My daughter Shannon works in customer service, and she is cursed, screamed at and verbally abused on a daily basis. One day, however, the clouds parted and sunshine came in the form of an extremely happy customer. This person was delighted with Shannon’s speedy and effective help. This customer was so delighted that she wanted to share her feedback with Shannon’s supervisor, even though she had to wait on hold for several minutes to speak with the boss.
It was a great day for Shannon and her boss, who both got to take a break from problems, complaints and drama and revel in what was going right.
How much time do you spend problem-spotting versus applauding your people’s great actions and results?
Do it now, before the distractions of your work put it on the back burner again. Write an email, send a note or go tell someone in person that what they are doing makes a difference. You’ll make someone’s day amazing…and yours will be better, too!
Why are you still reading this?
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Photo from istockphoto.
David talks about “gardening” in that are we spending most of our time “weeding” or are we doing more “feeding”. Weeding is talking about all the bad things and feeding is doing exactly what your blog addresses is building on positive behavior.
We have an electronic “Kudos Board” that anyone can post a “kudo” to anyone else in the business. Face to Face is probably better but the board is a step in the right direction. I think I will stop typing and go compliment someone on their work today….
I find it so much easier & much less stressful to look at what’s right about a situation instead of what’s wrong; to look for opptys to compliment service or effort even if it doesn’t turn out totally in my favor instead of only asking to be connected to a supervisor to send bad news. When working w/groups, it’s fun to look at what’s working b4 we look at what’s isn’t…. and often we are able to help folks find that some of what works can be used in some fashion to address what isn’t working… thanks for the post..