100 Ways to Motivate Others

74. Build a Culture of Acknowledgment

I have always said that if I were a rich man I’d hire a professional praiser.

—Sir Osbert Sitwell, poet

One way to motivate others is to change the question you ask yourself each day. Instead of, How do I get them to do less of what bothers me? I might want to change that to, What is the best thing I can do to get my team to do more of what I want them to do?

Most managers find out what’s wrong, and then criticize it. They look for the problems, and then they say, “You know,we really can’t have this. You’ve got to fix this; this is really not good enough.”

But that approach causes resentment on the part of the person who’s being criticized. What works better is recognition, acknowledgment, and appreciation. ...