Page 157 - The extraordinary leader

134 • The Extraordinary Leader

authentic happiness and abundant gratification. This is something that you
can learn to do in each of the main realms of your life: work, love, and rais-
ing children.” 1
In work situations, performance appraisals most often search for some
deficiency. The approach of telling people some good news, then focusing
on areas where they need development or improvement, and finishing up
with a positive comment or two is standard procedure in many organizations.
(Is it any wonder that people begin to wince when they hear the positive com-
ments, knowing that it is often the precursor to the important message of
their deficiencies?) It is best to have frequent conversations that focus only
on the positive aspects of the person’s work. The research, in fact, suggests
that the positive dialogue should occur five times more frequently than
negative conversations if you want optimal performance from your team.
Medium-performing teams had a ratio of just under 2 to 1, and the poorly
performing organizations had a ratio of roughly 3 negative comments
for every 1 positive. Cameron writes, “The single most important factor in
predicting organizational performance—which was more than twice as pow-
erful as any other factor—was the ratio of positive statements to negative
statements. 2
It is perfectly understandable that managers who can give only 4 people
out of the 20 in their group a superior rating will focus discussions on defi-
ciencies rather than strengths. This provides the rationale for why some get a
raise whereas others do not. If the manager were to focus only on positive issues
and give a “meets expectations” rating, that might be very confusing to the
direct reports. Even those who get an “exceeds expectations” rating will often
be provided feedback on areas where their skills are not quite as positive.

You’re the Coach

To understand this basic belief more objectively, we propose jumping to an
entirely different realm. Imagine that you have agreed to be the soccer coach
for a competition soccer team of 12-year-olds. You are excited to work with the
team. After agreeing to be the coach, you learn that 20 children have signed
up to try out for the team, but the team can only field 15 players. Because this
is a competition soccer program, it is necessary for some children to be cut
from the team. On the first day of practice, you explain that you only have 15
slots on the team and that everyone is going to have to try out.