People face tremendous pressure in today’s world. Family and financial issues, health issues and even survival issues are dealt with by some people every day. The one thing people need is to be told they are doing a good job, making progress or that you value them as an employee. This is especially true as you move toward changes in your organization.

People will make mistakes and need to be encouraged. In fact, research says that it takes 7 positive statements to equal the impact of 1 negative or critical statement. Believe it or not, you can add years to a career by simply offering regular words of encouragement.

Lessons from geese

In the book "Gung Ho", the author describes how geese honk to encourage the others to keep on flapping their wings. It starts at the back and moves forward to the lead goose who’s “drafting” for all the others. If a goose is ever injured or needs to fall away from the flock, another goose always goes down with them. He calls these goose honks praise for a job well done and encouragement to keep going.

The praise coin strategy

Some business executives have adopted this strategy to ensure they are offering praise to their employees every day. They take a set of 10 wooden coins or chips and place them in one of their front pockets. As they proceed through the day, they move a coin from one pocket the other pocket every time they offer an encouraging word to an employee. The goal is that by the end of the day they have moved all the coins from one pocket to the other pocket.

By the way, do you know why one line of the "V" in a flock of geese is longer than the other? Answer: Because there are more geese in that line.

The above article was excerpted from Creating a Winning Organization self study course.