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Feedback is the breakfast of champions! Find out what types are most effective to reinforce or change behaviors. The value of feedback is priceless. A monthly ezine for organizations, business owners and professionals who want to excel.FEBRUARY 2005 IN THIS ISSUE Greetings and welcome to all of you. We are delighted to send you another issue of KEYS TO SUCCESS. Thank you for joining us. Are you looking forward to Spring as much as I am? Winter months tend to be so long and dreary. I almost feel guilty saying that since I live in California and many of you experience "real" winters around the country and world. The days were even brisk in Palm Springs a couple of weeks ago. The daffodils are poking their little faces up in my front yard. That's a good sign! The article this month emphasizes the importance of feedback in our relationships at work and home. Please feel free to send me your stories or experiences with using feedback. Keys to Success is written and published by Carol Gegner. Are you ready to excel? Check out http://www.coachexecs.com. We are ready to help you. Any questions about your subscription? Check the end of the newsletter for information to subscribe or unsubscribe. If you like what you see, will you please help us grow by forwarding the ezine to your colleagues and friends? We truly appreciate your support. Imagine a day at work without any eye contact, smiles or exchange of words. How would you feel receiving no recognition from others? Some of you are probably thinking I'd love that right now. I could actually get some work done! What if that lack of recognition continued over time? You've just become invisible in the world. Sounds like a miserable depressing existence. We rely on the give and take of feedback in our day to day activities whether at work or home. Feedback is our connection and lifeline to others. Yet we tend to take it for granted by either withholding it or giving it in a critical way. I just finished reading the book "Tell Me How I'm Doing" by Richard L. Williams. It is written as a fable about the importance of giving feedback. It's easy to read and gives great information on different types of feedback that can be used at work with employees and at home with family. As the story goes, we all have a feedback bucket that we carry around and we need to have it filled. Unfortunately, that bucket has holes in the bottom. Some of those holes are small and some are large. Due to the holes we start to lose the value of some of the feedback that's been put in our bucket. We need to have our bucket refilled. There are four types of feedback you can add to someone's bucket and the type of feedback you add determines the response you get. So if you want to reinforce a behavior you give supportive feedback. If you are trying to change a behavior you use corrective feedback. The third type is insignificant feedback and it is so vague it produces a minimal response. The last type is abusive feedback and it produces contempt from the other person. Many people forget to give supportive feedback. For example, their assistant is a jewel and performs by exceeding expectations. How long will that performance continue if it's not reinforced with supportive feedback? Who doesn't like to hear that the extra time and work they put in on a project was really appreciated. Without reinforcement the assistant will feel under valued and become less productive. Then you'll have to use corrective feedback! Corrective feedback is often confused with abusive feedback. We think we're using corrective feedback and then wonder why we aren't getting the results we want. Telling someone to "shape up or you're out of here" is not corrective. Asking carefully guided questions and stating what specific improvement is needed is what corrective feedback is all about. As a parent it's easy to fall into the abusive feedback trap. Your child's room is a total disaster and nothing you say makes a difference. Those of you who have teenagers know what I mean! Every time you walk by the room you cringe and resort to abusive feedback. The room continues to be a mess. Now we start taking things away from him or her as punishment or we put them on restriction. In the meantime they aren't getting any supportive feedback from us because we are so focused on what they aren't doing. Start using corrective feedback and reinforce any little change with supportive feedback and you will be amazed at what can happen. You might actually begin to see a tiny bit of the floor in that messy room. The quality of any relationship, business or personal is dependent on the quality and quantity of feedback each person receives from the other. If the feedback is poor so is the relationship; if the feedback is abusive so is the relationship; if the feedback is positive so is the relationship. How are your relationships? What type of feedback are you using? Giving appropriate feedback is truly a gift. Try it out. You'll reap many happy returns at work and at home. It's priceless! Interested in reading the book? Just click here to purchase. "It's always worthwhile to make others aware of their "Think in terms of what's good for the other person and "You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by force." Positive Impact Questions from 1. "I have helped someone in the last 24 hours.
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