July 20, 2025 • 21 mins
Praise helps people feel valued, heard, and appreciated. People who feel valued, heard, and appreciated work with more passion, experiment, take risks, and grow at rates far greater than those who don’t.
In every organisation there are pockets of workers/coleagues potential lying dormant. When you ask these people if they could do more the resounding answer is yes.
What’s fascinating is that when you ask people why they don’t accomplish more or what they are capable of accomplishing the number one answer is because they choose not to. They could if they wanted to, they just choose not to. The ability to do more but choosing not to is a massive drain on performance. Let's explore how we can unlock their potential....
In every organisation there are pockets of workers/coleagues potential lying dormant. When you ask these people if they could do more the resounding answer is yes.
What’s fascinating is that when you ask people why they don’t accomplish more or what they are capable of accomplishing the number one answer is because they choose not to. They could if they wanted to, they just choose not to. The ability to do more but choosing not to is a massive drain on performance. Let's explore how we can unlock their potential....
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, everyone, Let's continue with our journey of transformational change
and particularly looking at unlocking the potential within a workforce
within a community. Praise helps people feel valued, heard and appreciated.
(00:27):
People who feel valued, heard and appreciated work with more passion, experiment,
take risks, and grew it rates far greater than those
that don't. I found that virtually in every organization their
pockets of workers' potential, they're just lying dormant. Every leader,
(00:53):
every team leader, are marriage director i've worked with believes
his or her workers are capable of accompission far more
than they do. When we asked workers that they could
do more, resounding answer is yes. What's fascinating when you
(01:16):
ask workers why they don't accomplish more of what they're
capable of a compission? The number one answer because they
choose not to. They could say we could if we
wanted to. We choose not to the ability to do
(01:39):
more by choosing not. It's such a drain and performance.
Why is it people don't don't work, don't perform to
full potential Over the years, I found there's six main
reasons for that. One no pay, two uninspiring leadership, Three
(02:04):
under performance is allowed it's tolerated for unclear expectation. Five
no trust or respect, and six no investment in worker development.
So let us have a weird look at them in
more detail. Number one no payoff. People don't perform to
(02:31):
their full potential when there's no payoff, there's no comeback
for working to their full potential. Every leader, team, individual
worker looks for a payoff and doing this work, it
could be a deeper sense of satisfaction, success of making
(02:53):
a difference. However way you slice entice it. Human beings
are meaning making machines. Why am I doing it? And
will it work? Meaning of our work? Is it meaningful? Rewarding?
Is it valuable what we're doing? Are my efforts appreciated
(03:15):
and recognized? Whether or not? Payoff simply involves just getting
your salary at the end of the month. That's it
and money. I've found over the years hast found or
problem in fact, not to be the greatest of motivators.
(03:41):
What is it that get your juices going? Two? Uninspiring leadership.
The word inspired comes from the Latin, which means to
breed life into something. When there's no life in a
leader's leadership, when she or he is going through the
(04:04):
motion of talking about the mission of vision and values,
but doesn't he live them. Workers feel really uninspired. Uninspired
leaders can't create inspired workers, and less inspiration is to
(04:26):
jettison themselves from the company as soon as possible. Three.
Underperformance is accepted. It's tolerated. People don't perform to the
full potential. When, as we say, underperformance is allowed, it's
(04:47):
tolerated and no accountability. This is happening more and more
across the world is now. Particularly it's setting standards. Yes,
even in face of our so called corporate mantra of
do more, do it better, do it faster, do it cheaper.
(05:08):
I underperformance poor performance. It's tolerated when leaders managers turn
a blind eye to his inability to learn, grow and change,
yet expects and demand's workers to learn, grow and change.
(05:31):
People just don't perform to their full potential. When you
look around and see managers, team leaders, and other workers
underperforming without any form of consequence, the metrige just sent clear.
It's compelling if you underperform, behave poorly, or an ethically
(05:55):
miss deadlines are lose. A big client may not have
their hands slapped. You're not pulled to account. So why
bother just think what it feels, looked like and sounds
like living in an environment like that, would that inspire you?
(06:18):
Four Unclear expectations. People don't perform don't work to the
full potential when their expectations aren't clear. Leaders who don't
have the band with their space to think clearly and
create more confusion. That's what they do. They create more
(06:43):
confusion and ambiguity they intended if they don't have that
clear space to be able to communicate it clearly. When
a leader says I wanted to handle X y Z project,
the same issues that are found in many continents is
(07:05):
that the word handle isn't very clear. I want to
handle this new project. What does handle mean to the
leader and what does handle mean to the worker? When
the leaders are clear about the results, what is it
looking for? Time frame, demands, responsibilities, roles, authority, There's clarity,
(07:32):
it's being really clear. It's about this act of feedbay,
like the dialogue between people, to make sure that people
are really clear what the expectations are moving into. Five
lack of trust or respect. People don't perform to their
(07:53):
full potential when they're co workers. Leaders really don't do
they don't what they talk, they don't say, they don't
do what they say they'll do, or don't have the
talent or skill to do do their job well. Trust
(08:15):
is about a person's really reliability. Respect is about talent skill.
When a worker or leader loses respect and trust with
another person, relationship is done, as is the possibility of
(08:36):
accelerated performance. And the final one we've got here, the
sixth one is no investment in workforce development. People really
don't work, don't perform to their full potential when the
investments and improved helping their mind sets and skilled sets
(09:02):
are really delayed or eliminated. Not bothering about it. The
fastest way to dramatically grow a leader's leadership and the
results I've found over the years, it's been working with
the leadership coach. Although that may sound a wee bit
(09:24):
self serving, I've also grown faster because my coach and
I've had a mentor as well. Is really a good
to run objective, the detached observer of the work I've
been doing and can provide with new ideas, perspective and
(09:45):
insights and give me some ideas tactics for accelerated performance
that I was never found on my own. It's great
having a sounding board, an honest, honest feedback to you.
(10:05):
These six reasons that people don't perform to are really
their full potential. We can address them in powerfle perfect
ways in our praising principle. Well, we'll talk a wee
about further and a bit more depth of how to
(10:29):
how to praise people concrete, concerned, timely ways that that
you can affirm the opposite of that, and we can
turn that inside out upside down and create nine reasons
of why people choose to perform at their highest potential.
(10:52):
Bias honing our skills and learning how to praise people,
we'll be able to old. We can build the confidence
of people, confidence and workers confidence and all the stakeholder
they have particular workers have of themselves as well as
(11:15):
your particular style and formal leadership. Encourage experimentation, risk taking
and learning while infusing hope and optimism into your workplace,
your community. You will, I believe and know, in certain terms,
(11:37):
bring the best of others as well as yourself. Praising
can help cultivate courage and curiosity. I mention three forms,
three aspects of praise. Sincere praise, timely praise, and specific praise.
(12:03):
I'd like you to stop and reflect for a moment.
Across here in the UK, every Saturday, there's tens of
thousands of fans who go to their favorite football teams
and Molliam's are actually watching and television. Now. The folk
(12:26):
in the football stadiums, the cheer, the fist pump I five.
They scream at their teams, the local teams when they
see a Gourban scolled a great play. They do that
to propel their team to victory and reward the most
(12:50):
of the talent. All these cheers, you maybe find that
if you're if you happen to be at one of
these events with a friend, you may find a quite
quiet we saw like in a timid soul, subdued person
(13:11):
because through someone would call it a jaqueline hyde. When
sports are involved, that that same team leader who's very
controlled within the workplace, if somebody turns in screams high five,
(13:32):
fist pumps total strangers and when in the workplace, maybe
just give a polite applause when the team does something
equally beneficial. Is this because sporting events watched with tens
(13:55):
and thousands of people release a primal passion is it
because the emotional response it's lost in the throngs of
other really enthusiastic fans. Whichever reasons holds true, we put
(14:18):
it to you. The leaders who bring an enthusiastic recognition
and praise for the work teams to the to.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
The workplace will propel their teams to victory, squelch the opposition,
and reward the herculean.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Effort some workers do when they're getting their work done
in the workplace. Now, I'm not suggesting that your runner
around the office, oh the the workshop floor were high
(14:59):
fives and screaming. I would give you a few funny looks.
Who is this? What plan is this person? But what
I'm suggesting maybe a wee bit most of the day,
it is a praising mindset that rewards expression of beneficial passion, innovation,
(15:20):
and growth. For that, I found that there from a
human factor's perspective, that the three aspects of praise that
I mentioned there that need to be praisent needs to
be sincerity, sincere praise, timely praise, and specific praise. So
(15:41):
just go through that. Just now run that, and that's
a header or a leading to a gat into a
lot more detail. Next week, so summarizing sincere praise praise,
it's kind of my mechanical. You're obligated to it or
(16:01):
deliver it in a rope manner. Well done. What why
did you bother telling me? If you just do it
in a rope manner, that's the way we always do it.
Well the gray the leader's credibility seem this artificial contriving
(16:21):
and actually make a bigger relationship gap between the person
giving the praise and the one getting it. Too. Timely praise,
the best form of praise is that it's delivered in
real time. Catching the thing they want. That isn't it,
(16:43):
but it is workers doing, actually seeing someone something nicer, word,
acknowledging work something really good and commenting on it immediately
raises well being not only of the person getting the praise,
(17:03):
but creates a culture in which appreciation and well done
and continue growth becomes an asset that becomes a strategic
asset well done. A number of years ago, I worked
in the fire service and we used to have hot
debriefs completely after the incident, what worked well? What could
(17:28):
we do better? It was always mirdless and people will
recognize for the great aspects of it. And encourage people
to give feedback of what worked well, what could we
do better, but always having the emphasis on the positive
side of it and put a positive spin on the
(17:50):
things that could be done better if we've done that
a slightly different way, approached it this way we could
get a better outcome, So it's always always good. Wee
story I tell about one of the lightly lads I
worked with in Glasgow. We had this a with this
(18:10):
tenement building and the kitchen was absolutely gutted. And this
where there was an elderly lady, you know, crying her
eyes out in the in the stairhead the landing and
this was a thing that it's never really talked about
a lot in the fire service and doesn't really form
(18:34):
part of the formal training, but it's emotional. It's the
caning part. And this unlikely lad if you like, put
his arm around the lady's shoulder, gave her a wee
hug and said, hi, missus, you didn't need to burn
your Houston, burn your house down to get a hug
(18:57):
from a fireman. Now that broke it. The lady just said,
just had a week, laugh a smile and carried into
the fireman. But that was nice. That caring attitude. So
when you see something well done, it's nice to acknowledge
it and say so. And the third one is specific praise.
(19:22):
Generalized praise such as good job, pales into comparison to
I would say specific praise your project marriagement working XYZ project.
What was incredibly helpful? You lived out the goal of
improving our customer experience and let the client feel confident
(19:46):
the ease with your work. They said they love working
with us. That was really great work that you've done there,
great project management. This week, I've looked at the sex
reasons why people are really not performing. They're not working
(20:08):
to the full, summarizing again, no payoff, uninspiring leadership, under
performance that's accepted, it's tolerable, unclear expectations, no trust or respect,
no investment in workforce development. And then we looked at
the three aspects of praise that I believe need to
(20:32):
be present to make it sincere Yes, So that's sincerity, timely,
and specific to the activity set the work that was
ongoing at Next week, I'd like to determine how you
look at praising and particularly in more depth, looking at
(20:52):
praising with sincerity, praising with timelessness, praising specificity. Then like always,
live life with passion,
Hi, everyone, Let's continue with our journey of transformational change
and particularly looking at unlocking the potential within a workforce
within a community. Praise helps people feel valued, heard and appreciated.
(00:27):
People who feel valued, heard and appreciated work with more passion, experiment,
take risks, and grew it rates far greater than those
that don't. I found that virtually in every organization their
pockets of workers' potential, they're just lying dormant. Every leader,
(00:53):
every team leader, are marriage director i've worked with believes
his or her workers are capable of accompission far more
than they do. When we asked workers that they could
do more, resounding answer is yes. What's fascinating when you
(01:16):
ask workers why they don't accomplish more of what they're
capable of a compission? The number one answer because they
choose not to. They could say we could if we
wanted to. We choose not to the ability to do
(01:39):
more by choosing not. It's such a drain and performance.
Why is it people don't don't work, don't perform to
full potential Over the years, I found there's six main
reasons for that. One no pay, two uninspiring leadership, Three
(02:04):
under performance is allowed it's tolerated for unclear expectation. Five
no trust or respect, and six no investment in worker development.
So let us have a weird look at them in
more detail. Number one no payoff. People don't perform to
(02:31):
their full potential when there's no payoff, there's no comeback
for working to their full potential. Every leader, team, individual
worker looks for a payoff and doing this work, it
could be a deeper sense of satisfaction, success of making
(02:53):
a difference. However way you slice entice it. Human beings
are meaning making machines. Why am I doing it? And
will it work? Meaning of our work? Is it meaningful? Rewarding?
Is it valuable what we're doing? Are my efforts appreciated
(03:15):
and recognized? Whether or not? Payoff simply involves just getting
your salary at the end of the month. That's it
and money. I've found over the years hast found or
problem in fact, not to be the greatest of motivators.
(03:41):
What is it that get your juices going? Two? Uninspiring leadership.
The word inspired comes from the Latin, which means to
breed life into something. When there's no life in a
leader's leadership, when she or he is going through the
(04:04):
motion of talking about the mission of vision and values,
but doesn't he live them. Workers feel really uninspired. Uninspired
leaders can't create inspired workers, and less inspiration is to
(04:26):
jettison themselves from the company as soon as possible. Three.
Underperformance is accepted. It's tolerated. People don't perform to the
full potential. When, as we say, underperformance is allowed, it's
(04:47):
tolerated and no accountability. This is happening more and more
across the world is now. Particularly it's setting standards. Yes,
even in face of our so called corporate mantra of
do more, do it better, do it faster, do it cheaper.
(05:08):
I underperformance poor performance. It's tolerated when leaders managers turn
a blind eye to his inability to learn, grow and change,
yet expects and demand's workers to learn, grow and change.
(05:31):
People just don't perform to their full potential. When you
look around and see managers, team leaders, and other workers
underperforming without any form of consequence, the metrige just sent clear.
It's compelling if you underperform, behave poorly, or an ethically
(05:55):
miss deadlines are lose. A big client may not have
their hands slapped. You're not pulled to account. So why
bother just think what it feels, looked like and sounds
like living in an environment like that, would that inspire you?
(06:18):
Four Unclear expectations. People don't perform don't work to the
full potential when their expectations aren't clear. Leaders who don't
have the band with their space to think clearly and
create more confusion. That's what they do. They create more
(06:43):
confusion and ambiguity they intended if they don't have that
clear space to be able to communicate it clearly. When
a leader says I wanted to handle X y Z project,
the same issues that are found in many continents is
(07:05):
that the word handle isn't very clear. I want to
handle this new project. What does handle mean to the
leader and what does handle mean to the worker? When
the leaders are clear about the results, what is it
looking for? Time frame, demands, responsibilities, roles, authority, There's clarity,
(07:32):
it's being really clear. It's about this act of feedbay,
like the dialogue between people, to make sure that people
are really clear what the expectations are moving into. Five
lack of trust or respect. People don't perform to their
(07:53):
full potential when they're co workers. Leaders really don't do
they don't what they talk, they don't say, they don't
do what they say they'll do, or don't have the
talent or skill to do do their job well. Trust
(08:15):
is about a person's really reliability. Respect is about talent skill.
When a worker or leader loses respect and trust with
another person, relationship is done, as is the possibility of
(08:36):
accelerated performance. And the final one we've got here, the
sixth one is no investment in workforce development. People really
don't work, don't perform to their full potential when the
investments and improved helping their mind sets and skilled sets
(09:02):
are really delayed or eliminated. Not bothering about it. The
fastest way to dramatically grow a leader's leadership and the
results I've found over the years, it's been working with
the leadership coach. Although that may sound a wee bit
(09:24):
self serving, I've also grown faster because my coach and
I've had a mentor as well. Is really a good
to run objective, the detached observer of the work I've
been doing and can provide with new ideas, perspective and
(09:45):
insights and give me some ideas tactics for accelerated performance
that I was never found on my own. It's great
having a sounding board, an honest, honest feedback to you.
(10:05):
These six reasons that people don't perform to are really
their full potential. We can address them in powerfle perfect
ways in our praising principle. Well, we'll talk a wee
about further and a bit more depth of how to
(10:29):
how to praise people concrete, concerned, timely ways that that
you can affirm the opposite of that, and we can
turn that inside out upside down and create nine reasons
of why people choose to perform at their highest potential.
(10:52):
Bias honing our skills and learning how to praise people,
we'll be able to old. We can build the confidence
of people, confidence and workers confidence and all the stakeholder
they have particular workers have of themselves as well as
(11:15):
your particular style and formal leadership. Encourage experimentation, risk taking
and learning while infusing hope and optimism into your workplace,
your community. You will, I believe and know, in certain terms,
(11:37):
bring the best of others as well as yourself. Praising
can help cultivate courage and curiosity. I mention three forms,
three aspects of praise. Sincere praise, timely praise, and specific praise.
(12:03):
I'd like you to stop and reflect for a moment.
Across here in the UK, every Saturday, there's tens of
thousands of fans who go to their favorite football teams
and Molliam's are actually watching and television. Now. The folk
(12:26):
in the football stadiums, the cheer, the fist pump I five.
They scream at their teams, the local teams when they
see a Gourban scolled a great play. They do that
to propel their team to victory and reward the most
(12:50):
of the talent. All these cheers, you maybe find that
if you're if you happen to be at one of
these events with a friend, you may find a quite
quiet we saw like in a timid soul, subdued person
(13:11):
because through someone would call it a jaqueline hyde. When
sports are involved, that that same team leader who's very
controlled within the workplace, if somebody turns in screams high five,
(13:32):
fist pumps total strangers and when in the workplace, maybe
just give a polite applause when the team does something
equally beneficial. Is this because sporting events watched with tens
(13:55):
and thousands of people release a primal passion is it
because the emotional response it's lost in the throngs of
other really enthusiastic fans. Whichever reasons holds true, we put
(14:18):
it to you. The leaders who bring an enthusiastic recognition
and praise for the work teams to the to.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
The workplace will propel their teams to victory, squelch the opposition,
and reward the herculean.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Effort some workers do when they're getting their work done
in the workplace. Now, I'm not suggesting that your runner
around the office, oh the the workshop floor were high
(14:59):
fives and screaming. I would give you a few funny looks.
Who is this? What plan is this person? But what
I'm suggesting maybe a wee bit most of the day,
it is a praising mindset that rewards expression of beneficial passion, innovation,
(15:20):
and growth. For that, I found that there from a
human factor's perspective, that the three aspects of praise that
I mentioned there that need to be praisent needs to
be sincerity, sincere praise, timely praise, and specific praise. So
(15:41):
just go through that. Just now run that, and that's
a header or a leading to a gat into a
lot more detail. Next week, so summarizing sincere praise praise,
it's kind of my mechanical. You're obligated to it or
(16:01):
deliver it in a rope manner. Well done. What why
did you bother telling me? If you just do it
in a rope manner, that's the way we always do it.
Well the gray the leader's credibility seem this artificial contriving
(16:21):
and actually make a bigger relationship gap between the person
giving the praise and the one getting it. Too. Timely praise,
the best form of praise is that it's delivered in
real time. Catching the thing they want. That isn't it,
(16:43):
but it is workers doing, actually seeing someone something nicer, word,
acknowledging work something really good and commenting on it immediately
raises well being not only of the person getting the praise,
(17:03):
but creates a culture in which appreciation and well done
and continue growth becomes an asset that becomes a strategic
asset well done. A number of years ago, I worked
in the fire service and we used to have hot
debriefs completely after the incident, what worked well? What could
(17:28):
we do better? It was always mirdless and people will
recognize for the great aspects of it. And encourage people
to give feedback of what worked well, what could we
do better, but always having the emphasis on the positive
side of it and put a positive spin on the
(17:50):
things that could be done better if we've done that
a slightly different way, approached it this way we could
get a better outcome, So it's always always good. Wee
story I tell about one of the lightly lads I
worked with in Glasgow. We had this a with this
(18:10):
tenement building and the kitchen was absolutely gutted. And this
where there was an elderly lady, you know, crying her
eyes out in the in the stairhead the landing and
this was a thing that it's never really talked about
a lot in the fire service and doesn't really form
(18:34):
part of the formal training, but it's emotional. It's the
caning part. And this unlikely lad if you like, put
his arm around the lady's shoulder, gave her a wee
hug and said, hi, missus, you didn't need to burn
your Houston, burn your house down to get a hug
(18:57):
from a fireman. Now that broke it. The lady just said,
just had a week, laugh a smile and carried into
the fireman. But that was nice. That caring attitude. So
when you see something well done, it's nice to acknowledge
it and say so. And the third one is specific praise.
(19:22):
Generalized praise such as good job, pales into comparison to
I would say specific praise your project marriagement working XYZ project.
What was incredibly helpful? You lived out the goal of
improving our customer experience and let the client feel confident
(19:46):
the ease with your work. They said they love working
with us. That was really great work that you've done there,
great project management. This week, I've looked at the sex
reasons why people are really not performing. They're not working
(20:08):
to the full, summarizing again, no payoff, uninspiring leadership, under
performance that's accepted, it's tolerable, unclear expectations, no trust or respect,
no investment in workforce development. And then we looked at
the three aspects of praise that I believe need to
(20:32):
be present to make it sincere Yes, So that's sincerity, timely,
and specific to the activity set the work that was
ongoing at Next week, I'd like to determine how you
look at praising and particularly in more depth, looking at
(20:52):
praising with sincerity, praising with timelessness, praising specificity. Then like always,
live life with passion,
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