In my day job I manage a software engineering team, and we work closely with software developers. Recently some members of my team were tasked with confirming that new developments function correctly in the software — basically the job of QA, since we were out of QA resources. They did the job on-time, and while they found a few small bugs, the developers quickly fixed those bugs and we verified that the software was functioning as it should. We then reported on our findings.
One of the senior directors working on the project at a higher level sent this email in response to the report that one of my guys sent out:
Report says all was tested and we found zero bugs. Should I believe that? Please have this verified in detail.
Neverminding the fact that I had already been asked to have the work verified in a much politer way by a different senior director, this email really rubbed me the wrong way. It suggests that we hire people we can’t trust to get their work done correctly. I don’t know if this senior director was talking about my guys not finding any bugs or the developers not developing anything with bugs, but either way it came across really badly.
Where are the messages of positive reinforcement? When will this senior director tell the developers or my guys “hey, you did a good job”?
Never. It’s not in his nature; nor is it in the nature of pretty much anyone at a higher level in this company. You either did it wrong and you get chastised or you did it right and hear nothing, instead remaining on tenterhooks, waiting for someone to tell you you screwed up.
I’m surprised as many people work here as long as they do when there’s no real positive reinforcement. I try to tell my guys they did a good job when they do a good job, but if I’m the only one they’re hearing it from it starts to lose its effectiveness. Just once I’d like my boss to tell someone they did a good job. Just once. The closest he ever got were these two instances:
- “[Senior Director X] said he really appreciated how quickly you were able to help [Person Y] with his issue with [Software Z].”
- When he gave me a merit increase during our merit increase cycle and said “we need to keep moving in this direction.”
That’s it.
Look, I’m sorry, but as the meme below shows, humans need positive reinforcement. It’s just a fact of life. If they don’t get it, they start to feel like the only thing they can do is the wrong thing.
