As a motivational tool, catching people doing things right is effective.  But it doesn’t work long term if all you is praise their results.

I led the winning team on a bid worth $85 M in Hong-Kong.  It was complex, with months of technical, commercial and legal negotiations. The team gave all it could, and then some.

Coming off the plane, I went to the office and attended the celebration party. Executives, heads of department and the entire team drinking champagne (yes, they allow this in France). Speeches.  How happy the executives are. Proud of the team who worked so hard.

It was nice.  The bonus was nice too.  But it did not change much. Business as usual the next day.

But not for me. I had been debriefed, the “Encouragement” way.

Pierre-Louis Bertina – my VP of Sales at Alstom Signaling Group (then GEC-Alsthom), went beyond congratulating me for doings things right.  He commented on “WHAT” I did right.  He took the time to observe my work.  He noticed what I was doing right, and re-enforced it by focusing on it. This is “Encouragement”.

He never said “you did well” and stopped there.

After an intense negotiation session, which he attended, he told me:

“You did great. We got what we wanted, because you always knew, almost before they did, what part of the spec affected the discussion. You’d turn to the right page faster than they – who wrote the spec.  That’s a great skill you should cultivate. I wonder what we’ll do after we win this and you move on to something else.”

Another time, he learned the fellow in charge of installation had moved his vacation (rare in France), to finalize his part of the bid.

“You know, why they do this don’t you?” (I didn’t’ – but said nothing) “You make them feel that what they do is important to winning the bid.  You should keep that up.”

Let’s face it. We all like our boss to tell us he’s proud of our good results. It’s nice. But it does not make a huge difference in our work.

Pierre-Louis went beyond congratulations.  He notice how I did my work.  He connected it to the results.

• It gave me confidence. A manager with his experience confirmed what I did was the cause of my results – I was emboldened to continue.
• It felt like he really cared about the team’s success, since he took the time to notice.
• It opened the door to discussion. I’d feel comfortable discussing my plans with him, because we focused on the how-to, the process, instead of only the results.

I spoke to Pierre-Louis before writing this to get his permission to quote him. I learned that three people in his latest team have now become Directors.  I am not surprised.

It’s called encouragement.  It uses words that notice.  It works equally well with successes and failures.  Notice the process – what works or does not work.  Encourage what works, coach what does not. It sets up improvement. It sets up growth.

All you need is to take the time, start noticing what the team does right, and tell them about it.

Blanchard and Johnson were right.  It really works.  But I disagree with them on one point:

It does take more than one minute.  But it’s a great investment of your time.

I am sure there are many reasons – but I have noticed one that is not often mentioned.

Failing teams have a culture of risk-avoidance.  Successful teams have a risk-embracing culture.  They are diametrically opposed – and it affects how they deal with risk.

Risk-avoidance cultures want the risk to go away.  They want no risk to remain.  They secretly believe that if the risk management process is done well, risk will actually be removed – even though they know that engineers are not perfect so this ideal is rarely reached.  In these teams, risk management is a discrete task: something you do at select times in the project which, when completed, results in the removal of risk.

Risk-avoidance cultures say:
Risk must be eliminated – it should not remain on my project!

Risk-embracing cultures believe that risk is a fact of life.  They expect it at any turn. They are comfortable with risk.  They learn to love looking for risk. No matter the mitigation plan – they reason, something can always go wrong – so they keep planning for it.  Risk management is a continuous affair – almost a state of mind.

Risk-embracing cultures say:
Risk is part of our life – we expect it and use it to get better

In my experience, no team is purely risk-avoidance or risk embracing. These are opposite poles of a spectrum – the team tends towards one or the other.

I have learned to identify the dominant behavior (avoidance or embracing) by looking for telltale signs of how the team reacts when risk becomes an actual problem (i.e. it was not avoided).

A warning:  Do not confuse risk-avoidance with risk-adverse. They are two different concepts. I know many successful entrepreneurs who are clearly  risk-embracing and yet are very risk adverse. I also know team leaders who are in the risk-avoidance camp but are reckless risk takers.

Engineering teams do well in a risk-embracing culture.   It is the nature of engineering work that we cannot predict everything. Evolving an approach that always looks for what can go wrong, understanding the source of the potential problem and creating adaptive mitigation plans  requires great engineering skills. It’s actually challenging and fun.

It had started badly.  Louisville returned the opening kick-off for a touchdown.  Then Louisville could do no wrong getting 25 points before Rutgers would score on the last play before the half.  Going to the locker room, loosing 25-7 at half-time,  Coach Schiano  would talk to the team:

“Just keep chopping away guys. It’ll turn, if you let it – it’ll turn.  You just gotta keep doing it though. If you don’t do it, you’ll never know what could have happened.”

The second half was like a new game. Louisville would not score again. Rutgers won, on a field goal with 13 seconds left, 28-25.

Asked by a reporter at the press conference, if a moment stood out for him, coach Schiano answered:

“There was a moment when Eric Fosters came walking down the sideline like this (coach makes hand chopping movement), and we passed each other and he never even looked at me he was so focused… At that point I said, you know what, these sons of a gun just might do this.”

The Washington post would write about the chop on the week-end:

“He (coach Schiano) first heard about it from Dr. Kevin Elko while serving as Miami’s defensive coordinator… Right now we’re in a bad spot, we’re in the middle of the forest, it’s all dark, we can’t see. Get an ax and just start chopping away.”

The “Chop” is your process.

It‘s not just for sports.  It applies to all aspects of life – including work.  Define your process for success. Then stay focused, keep applying it.  Keep “chopping wood”.  I will turn.

It’s easy to keep chopping when everything is working.  At the start of a project, teams are newly formed, project plans are glowing with optimism – everybody is following the process.  But then reality sets in.  Metrics and reports start coming in. Some tasks are late. Some are over budget.   Documents are not approved, design reviews fail.  Then it’s gets harder to stay focused on the process.

Coach Schiano speaks of this in the press conference:

“Let’s do what we can do. You can’t control the results; you can only control the process.”

It takes focus and dedication to apply a process flawlessly.  It takes even more willpower to stay with the process when the score – the results – are not going your way.

The score is useful: it tells you two things:

• How well you’re working your process
• If you are working the process well:  How good is your process.

But the score can also distract.  If your results are great, you might relax and get off process. If your results are poor, you can loose faith in your process, and start acting like a headless chicken – expanding tremendous energy without aim and focus.

Does your team have a process?  Does every member of the team apply it?

• How do you define objectives so everybody is on the same page?
• How to you assign work and obtain commitment?
• How to you assess risks and deal with it? How often do you re-plan?
• How do you deal with issues and failure?
• How do you communicate with other teams?
• …

Do not confuse process and audited procedures (ISO, CMM etc.). Of course, these procedures -  if they are used – can be your process. But they can lack details for your particular team. So look at how you work.  Your process is what you do.  Define it as a team.  Get buy-in.  Then stay with it.

Stop looking at the score – Stay on process.