Building Positive Relationships

Remember I had attended 2 courses last week. The morning one was all about cheese…

the afternoon one, all about Killer WHALES…

The course is Building Positive Relationship.

Based on the book

Whale Done!

The Power of Positive Relationships By Ken Blanchard, Thad Lacinak, Chuck Tompkins, and Jim Ballard

I have to admit such book is really more suitable for managers or leaders because it is more on how to build positive relationships with the people around you (especially your subordinates) so that there will be a positive environment, and all will be committed to do their utmost, thus bringing the department’s efficiency to its ultimate.

However this does not prevent me from penning down the pointers as such methods can be applied on inter-personal relationships. Do you know that the people we take most for granted are the people that we cared the most? These people are the ones that we will GOTcha most, instead of giving them WHALE Dones.

GOTcha

Catching people doing things wrong

WHALE DONE!

Catching people doing things right

First let me talk about

The ABC’s of Performance

Activator - Whatever Gets Performance Going
Behaviour - The Performance That Occurs
Consequence - Your Response to the Performance

Have you ever wondered, when you were learning to walk, how did your parents teach you? Was it through encouragement? Did they rejoice at your every step? Every effort you made, did they applaud and appreciated it. However when we grow older, do we still receive such praises and encouragements whenever we do something right? Sometimes we still do, most of the times it seems to have greatly decreased in amount. This is because when we grow older, we are expected to do well. Thus it seems that doing well has been taken for granted. Thus we will face the first 2 consequences more often than the last 2. Ironically, the last 2 consequences are the 2 that will actually make a person go further. Minus all the animosity, plus all the praises that people (no matter how humble) will love equals all the will to excel.

4 Kinds of Consequences

1. No Response
2. Negative Response
3. Redirection
4. Positive Response

So how do we build positive relationship?
First we

Build trust.

It means being sincere to the person, making an effort to know the person. It means you have to first trust that person, for that person to trust you back.
WHALE DONE only works when you’re sincere and honest.

Besides talking to the person, you must also listen to the person. Hear what he/she says.
Never assume you know what motivates a person.

Then we must

Accentuate the positive.

This means concentrating on the positive, and gives them the WHALE Dones when they did something pleasing to you. Most importantly, you must
Praise progress. It’s a moving target.
Imagine if the end results can only be seen 1 year from now, praising intermittently will help re-affirm the person that he/she is doing correctly.

What if the person commits folly? By ignoring is not enough.

When mistakes occur, redirect the energy.

This means trying to find the solution and not pin point the blame. This means retracing back the steps so that the person can be guided to the right path soon. This means using

The Redirection Response

• Describe the error or problem as soon as possible, clearly and without blame.
  
• Show its negative impact.
  
• If appropriate, take the blame for not making the task clear.
  
• Go over the task in detail and make sure it is clearly understood.
  
• Express your continuing trust and confidence in the person.
  

After redirecting the person back to the right path, you will then be able to accentuate the positive and give them the

The WHALE DONE Response

• Praise people immediately.
  
• Share your positive feelings about what they did.
  
• Encourage them to keep up the good work.

The effect is not immediate. In fact it is going to be very tough to keep it going. There are times you might even catch yourself back in that GOTcha state. Then you must remember that people, who are too hard on others, are super critical himself/herself. Sometimes you must relaxed, hug yourself, praise your progress. Afterall…
It never hurts to toot your own horn once in a while.

To conclude, I am going to

Wake up and say something positive when everything is going well!

p/s : As you might have guessed, all those in bold or italicise, are the pointers I got from the book. There is one last pointer which I am unable to put inside, it is about company and the way they review people. If I ever have the courage, I wish to tell my company to abolish the performance curve, to use the WHALE Done method to improve work efficiency, to start praising US and not berating us when we make a mistake, and ignoring us when all is well… If I ever have the courage, I will say to them…
If you don’t hire people on a performance review curve, why grade them on one?