No One’s Motivated by Negative Feedback
Progress and Appreciation Beats Criticism Any Day
Suppose you spend your day writing an article about capybaras. You’ve worked hard on it. Capybaras are your favorite animal and you’re passionate about the subject.
Now suppose that you’re just getting started writing. You enjoy it. You want to improve. You’re looking forward to increasing the world’s knowledge of capybaras. But you recognize that you’re early in your writing journey and you understand the importance of feedback in helping you grow.
So, you submit your article to your boss. She wants you to succeed. Capybaras may not be her personal thing, but she loves your passion and appreciates your hard work. Above all, she wants to encourage these strengths while helping you improve.
Now suppose that she starts by pointing out everything that you did wrong. She bleeds red ink all over your draft and hands it back to you.
Are you motivated to improve?
Are you motivated to keep writing?
Somewhere along the way, we started to believe that if we tell people what they did wrong, they’ll be motivated to do better next time. Except when we stop to think for a moment, we know that this doesn’t work. Hearing about our failures isn’t motivating. It’s discouraging and…
