Summary:
For years, intimidation and fear have been considered effective motivation tools. In recent years, however, studies have shown these tactics actually cause more harm than good. They can actually demotivate a team and slow down innovation. Today’s podcast guest, Dr. Tim Irwin, has been on a career-long search to discover what brings out the best in other people. His research has led to one resounding answer: affirmation. When you tune in to this week’s episode, you’ll learn how to effectively influence and lead others, how to give positive feedback, and increase productivity, creativity, and innovation.
Welcome to episode 124 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.
Links + Resources:
Extraordinary Influence: How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others
Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership
Dr. Tim Irwin’s website
Three Takeaways:
- Affirm everyone. Research shows affirmation can go a long way in increasing the effectiveness of your team. Look for opportunities to regularly affirm your team for the things they do well. Your team’s creativity and innovation will reap major benefits from affirmation they receive.
- Speak life. Take inventory of the words you use regularly when communicating with your team. Are they positive or negative? Dr. Irwin shared how negative words, or “words of death,” are often veiled in commonly used phrases to motivate others. What these words do, however, is negatively impact our ability to be creative and problem solve. Make sure you’re speaking positively to your team.
- Give alliance feedback. Dr. Irwin introduced us to the concept of alliance feedback, which is giving feedback that doesn’t trigger the defensive part of the brain. This type of feedback is encouraging and reminds those you lead that they are valuable, while showing them areas in which they need to improve.
Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!
Leave a Reply