Yesterday, I saw B.F. Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory in action. I was sitting in our agile team room with about half of our team members. One person commented on another’s good posture. The complimentee smiled and said, “Thanks for noticing. I’ve been working on it.” The interaction was very nice and I observed its positive effect on both the giver and the receiver of the feedback.
What was just as encouraging was what happened in the rest of the room. I saw three other people adjust their posture and I too sat up straighter. That comment, however brief, had a positive effect on the entire room even though the compliment was only given to one person.
There is tons of academic research on the great benefits of positive reinforcement, but I had never read much about its effect on bystanders. So, I spent some time on Google. It was certainly not an exhaustive search but a cool article popped up from psychcentral.com. “The new study found rewards were strongly associated with compliance and cooperation. As such, this approach could help in developing solutions for problems requiring the cooperation of large numbers of people to achieve a greater good.” I think this has huge implications for how we interact with each other. So, I encourage you to sit up straight and point out something one of your colleagues is doing well and see if it benefits you’re entire team.
What was just as encouraging was what happened in the rest of the room. I saw three other people adjust their posture and I too sat up straighter. That comment, however brief, had a positive effect on the entire room even though the compliment was only given to one person.
There is tons of academic research on the great benefits of positive reinforcement, but I had never read much about its effect on bystanders. So, I spent some time on Google. It was certainly not an exhaustive search but a cool article popped up from psychcentral.com. “The new study found rewards were strongly associated with compliance and cooperation. As such, this approach could help in developing solutions for problems requiring the cooperation of large numbers of people to achieve a greater good.” I think this has huge implications for how we interact with each other. So, I encourage you to sit up straight and point out something one of your colleagues is doing well and see if it benefits you’re entire team.
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