Page 180 - The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership

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Remember that progress motivates

There is a ‘lust to finish’ (John Wesley) and the key principle is that
progress motivates – moving forward leads them to raise their game.

Feedback on progress (or even the relative lack of it) helps motivation
either to spur people on or to concentrate the mind on what yet needs
to be done.

Feedback is not given at all or sometimes not often enough, usually
for these reasons:
• ‘People don’t need to be told how they are doing, they already
know’
• ‘People take it easy if you say things are going well’

• ‘They are unhappy and cause trouble if you say things are not
going well’

• ‘We lack the skills or the time to do it’.

Feedback which is affirmative (praise) must be:
• accurate

• sincere
• generous
• spontaneous

• fair.

It must not be:
• patronising

• superior/condescending
• grudging
• calculated for effect.

Maintaining motivation depends on informing and inspiring and the
rule is always to give information first, before you attempt to
encourage.

170 The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership