Dear Sharyn
I don’t see the point of telling employees they’re doing a good job every time they do something right. They’re supposed to do a good job. Why should I keep praising them for things they should know how to do?
Dr. K, Illinois
Dear Dr K
You’re feeling cranky about constantly saying, “good job” to your employees. But “good job” is what you say to a puppy or a child you’re potty training, it’s not what you say to adults to acknowledge their good performance. Stop patting them on the head and instead start giving reinforcing feedback. The purpose of reinforcing feedback is to acknowledge that a behavior got good results. It’s not about pleasing you – it’s about motivating the employee to repeat an action because it had a positive effect for the practice. Instead of saying “good job” say, “I saw you do X and I noticed what an impact that had for the patient/team/practice. Because it had such a great result, let’s do that more often.” This type of statement encourages the employee become more self-motivated employee and you get to say something more interesting than “good job.”
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Every month I get questions from dentists all over the country. I started “Ask Sharyn” to create a space to answer these questions.
