Just the other day I asked myself, “am I being too sensitive?”

I’ve been delivering a coaching and workshop program throughout most of this year, aimed at helping those within a particular organisation build more resilience and stay productive during some difficult times. The project has involved consulting to key players in the upper echelons of management and also, delivering a series of practical workshops to staff at various levels of the business.

Ostensibly, the workshops and services I’ve delivered have been very well received. At the end of each session participants are asked to complete a feedback form and as far as I can tell their responses have rated my delivery and the content as either “good” or “very good”.

I don’t say this to boast about my prowess or abilities but rather, I note this because it’s relevant to some other feedback I’ve received from my primary contacts within the organisation and the people who’re coordinating and helping to develop the sessions I’m delivering.

Despite the very positive ratings I seem to be getting from workshop participants the only feedback I’ve received from the coordinators has been negative or at best, equivocal. They’ve consistently followed up each session with suggestions for improvement and advice about how to make the workshops better.

Now, I definitely don’t think I’m perfect and I’m definitely not opposed to receiving constructive criticism (and, I should note, many of their comments have been very helpful), in fact I’m always looking to improve and as a result, I appreciate appropriate comments that I can take on board and integrate into my practice or presentation. But there was something about this particular job and the feedback that I was receiving that irked me, and after some consideration and reflection I think I worked out why.

Firstly, it struck me that the feedback I was receiving from the coordinators was markedly inconsistent and significantly out of synch with the feedback provided by the actual participants. This incongruity seemed strange to me. Secondly, the feedback was so totally negative that it was hard to ignore the significant imbalance. And thirdly, I began to wonder if this was, in fact, symptomatic of a wider cultural issue within the organisation (ie. an excessive focus on problems and weaknesses with an almost complete absence of attention directed toward positives and strengths). If I were correct in this assumption, then it would certainly explain the presence of some of the problems I was being asked to help fix!

After some serious reflection and discussion with some confidantes I’ve decided that I’m not just sulking or being too sensitive but rather, that what I’ve experienced is probably an integral part of this organisation’s culture which again, might at least partly explain why they need me to come in and run this program. But I also know that they’re definitely not on their own. Having worked with many organisations over the years and numerous leadership teams and senior executives this would have to be one of the more common problems I’ve encountered – excessive criticism and a lack of positive reinforcement.

Unfortunately, this goes against everything we know about good people management and good management generally; that is, it’s far more effective to positively reinforce desirable behaviours than to criticise undesirable ones. And this has been reinforced time and time again, in all manner of contexts, including high-performing teams, organisations generally, individual’s lives and intimate relationships.

Essentially, what we know from the research is that to achieve optimum performance we need to strive towards a “positivity ratio” of at least 3 or 4 to 1. That is, for every negative or critical comment or experience we need to create at least 3 or 4 positive ones to ensure we experience enough positivity to function and perform at our best.

So there it is; I’m going to try to feed back my thoughts to this organisation and hope that they don’t just think I’m whingeing but rather, that they decide to work towards boosting positivity in each and every interaction they have with each other, with clients and with providers.

I’d love to talk to you about how I can boost positivity within your team or organisation but I’d also love to hear how you already do this… feel free to post your thoughts and experiences below.

Dr Sharp is presenting a free Webinar titled ‘10 Simple Steps to Overcoming Depression’ on July 23. Click here to register.

Dr Sharp’s latest book (out now) is ‘100 Ways to Happiness: a Guide for Busy People’ (Penguin). You can find out more about corporate programs, presentations and coaching services at www.drhappy.com.au and www.thehappinessinstitute.com. You can also ask him questions using the comments panel below.

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