Reframe criticism to become a better motivator

Be honest: Are you a good motivator at work? Scott Adams, the author of Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success, likely disagrees with your answer. But he gives us a way to rethink—or, as he puts it, reframe—our mindset on motivation. I, too, spend a lot of time thinking about this area and wanted to share some ideas as we rev up the new year.

What we do now

Adams writes that employers do it all wrong. Here’s their current drill as he sees it: Our instinct when we see something being done incorrectly is to immediately say, “You’re doing this wrong. Do it this way.” This is fine, Adams notes, if it involves a copilot hitting the wrong button in the cockpit. Otherwise, this approach is counterproductive. No developmental progress is made, and the employee and the company are therefore no better off.

I agree with him and would add the following: Managers focus on a fairly unimportant area and pound it to death. To what end? To show who’s boss? To say something negative and keep people in their place?

Another pointless approach: We dictate that “so and so must get better at XYZ.” Ultimatums feel good to the speaker because they create the illusion of control. But listeners hear a threat that might motivate in the short term but that sucks the life out of them in the long term. I’m sure readers know a few other approaches.