we’ll have this baby up in no time.”

Survey

You ask, “How do you sort through the history and bad habits—the years of antagonistic saber-rattling and ineffective dialog?” The only answer is that you start wherever you are. Select a third party, non-biased individual to interview managers and employees. Build a list of strengths—common interpersonal tactics that work, that everyone likes. Good practices they already see. All of these behaviors will not reside in one person; between all your supervisors, there will be a long list of positive verbal habits—verbal behavior that employees like—behaviors they want to see more off.

Similarly, develop a list of positive behaviors for employees. What do employees say or do that supervisors would like to see more of—that their coworkers appreciate—positive, value added behaviors. Do not start out focusing on what you do not want people to say or do. Start with a list of best practices—on both sides—best supervisory interaction habits (words and phrases) and best employee interaction habits. Here is a list of potential positives, verbal behaviors we want supervisors to adopt, when talking to employees-

• Start your discussion with a safety briefing—reminders, alerts, or questions about any concerns the employee has
• Mention something that the employee did to help, improvement, assist, overcome a hurdle, help a coworker, an extra effort, volunteering—add value
• Ask you if employee needs any help or resources to do his or her job properly?
• Provide the employee with information about the status of the department, the plant, or his or her work group—an alert about any new or changing circumstance
• Listen attentively to employee comments—actively listen
• Be tactful in the way you talk to the employee—listen attentively, let the employee talk without interrupting; responded in an appropriate tone to their comments
• Provide follow-up information about any action you committed to

This is just a sample. The list of items you collect through interviews may be extremely long, but you can prioritize them based on frequency or other criteria. Once when I was doing a positive reinforcement skill workshop for a large petroleum company in the city of Ascot in the UK, one of the managers was extremely frustrated. He had a history of being aloof, impatient and overly analytical with his employees. He felt that he was beyond hope.

I understood how he felt, because it is difficult for me to learn new habits. Trying to keep a list of items in your head, and use them constructively during a conversation is not easy. So I gave him a model to use—a metaphor with which he could identify emotionally and help him stay on the right path.

I simply said to him, “Whenever you are talking with anyone, particularly with your employees, pretend that you are talking to the Queen. Use the words, tone, inflection and demeanor that you would use with her.” It sounds a bit contrived, but if you consider its practical effect, it works wonderfully. In a follow-up phone conversation two months later, he told me that this worked quite well for him. Many other strategies had failed.

His employees began to react immediately and positively. He said, “I said a lot of the same things—covered the same topics—but, I found myself wording them differently. I knew I was being more tactful, and I was doing it without a text book beside me. It seemed quite natural. After a few days, my wife asked me if I was having an affair—because my behavior had changed—for the better.”

This approach to improving ones conversational style works well, but one must choose an auspicious partner to ensure the proper effect. Of necessity, your fantasy partner needs to be someone of great stature or significance in your life; the Pope, the President--someone who would cause you to choose your words carefully. Whomever one chooses, it is a learning device that works well to prompt the right behavior—to get you started in the right direction.

Design the Initiative

After the objective third party surveys and interviews all levels of employees information has been collected, prioritize the list of interactive behaviors and dialog topics until you have no more than 5-10 items. This list will become your measurement system; numerical values can be assigned to each item. It will become a quantitative measurement system that will allow you to track your progress against your baseline. The items on the list should be described behaviorally, meaning that they are stated in a way that leaves no room for doubt as to whether they did or did not occur. Based on the description of the behavior, observers can confidently record behavioral frequency without disagreement.

When finished, there should be a list of about 5 behaviors for managers and supervisors and at least 3 behaviors for employees—all of which were derived from the interviews. They should be positive, value-added behaviors. We want to start out by doing more of what will make us successful—build on strengths. Working on behavioral strengths, creates a positive vision of where we are going with our efforts. When positive behaviors go up in frequency the number of negative behaviors seem to decrease commensurately.

During the week, there will be instances where employees and their supervisors will have a chance to have a dialog—an opportunity to talk, not just a brief connection in passing, but a few minutes to focus on a broader range of topics. After the dialog, both the supervisor and the employee will record whether any of the behaviors on the improvement cards occurred. For instance, the employee will check off the behaviors on the list they did and will put a mark down as a record. Then, the employee will check off the supervisor’s behaviors

Similarly, the supervisor will check whether they did the behaviors on their list and whether the employee did any or all of the things on the employee list. It is an honor system, one I’ve found works very well.

Each department should have an employee coordinator, a person selected from each major department during the survey phase, someone who helped develop the lists and actively participated in the process of identifying and organizing the key behaviors. That person will help implement the process moving forward. They will collect the weekly data and provide feedback about employee opinions and involvement. The person will be a champion for the process and help it succeed.

Training and Practice

Between the survey and the kickoff of the initiative, managers, supervisors and senior managers will go through a special training class that allows them to practice performance dialogs. The behaviors that need to be practiced have been identified, and that sets the stage for supervisors and designated frontline employees to practice and receive positive feedback from a third party coach. More about this in the next blog.

Kickoff the Initiative

After evaluating the environment and its readiness for change—after the interviews and identification of the key success behaviors, then the training and practice—the organization is prepared for success. No surprise, no hidden agendas, no unreasonable expectations; the group is sold on the process, the path and the objectives.

The kickoff is about gathering your employees together to review the objectives of the change initiative and to set positive expectations. There is not need for rhetoric; they have heard the cheerleading before and had some bad associations with initiatives that were accompanied by too much hoopla. Discuss the lists of behaviors that employees and supervisors (all management) will be working to increase. Go over the procedure for self-reporting and identify the departmental representative that will collect the weekly data. Since they were involved in the survey part of the initiative they have a sense of the value of its objectives and methods.

Making positive reinforcement a habit--part of the organizational culture, is accelerated in a business unit where upper management (or department management) brings all the employees together from the very beginning to communicate and more importantly to involve everyone in the process. Explain everything and give everyone a chance to talk. Allow frontline employees to discuss the process that preceded the kickoff—the surveying and organizing of the survey results. Let them know the name of the individual in their department who will be coordinating the data retrieval and that the process and its results will be transparent.

Operations performance—quality, productivity, service—any performance measures in place will be reviewed and tracked parallel to the reinforcement improvement data cards. Overall organizational performance should go up in direct proportion to the progress of the reinforcement initiative. Supervisory-employee dialogs are going to drive precise recognition—recognition for the critical behaviors that drive profitability. This is the vital performance link that has been missing—unreachable with old management models. This is a positive reinforcement strategy for the new world of work.

Developing Positive Reinforcement Skill: Step 1--Part Two

In Step 1 of the Leading with Positive Reinforcement: 5 Self-Development Steps, I covered the need to delete punitive verbal habits from your interpersonal style. It is difficult for any of us to admit that we are sabotaging employee relationships because we use words and body language that puts people off. It is probable that the verbal habits that create a relationship barrier between you and your employees will have the same effect on your peers, boss, and family.If you have worked on this and feel that you are careful in the way you talk to your employees, then please ignore this section and skip forward to the next part of step 1.

I recently spent several days in a manufacturing plant in America—in a company that says and does all the things fashionable to create employee engagement. As I had occasion to talk with the front line employees, they expressed dissatisfaction in regard to supervisory interpersonal behavior. The supervisor’s peers corroborated the employee’s concerns.

Because it was a rural manufacturing site, employees treasured their jobs; the site had almost zero turnover because this was the only employer around that paid decently. Supervisors recognized that employees were highly motivated to keep their jobs. Supervisors who had a punitive supervisory style had no motivation to change or improve their interaction habits; employees tolerated the behavior because there was no other place to work. If they had other employers to choose from, they would leave.

Trying to implement a rewards and recognition or a positive reinforcement system in this kind of environment is futile. Beneath the rhetoric, smiles and positive talk, the employees sense a deep hypocrisy; management talks the talk, but they do not walk the walk. Employee engagement and employee performance potential will never be fully realized in this environment.

The most critical component of a rewards culture is the relationship that exist between supervisor and employee. This is where the system breaks down, and climate surveys reflect broken systems throughout the nation. Employee engagement is only an illusion until supervisors know how to create real partnerships with employees--partnerships with mutual respect--collaboration and unity, mutual commitment to the companies mission.

Many progressive companies survey their employees and use the information for supervisory/management development, promotions, bonuses, and raises. In these environments, the consequences for subtle abuse—for disrespecting employees by word or deed is highly probable. The transparency of their interactive style encourages supervisors to either develop positive interpersonal skills or face frustration and ultimate job performance failure.

Assuming that you have concrete, effective checks and balances in place that motivate supervisors and managers to work on their interaction skills, and that you have feedback mechanisms in place to provide them with quantitative information about the effect their verbal and non-verbal behavior has on others, then you are prepared to move through the 5 step process. Keep in mind, that a frontline supervisor’s boss should be using the 5 step self-development process his or herself. So, the supervisor’s boss will be talking with the supervisor frequently, giving him or her positive reinforcement for their interactive behaviors; they will be going through the same self-development process.

Developing Positive Reinforcement Skill: Step 1—Part Two

Preparing for a Successful Change Initiative

The best way to start any change effort is to involve the employees. Gather you employees together and explain the objectives of the change initiative—what you will be doing differently, the benefits to them, and the role they can play. Management and supervisory anxiety and resistance to change is reduced when organizational change tactics are clear and employee suspicion has been removed through effective communication and participation.

The 5 step self-development process is accelerated in a business unit where upper management (or department management) brings all the employees together to communicate and more importantly to involve them in the process. The structure of this meeting is dependent on the culture, climate, trust levels, history of employee involvement in problem solving and improvement, and labor relations, to name a few.

You can begin the kickoff meeting by telling employees that beginning next week, supervisors will be stopping by to talk with them more often. The reasons for increased contact are to:

• Discuss safety issues that are causing you concern. Conditions, equipment—anything that you perceive as a risk to you or your coworkers
• Opportunity for you to get faster, more accurate information about what is going on in the department and business unit that might effect you or your work
• Discuss any problems you may be having with your equipment, the availability of performance-critical information, the tools you need to do the job effectively
• Talk with your supervisor about things that are going well; identify new ways of doing things that could be shared with others to help make a better product (or deliver better service or satisfy customers better)
• Have a discussion with you that helps him or her understand how our processes and systems may be helping or hindering your work
• Discover real-time adjustments that need to be made to avoid anticipated problems that your experience allows you to foresee
• Help your supervisor anticipate situations that may require the system wide, immediate involvement of other work groups or departments and take action

You might also lead into an exercise that involves everyone in the process as follows:

There are a lot of benefits to all of us for knowing more about what is going on—problems that are evolving and opportunities to improve our systems and processes. More timely, open discussions will help us identify barriers to performance and resolve them more quickly.

In the next few weeks, we will be trying to determine the most important points to cover when we talk with you. We will need your help in assuring that we focus on things that are important in helping you get the job done. We hope to create a mutually beneficial dialog that helps us work together more effectively.

You can help us get a good start on this. At each table there is a tablet and pin; if one person would be the scribe, please brainstorm a list of things that you might want to cover routinely when your supervisor stops by to talk. Think about the times when you have had an improvement idea that you thought would make your job work better, or when you have had a need for something that would help you. Maybe our current processes or procedures are creating a problem and they need overhauling to make them better.

Safety is an important to us we want you work in a comfortable, secure environment. We want to know when the equipment, a task, or hazardous conditions pose a threat to your safety. Maybe you wanted maintenance to check on something but you didn’t want to go through the procedure for getting them there. Or, you need a tech guy to keep from losing valuable time, but you know it will be two days before he gets to you.

We want to identify what’s working; we want to know our strengths. So, please take a few minutes and put down a list of things that you think will help us become more successful. Tamara and Russell will be moving around the tables to coach you through any problems you may be having. Thanks for your help.

If you are a supervisor or manager attempting personal development, you may not have the advantage of a leadership sponsored company initiative to create a climate that supports your efforts. You can still be successful if you follow the self-development steps. The change process I have developed is directed toward supervisors who have been negative in the past, but have decided to develop positive management habits. Negative managers--toxic bosses--anyone who feels that they have been doing things one way and they want to try another, have nothing to be ashamed about.

No one chooses to behave in ways that create problems for them. Supervisors who have an ineffective style have a learning history that created that style. It is not about bad people and good people; it is about learning. Supervisors, managers, and leaders can relearn--they can change verbal behavior and change the effect they have on their employees and others around them. The steps we are reviewing creates a nurturing environment that guarantees successful behavior change.

I would encourage any supervisor, manager or leader to consider self-development as job security. The world of work is going to continue to reward supervisors who can create productive partnerships with their employees. Supervisors who can create reinforcing relationships with their employees are more profitable to the organization. Their employees have fewer injuries, lost time, absences, better quality, service and timeliness. Supervisors who encourage discretionary effort through effective, positive interactions are valuable assets. Generation Y is accelerating the need for supervisors and managers who have mastered positive reinforcement.