Catch people doing things right...

In the 1980s, In Search of Excellence was all the rage and everyone was quoting Tom Peters.

 

·      It was all about empowering people at all levels to solve business problems

·      By eliminating business-process overhead and stressing effectiveness.

 

Early in my career, the notion of catching people doing things right became one of the cornerstones of our employee relations philosophy and corporate culture. We pioneered this idea in the housekeeping department, and it revolutionized the way the supervisors and managers there interacted with their staff. Instead of spending much of their time documenting errors, they focused more on recognizing the things that people did right. From there, we introduced it to the rest of the company, and we went on to become one of the most admired companies in the US. Because more people generally do more things right than wrong, it makes good sense to celebrate the positive things that you want to see more of.  And then, the perfect complement to this is to coach rather than discipline people when their performance needs improving. Together, these two ideas created a culture of excellence for us, and they could for your business too. Consider celebrating what you want to see more of today.

Thomas J. Peters (born 1942): American management consultant with McKinsey & Co. and writer on business management practices, best known for In Search of Excellence.