Reenergize Action with Appreciative Feedback

All work requires energy. Middle-managers who divert all energy to new actions fall into a common trap: They fail to reenergize existing actions, which may kill the success of new actions.

Middle management success depends on fueling both new and existing actions. How can appreciative feedback help you discover existing, effective actions and preserve them?

On your own, you can identify a small number of the effective actions people are taking. But combine yourself with the other members of your organization and you can identify many more.

I suggest you use appreciative feedback during status meetings to discover effective actions that people are taking. Here’s how—

During your status meetings, title your second agenda item Appreciations (for agenda item #1, see this post). I suggest 10 – 15 minutes for the duration. With the agenda that you send to all the participants, include a separate document that contains a replica of the following appreciation form:

Appreciation ________________________________ recipient’s name I appreciate YOU for ________________________________ specific action Your action enabled me to ________________________________ specific outcome ________________________________ your name

Ask the participants to fill out an appreciations form for as many people as they would like. Emphasize to them that you would like them to fill out the forms before the meeting.

Here’s an example of a completed appreciation —

Jerry, I appreciate you for analyzing and predicting the number of clients who are dissatisfied with our product. Your action enabled me to convince upper-management to invest in creating a focus group of key clients to advise us on prioritizing the fixes.

Why use a form? During the meeting, you will ask the giver and the recipient to come to the front of the room. The giver has all the talking points on the form. Without preparation, the giver prepares their delivery at the last minute causing them to ramble for minutes to everyone while they organize their thoughts. A giver who is unprepared decreases the number of appreciations shared.

When the time limit expires for the Appreciation agenda item, collect the remaining appreciation forms and post them in the meeting minutes along with the appreciations that were covered. It’s less powerful than the giver delivering the appreciation to the other meeting participants. But if you stretch the duration of the agenda item too much, participants will tune out.

Before you have your first meeting with appreciations — demonstrate the form and delivery in an earlier meeting. It’s simple: Stand up. Move to the front of the room. Ask your recipient to join you. Smile. Look them in the eyes. Tell them what’s on the form. Smile. (The recipient says two words, “Thank you.”)

Emphasize the importance of the giver sharing a specific action and outcome. During the first few meetings when you do appreciations, if actions and outcomes aren’t specific, ask questions to help the giver become specific. Everyone will benefit from the coaching.

I suggest you don’t do appreciations every status meeting. A period of appreciation has the desired effect when it’s special. I suggest doing appreciations every other meeting.

Appreciative feedback provides you and the entire team with information about effective actions and their consequences. You will discover effective actions which need recharging to preserve.

An appreciation lets a recipient know that someone recognizes and appreciates their work. For many employees, recognition and appreciation by a peer is the highest reward. Appreciations reinforce and reenergize a person’s desire to take effective actions thus preserving them.