Episode #399: To SER With Love

In the movie “To Sir, With Love”, Sidney Poitier was brilliant in the role of a black teacher in a tough London East End high school. He was trying to make a difference for these young outcasts to better prepare them for the life they would face after graduating from school. A very uplifting story about what is possible when we encourage others to be their best. So what has this got to do with business, you may be asking? As leaders, we have four jobs. Run the machinery of the operation so everything works well, provide the vision on where we are going, explain the WHY and build our people. This “build our people” part is a communications exercise which most leaders fail to do well enough, myself included.

Many of us grew up in business in a era when your boss just expected you to get on with your job. No encouragement was needed, because you were required to do a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. Praise didn't exist and you found your own sources of encouragement. Things are different today, but are we skilled enough in the best practice techniques of giving honest praise and encouragement? This is where the acronym SER comes in. “S” is strength, “E” is for evidence and “R” for relevance. It is a useful formula to remember when you want recognize the good work done by one of your team.

“Strengths” are interesting because most bosses are laser beam focused on identifying weaknesses and fixing them. They are “error finders” as opposed to “good work finders”, when looking at how people carry out their tasks. They are searching for defects, time delays, poor quality, unsatisfactory performance, cost overruns and basic idiocy. If we switch our mindset and look for strengths, then we completely change how we see our people. That automatically changes how we communicate with them. Now words strung together like “good job” are a complete waste of time. Please - don’t even bother saying them. The person on the receiving end is fully aware they are doing many things in their work, but still have no clear idea which particular bit they are doing well. We need to be highly specific about which aspect of their work we are recognizing. This is how our words have impact.

“Evidence” is critical to demonstrate that the boss has been paying attention and has noticed good work is being performed. By referring to specific actions, decisions, outputs etc., the staff member knows the words coming out of their boss’s mouth are real and not flattery, propaganda or an attempt to snow them into believing the boss is nicer than they really are.

Every piece of work is made up of separate tasks, so the idea is to select a particular task that was done well and single it out for praise. You could say, “Greg, good work on the report”. Or you could say, “Greg, thank you for your work on the proposal for the client. That was one of the best I have seen. You assembled the evidence very comprehensively and you argued the case very convincingly. I am sure the client was impressed by the professional level of the work they received from you”. It is obvious which one we want to receive. So, if it so obvious, why aren’t we communicating our feedback like this?

“Relevancy” is a key step that 99% of bosses who do manage to offer some praise and recognition completely fail to mention. We have to recognize the work, offer our evidence to make the praise credible and then take it one important step further. We need to link the good work being done to the bigger picture. That can be for the firm’s future, but it is much more powerful if it is linked to WIIFM. “What’s In It For Me” is a powerful driver of employee self-interest. The secret is to select that piece of excellent work and then link it to how that is going to help that person succeed in their business and career. For example, “ Greg, your ability to source key data and then back it up with clear, concise language is a real skill. That is the type of skill our company values highly. It also means that you can have impact in your current role. This is the caliber of person we want to make a future leader in our organization. I know you are working hard and keep going with what you are doing, because you are differentiating yourself in a powerful and positive way. This will be a big help to you in your career”.

If you are hearing that comment, you are going to be fired up to try even harder and push even further. “Greg, good job” pales in comparison doesn’t it. Even worse, when nothing has been said at all, because working hard is expected around here, there has clearly been a major lost opportunity to engage your team members. What is required? That most valuable of all resources – “boss time”.

We have to make the time to become “good finders” and then take the time to communicate it using the SER formula. If we can do that, then we will make a huge difference to the enthusiasm, loyalty, productivity and happiness of our team members. They will outperform the competition, because a happy motivated team will always beat a disinterested, disengaged competitor’s rabble.