100 Ways to Motivate Others

Chapter 41. Use Positive Reinforcement

The first duty of a leader is optimism. How does your subordinate feel after meeting with you? Does he feel uplifted? If not, you are not a leader.

—Field Marshall Montgomery

Nobody remembers it. Everybody seems to forget it. But positive reinforcement trumps negative criticism every time.

It doesn’t matter if you are training dolphins or motivating your team members, positive reinforcement is the way to go. You don’t see trainers at Sea World beating the dolphins with baseball bats when they don’t jump through the right hoops. You see them, instead, giving them little fish when they do jump through.

Why can’t we remember that?

We’re too busy chasing down problems and then criticizing the problematic ...