Today @ Colorado State has been replaced by SOURCE. This site exists as an archive of Today @ Colorado State stories between January 1, 2009 and September 8, 2014.
July 22, 2009
Disillusioned or negative employees are especially hard to motivate because even praise doesn't seem to reach them. But that could be because your praise is coming off as superficial.
With hard-to-reach employees, praise must be detailed and accurate. Use this three-step process to get your message across:
1. Show that you understand the difficulty of what they did.
2. Show you understand how they succeeded — their technique, their decisions.
3. Show you understand the value of what they did.
In other words, giving praise can be work! But like work, it’s worthwhile when it accomplishes something.