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Learning Reinforcement Ideas

After employees attend a workshop, seminar, conference, or any developmental opportunity, consider the following reinforcement ideas:

  1. Personally understand what’s been taught and reinforce the concepts.
  2. Require employees to establish at least one goal to include the action they will take and a date they will report back to you with their progress.
  3. Have employees create short review segments they can present to other team members as either a reminder (for those who also attended) or as a way to share information with those who didn’t attend.

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Dos and Don’ts of Active Listening

Do…

  • Face the speaker.
  • Keep comfortable eye contact.
  • Give the speaker your full attention.
  • Be open to the speaker’s message.
  • Display clues that you are listening without agreeing or disagreeing with the message (i.e., “I see”).

Don’t…

  • Interrupt.
  • Judge.
  • Think about what you are going to say next.
  • Offer advice or solutions.
  • Be defensive.

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Avoid Criticism

Criticism is an easy behavior to display, especially when you are under pressure yourself and just trying to get a job done, and get it done right. But, before criticizing an employee, remember that it typically produces:

  • Defensive behavior
  • Hostility and/or anger
  • Demotivating behavior
  • Sabotaging behavior

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Identify Both Feelings & Content

When clarifying to ensure understanding, the leader should focus on both what the employee might be feeling and the content of the message.  Example:

Employee: “With all the cutbacks around here, I’m expected to do the job of two or three people.”
Leader: “I think I hear you saying that you’re feeling frustrated because of the heavy workloads.”
Employee: “Yes, there are days I don’t know if I’ll get it all done.”
Leader: “So you feel unsure about meeting our project deadline.”
Employee: “It’s a lot of work in a short period of time and I really think we need to revisit the schedule.”

As you can see in the example above, the leader listened without judging and the employee quickly got around to expressing what he or she thought needed to happen. Once that conversation takes place, whether the schedule is adjusted or not, at least the employee should feel listened to and understood.  Hopefully the schedule can be addressed or even compromised in such a way that the employee also feels motivated to work as hard as possible to complete the work on time.

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