Small change: lift someone up

First published on
Sep 05, 2023
we’re out of balance
Writing Small Change Communicating clearly Culture in companies Emotions at work Happiness at work High performing teams Leadership development 2023

The human brain attaches something like 13 times the importance to negative experiences as it does to positive ones. This phenomenon appears to have its roots in evolution: after all, there’s a limit to how happy anyone can be, but we can only die once. (Cheerful, we know.)

So it might be tempting to think that the impact of praise is limited: people, it seems, respond far more readily to threats. This understanding certainly appears to be the basis on which many workplaces ‘function’.

But this ignores another human truth: positive reinforcement is essential for behaviour change. The supermarket Tesco makes hay on this with the simple principle that underpins its loyalty card: “reward the behaviour we seek”. What opportunities to create positive behaviour change might you be missing by failing to lift someone up?

Something to consider: whose behaviour can I champion today?

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