Originally Posted by irrational x

Originally Posted by EQ Tuning

How about a contest with a prize... tends to work well for sales staff.


-- Ed

Originally Posted by irrational x

so do spif's

Originally Posted by Four vs Two

Accountability is also an important part of positive reinforcement. Employees who are working hard need to be recognized. However, in my experience it's equally important for team morale to see those not pulling their weight held accountable. Do you want to work your *** off for a pat on the back and a small bonus, when the guy next to you gets away with doing a terrible job?

Originally Posted by crazy_sherm

Presentation of positive reinforcement is also important. Being sincere and truthful (tactfully of course) works much better than perception from the employees that you're just going through the motions. Also, having your employee's back when something goes wrong (within reason) shows that you appreciate them as part of the company.

Originally Posted by sybir

I cannot overstate how important it is as a manager to empower your people (I swear to god that's the last manager term I'lll use) - if someone comes up with a good idea, or something that will help the team or company, let them run with it when you can, get behind them to offer support both publicly and privately wherever possible, and most importantly, socialize their successes and share feedback when something doesn't work - every interaction, project, or plan can provide education to the employee and the team, even if it fails - that's learning from real-world examples. It's amazing how much people are capable of doing if you give them a chance to explore - anything dealing with customers or other teams regularly can be aggravating on its best day, and you need something you're at least somewhat passionate about to drive you to come in each day and put in effort to make things better.

Really when it comes to positive reinforcement, you have to make it clear to your people, not by words but by example, that your job is to help them do their best, not the other way around. If someone has a good idea, share it, and always make sure credit goes where it's deserved - nothing stifles creativity and development faster than someone toiling in the dark or seeing someone else take credit for their ideas or efforts. Thank your guys for the work they put in - do not take people or their efforts for granted. As mentioned, the "you should be happy to have a job" is a poisonous attitude that will do nothing but drop someone to complete apathy about their job or company. I let my guys know, regularly, that I appreciate what they're doing, day in and day out, to help the team and business, because it's on their shoulders that the weight of the world lies. Forget that, or fail to recognize it, and your most valuable people will be out the door.

FWIW (and totally an offtopic rant), I absolutely despise manager/newspeak and buzzwords - managers would do well to avoid using them when speaking to anyone they'd like to respect their opinion. I cringe when I see or hear those words, and it makes me question someone's ability to communicate effectively to audiences of varying technical or administrative levels when their speech is peppered with them. Maybe that's because I work with geeks and identify myself that way - we have an entire English language to use without making up bull**** words.

I won't dive in too much further - I try to keep I-club and work separate since I have a ton of i-clubbers in my office and a number of them report to me.

Originally Posted by chimchimm5

Like Sybir mentioned, you want to let people have the freedom to exercise their strengths. There's nothing wrong with appropriate status reports from them, but micromanaging is counter productive.

Here's a quote I've heard, "you want to hire smart people, and then give them freedom to do amazing things"



You really need a combination of all these things, done appropriately. You can't always do incentives and you can't always to outings, etc. RESPECT your people and the positive reinforcement comes naturally. You can't force yourself to give positive comments because it will be obvious that it's fake. However, as the opportunities arise, don't miss the opportunity to drop a positive comment. And when bonus time comes around, don't miss the opportunity to make your case for your own people to get rewarded.

The other thing is to listen... make sure you know what their goals are and don't miss the opportunity to give them the chance to meet their goals. For example, in my job I felt me best skills were not being utilized and I wanted to get on the new projects. My director explained he understood my interest, that currently he did not want to drop the ball on the current product I was supported, but he made sure (and gave an approximate timeline) when the next project would come in. When that project finally came in, he made sure that there was no question that I was going to be one of the early one's moved to it.

Respect your people, and they (usually) will respect you back and work with you under the circumstances.

Originally Posted by akdmx

You may want to check out "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. He discusses the effectiveness of various methods of persuasion, including the acknowledgement and encouragement of good work.

Also, if you want to debunk the use of punishment for bad behavior, you could cite the study done in the israeli air force. I read about it in "The Drunkard's Walk" by Mark Mlodnow. Here is a brief (and somewhat poor) summary of that study:



http://incentive-intelligence.typepa...ards-walk.html

Originally Posted by Lowend

Read Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Reasoning
It will give you a good overview (and citation) for how all people are motivated
http://www83.homepage.villanova.edu/.../kohlberg.html

Originally Posted by psoper

Lay off the people in every other cubicle.

Tell the remainders "be glad you have a job, want to keep it?- work harder!"