A simple, powerful positive feedback activity
Summary
TLDRThis video script introduces a simple yet powerful exercise for generating positive feedback within teams. The process involves writing one's name at the bottom of a sheet, passing it to the left or right, and having peers note impressive behaviors or personality traits. The aim is to foster stronger relationships and recognize each other's strengths. The exercise, which can be completed in about 15-20 minutes for a group of 10, emphasizes the importance of positive reinforcement in the workplace and has proven effective over 30 years of use.
Takeaways
- π The script introduces a simple and powerful exercise for generating positive feedback within a team.
- π It emphasizes the importance of positive feedback in the workplace, which is often lacking and can strengthen relationships and performance.
- π The exercise has been used for over 30 years and is believed to lead to long-term improvements in team behavior.
- π₯ The exercise involves getting everyone in a group to write their name at the bottom of a sheet of paper and then pass it to the left or right.
- π Participants are asked to write either a behavior they've seen that impressed them or a personality characteristic of the person whose name is on the paper.
- π The feedback should be concise, meaningful, and positive, avoiding generic or trivial comments.
- π The paper is folded after each comment to keep the identity of the writer anonymous until the end.
- β³ The process continues until the paper is filled with comments, which can take around 15 to 20 minutes for a group of 10 people.
- π€ The exercise encourages reflection on how people perceive each other and can reveal surprising insights about individual contributions and characteristics.
- π It's important to manage the process to ensure that comments are meaningful and to prevent anyone from opting out by claiming they don't know the person well enough.
- π The final step involves each person writing feedback about themselves, which can be a valuable self-reflection exercise.
- π‘ The exercise is efficient, requiring minimal logistics, and can generate a large amount of positive feedback in a short amount of time.
Q & A
What is the main purpose of the exercise described in the script?
-The main purpose of the exercise is to generate positive feedback within a team, highlighting the lack of positive reinforcement in the workplace and aiming to strengthen relationships and recognize good work.
How long has the presenter been using this exercise?
-The presenter has been using this exercise for over 30 years.
What is the recommended group size for this exercise?
-The ideal group size for this exercise is around ten people, though it can be stretched to twelve.
Why is it important to write one's name at the bottom of the paper?
-Writing one's name at the bottom of the paper is important as it is an unconventional way to start, which sets the stage for the feedback exercise.
What are the two things participants are asked to write at the top of the paper?
-Participants are asked to write either a behavior they've seen that impressed them or a personality characteristic of the person that impresses them.
Why is it encouraged to keep the statements visible during the exercise?
-Keeping the statements visible helps to ensure that the feedback is driven by those specific prompts and maintains focus on providing meaningful and positive feedback.
How does the paper-passing process work in this exercise?
-Participants pass their paper to the person on their left or right, and each person adds a comment about the person whose name is at the bottom of the paper, folding it over after writing to keep the comments anonymous.
What is the expected duration for the exercise with a group of 10 people?
-The exercise is expected to take around 15 to 20 minutes for a group of 10 people.
Why is it important not to let anyone 'cop out' during the exercise?
-It's important not to let anyone 'cop out' to ensure that everyone engages in providing meaningful feedback, even if they feel they don't know the person well, as this encourages everyone to reflect on their impressions and interactions.
What should participants write about themselves at the end of the exercise?
-Participants should write feedback on themselves, acknowledging their own strengths and behaviors that they believe are impressive or positive.
How does the presenter suggest handling the completed feedback sheets?
-The presenter suggests pausing before opening the feedback sheets, discussing the experience, and then opening them to reflect on the positive feedback received.
Outlines
π Generating Positive Feedback in Teams
This paragraph introduces a method for fostering positive feedback within a team setting. The speaker emphasizes the lack of positive reinforcement in the workplace and suggests an exercise that has been used for over 30 years to enhance relationships and performance. The process involves each team member writing their name at the bottom of a sheet of paper, then passing it to the left or right. Each participant is to write at the top of the paper either a behavior they've observed and admired in the person named or a personality trait that impresses them. The paper is folded after each entry to keep the comments anonymous and is passed around until it is filled with positive comments. The exercise is recommended for groups of 8 to 12 people and is designed to be a straightforward way to generate meaningful feedback.
π Reflecting on the Positive Feedback Exercise
In this paragraph, the speaker discusses the importance of taking the positive feedback exercise seriously and avoiding trivial or insincere comments. The goal is to provide meaningful and useful feedback that is genuinely positive. The speaker advises against sharing the comments during the exercise and stresses the value of self-awareness, encouraging participants to write their own feedback last. Once completed, the speaker suggests a moment of reflection on the experience, discussing the feelings and difficulties encountered during the process. The exercise is meant to be a rich source of positive reinforcement, capable of generating a significant amount of feedback in a short time. The speaker also mentions that the exercise has been personally impactful and provides a link to more resources on their website for those interested in further exploration.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Positive Feedback
π‘Workplace
π‘Exercise
π‘Group Dynamics
π‘Behavior
π‘Personality Characteristic
π‘Concise
π‘Fold
π‘Pass
π‘Impress
π‘Feedback on Self
Highlights
Introduction to a simple and powerful method for generating positive feedback in the workplace.
The premise that there is often a lack of positive feedback among team members.
The exercise has been used for over 30 years with positive long-term results.
Instructions to write names at the bottom of a sheet of paper as an unusual starting point.
The process of passing papers to the left or right to encourage feedback.
Writing either a behavior or a personality characteristic that impresses about the person whose name is on the paper.
The importance of keeping feedback concise and meaningful.
Folding the paper to hide the feedback, adding an element of surprise.
The continuous passing of papers to build up positive comments.
Encouraging participants not to repeat themselves and to think creatively about their feedback.
The exercise's efficiency in generating a large amount of positive feedback in a short time.
The recommendation to not share the feedback during the exercise to maintain its impact.
The final step of writing self-feedback to enhance self-awareness.
The emotional impact of receiving positive feedback and its potential to surprise participants.
Discussion after the exercise to reflect on the experience and the feedback received.
The exercise's potential for top teams and its remarkable effects.
Availability of more information and resources on the speaker's website.
Emphasis on the exercise being informal and positive, not contentious.
Reassurance that there is no negative feedback to follow, focusing solely on the positive.
Transcripts
i'm going to show you i'm going to show
you how to use
a very simple very powerful means
of generating positive feedback
that is particularly useful within a
team of people who work together
this is really based on the premise
that there isn't enough positive
feedback in the workplace
people who work together
just take the helicopter noise at the
background people who work together
far too often withhold positive feedback
don't say the things
to each other that they could that would
uh reinforce those relationships that
would
point out to people what they do well so
this is all about positive feedback
now i've used this exercise for 30 plus
years
and i've had some very very useful
positive results i'd like to think
that it's resulted in people doing
things long term better as a result
anyway i'll stop talking about it i'll
show you how to do it
the first very straightforward thing to
do is to get everybody in a group
to write their name my name is andrew
at the bottom at the bottom very
importantly at the bottom
of the sheet of paper so
that's an unnatural thing to do so most
people want to write it at the top
it's always got to be at the bottom so
after that what you get people to do
is to pass their sheet of paper to the
person
on their left or their right it doesn't
really matter
in other words everybody in a group and
the ideal group size is around about ten
you can stretch to twelve i guess but
four or five isn't enough
so for a group of eight nine ten eleven
twelve that sort of size this works
really well
so at the moment all you've got is a
load of people who have got the person
to the left
or to the right piece of paper so once
they get that piece of paper what they
do is each person looks at it and you
ask them to do one of two things or both
you ask them to write at the top of the
piece of paper
at the very top up here either
a behavior that they've seen that person
do
that has impressed them so something
i've seen this person
in this case andrew must be something
someone's seen me do well
something i've seen this person do that
has impressed me
to write that concisely at the top of
the piece of paper
and or this
a personality characteristic something
about this person that impresses
me so what you've got is two
things to do or just one because one's
enough
two is ideal but it must be kept concise
at the top of the piece of paper
and it's always best to actually leave
these statements
visible obvious and referred to during
the course of the exercise
so how i'm not complicating this already
it isn't at all
because you're asking people on a sheet
of paper with that person's name on it
to write at the top of the piece of
paper
a personality characteristic now i'm not
actually going to write this down
but it could mean you end up with
writing like that
possibly one possibly two sentences then
the key thing is
you fold the piece of paper anyone old
enough like me to remember consequences
will know this
so you fold the piece of paper over
having written the one or two
sentences key thing here is to encourage
people not just to write a word
um i don't know nice friendly
whatever it is we want something more
meaningful we want
something which is either or both of
these
statements driven and that's why it's
important to leave them
up so you end up then without
saying to people pass it now to the
person on your right
or your left it doesn't really matter to
be honest as long as it's in a
continuous
process you don't change one to the
other it's either to the right or as
either to the left
so the person then for the sake of
argument passes it to the right
you then get somebody's piece of paper
which
over a period of a few minutes not hours
that's for sure
the piece of paper gets shorter more and
more comments have been written
about the person whose name appears at
the bottom there so
this goes on for as long as it takes
i find for a group of 10 it will take
around about
15 minutes maybe 20 you'd be surprised
some people find it harder
to think of something in relation to
these two statements for some people
than for others
some people know each other better than
others you might get told
well i don't really know this person i
said work off what you do know
we all fall first and forth from first
impressions
we've all got feelings about someone
based on a few minutes
so don't let anyone cop out so more and
more of these happen
and you get further and further down the
sheet of paper as it goes round and
round
um don't get people to share it
sometimes they want to show it to people
don't do that
encourage people to take it seriously
you might get a feel for if people are
being a bit daft
you know oh something i've seen this
person do is i don't know
and balance three paper clips on their
nose that's not what we're looking for
we're looking for meaningful uh useful
feedback positive feedback and all the
time emphasize
positive feedback so ultimately with
enough folds
some people might be writing a bit
smaller or condensing their folds by
then
if you need to go to a second sheet of
paper but it's always nice to keep it to
one
you end up with a sheet of paper where
that comes back to you
and then yes get people to write
feedback on themselves
people should know themselves better
than anyone else so andrew should write
feedback
on andrew so once that's done you end
up with a piece of paper which typically
is folded right down to the bottom
now another key thing don't get people
to
to just open them up really nearly two
things to do
first of all pause and tell people
you're going to remind them that when it
comes around to themselves they'll have
their own to do when they've all
finished
that might mean waiting for a few people
when they've all finished and they're
all keen to see what's on their piece of
paper i promise you that
it could be the most feedback they've
had since their last year at
school so stop at that point
at that point you've got a rich moment
to say how did that feel
how what difficulties what problems did
you have doing that some people have a
problem with
repeating themselves well i kept saying
the same things that's interesting why
do you think that is do you see
people in the same sort of ways through
the same frames i had a real problem
with this person why is that
you don't need people to be personal
this is informal in a sense that it's
not
attributed people know perhaps their
handwriting they know the order in which
it was written but this is not
contentious stuff
this is positive feedback if it was i
think this person's a complete pain in
the backside then it'll be different but
this isn't
this is about what impresses you about
them this is about what
they do that impresses you so it should
be good positive feedback so
for as long as it takes not for half an
hour only a couple of minutes just
before they get opened up in a big
flourish
this one's empty but
this one isn't here's one i did earlier
or here's one that was done on me
earlier
here's an example of one that was done
on me
so to speak many years ago and
the thing to notice when people open
them up is typically
um there's smiles on people's faces they
like it they're a bit surprised
and that's the sort of thing to draw
afterwards
what are you looking at are you seeing
anything that surprises you some people
aren't oh no it's the
sort of stuff i expected to be shown um
another people
would say well i didn't expect this and
why did you say that says somebody and
then you end up with
the silly ones and they hopefully feel
silly because they haven't engaged in it
properly
most people do particularly if you
emphasize what it's really all about
so this is an extremely direct
extremely efficient in terms of its uh
only piece of paper and it's done very
quickly it doesn't require a lot of
logistics
um exercise to generate positive
feedback if you've got 10 people in the
room
that's a hundred bits of positive
feedback you're generating
in less than 20 minutes that's pretty
good going
and it's something i know works because
i've used it myself so many times
imagine a top team doing this that would
be rather remarkable wouldn't it
um i've done it once or twice so
if you want more on this there you go
i'm keeping it informal
my website uh which you can see a
reference to there
has got more on this within the free
resources section
and specifically teamworking you'll see
it down as a positive feedback activity
and there's a brief it's a written brief
about how to do this but i thought i'd
show you it first of all and that's the
sort of
outcome that you get and i've kept mine
for ages
and i've come across people that i've
worked with many many years ago
that have done the same that have kept
lawyers and have actually been keen to
show it to me
so there you are you might need to tell
people when they're
uh doing this that there isn't a
negative one to follow
something that doesn't impress me about
this person something i've seen this
person
do that fails to impress me that i don't
like because that's sometimes what they
fear and that can clear their head
to do it with a positive angle
which is good so i recommend it to you i
know it's a work for me
many many times in lots of different
contexts if you want to contact me
and find out more or explore it further
then please do so
alternatively as i say that's where
you'll find it on my website
okay there you go
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