It’s conventional wisdom that ambitious goals and high expectations go along with success. But a recent conversation with a top-performing advisor and some groundbreaking research show that having expectations that are too high will actually damage your business.
The key ratio that determines your relationships
That conversation was with a good friend – let’s call him John – who three years ago came to the stark realization that he was on a destructive path. In his 40s, John is a perfectionist by nature and a super-driven, type-A personality who does nothing by half measures.
How to win multi-million dollar clients
Tired of ho-hum conference speakers? Dan Richards delivers leading edge keynote talks on what it takes to attract high end clients today.
To energize your next conference, click for more information on Dan's speaking topics and to hear from past clients.
Dan Richards
ClientInsights-President
6 Adelaide Street E, Suite 400
Toronto ON M5C 1T6
(416) 900-0968
John has built an exceptionally successful business through talent and hard work. Despite his success, though, John is a very demanding boss. His business’ main obstacle is retaining support staff, even though he pays well above market. John has also struggled with his relationships with his two teenagers, who see him as unyielding and authoritarian.
The moment of insight for John was after his daughter came home with good grades on a key exam. John asked how her friends had done on the exam, and his daughter left the dinner table in tears. Later that evening, his wife and he had a talk that changed how he interacts with his kids, his staff and his clients.
Here’s how John described what his wife told him: “I understand that you didn’t mean to put Lindsay down, but you’re such a perfectionist that you take the good things she does for granted and immediately focus on the things she needs to improve. It would have taken only five seconds to tell her that she’d done a fantastic job and that you’re proud of her – but instead you wrote off her results with a ‘good job’ and immediately began comparing her to her friends. Until you take the time to let our kids know that you really appreciate them and recognize their terrific qualities and accomplishments, your relationship with them is going to keep going downhill.”
This got John thinking. Later that week, John’s wife emailed him an article that highlighted research on the optimum level of unqualified positive comments to negative comments, even those phrased as constructive criticism. Researchers had studied 60 leadership teams at a large tech firm and divided them into high, medium and low performers. The single factor that divided the most from the least successful teams was the ratio of positive comments (“great idea” or “good suggestion”) to negative comments (“not sure that would work” or “think we can do better than that”).
Ratio of positive to negative comments
High performing teams 5.6
Medium performing teams 1.9
Low performing teams 0.9
In another example, University of Washington psychologist and marriage researcher John Gottman says he is able to predict the likelihood of divorce with 90% certainty, in large measure by observing the proportion of positive to negative comments.
“I really admire your relationship with your children”
John was particularly struck by data showing that the higher the ratio of praise to criticism, the greater the success of a team, up to a ratio of about 9 to 1. This ratio, called the Lopades index after one of the researchers, has fundamentally shaped John’s interactions.
John began giving his kids and his staff positive feedback whenever he saw the opportunity. The key here was that the praise had to be genuine and sincere. But once John began looking for things about which to express positives, he was surprised how frequently he was able to legitimately say encouraging things.
“I’d always assumed that my staff were competent and would do a good job and that it wasn’t necessary to draw attention to this,” John told me. “And I assumed that my staff knew that I was happy with their work because they’d hear from me if I wasn’t. But two amazing things happened when I began taking five seconds to praise my team when they were doing a good job. First, they seemed to be more motivated and upbeat and felt better. Second, I felt better as well.”
John began applying the same principle to interactions with his wife, family members and friends. and those relationships improved as well. Another breakthrough came when John began applying this principle to his interactions with clients. He’d always taken the time to thank clients for their business and to tell them how much he appreciated the opportunity to work together, but he took this one step further. When meeting with clients, he now looks for one thing on which he can provide genuine positive feedback: for example, their relationship with their children, their success in building a business or active participation in community and charitable activity.
While it’s hard to precisely quantify the results from this change in his behavior, John has no doubt of the positive impact that his change has had. “Since beginning to practice conscious praise, where I look for chances for genuine positive feedback, my relationships have improved with staff, clients and my family. On top of that, I feel better about my interactions – my only regret is that I didn’t begin doing this years ago.”
More on the praise-to-criticism ratio
You can read more about the praise-to-criticism ratio in this post from the Harvard Business Review website by partners in a leadership development consultancy;
Negative feedback is important when we’re heading over a cliff to warn us that we’d really better stop doing something horrible or start doing something we’re not doing right away. But even the most well-intentioned criticism can rupture relationships and undermine self-confidence and initiative. It can change behavior, certainly, but it doesn’t cause people to put forth their best efforts.
Only positive feedback can motivate people to continue doing what they’re doing well, and do it with more vigor, determination, and creativity. Perhaps that’s why we have found with the vast majority of the leaders in our database, who have no outstanding weaknesses, that positive feedback is what motivates them to continue improvement. … For those in our database who started above average already (but are still below the 80th percentile) … focusing on their strengths enabled 62% of this group to improve a full 24 percentage points (to move from the 55th to the 79th percentile).
In researching this article, I became aware of some controversy about the methodology employed in the original research. When I mentioned this to John, he replied that whether the science behind this ratio is 100% valid or not, it has made a huge impact in his interactions. He believes, and I agree, that if everyone took advantage of reasons to provide genuine positive feedback, we’d all have better relationships with our families, staff and clients.
Dan Richards conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written commentaries, go to www.danrichards.com or here for his videos.
Read more articles by Dan Richards
