This “motivational poster” shows how a bit of positive feedback goes a long way! My Audio Director was on the ball (as usual) and I responded with “You’re awesome!” He took a screenshot and quickly whipped up this poster and sent it to me, much to my delight. This five minutes of jovial feedback even made his Facebook status that evening.
Later the same day, I was meeting with my QA team and they asked me about how to structure a team. I then honestly told them that their team is a model example in the company. (I must note that I inherited the team. My predecessors did a fabulous job building that team!) They immediately responded with comments about their own awesomeness, so I shared this poster with them.
This afternoon a member of my QA team gave me some positive feedback on how I am doing. He was paying forward the awesome.
It’s amazing how fast criticism can spread in a business. We often get so busy, moving from one crisis to the next, leaving behind a tired team. We should all take a few minutes and spread a little awesomeness now and then. “Thank you” is a good start, but “You’re awesome” at the right moment goes even further.
Hope you have all had an awesome week!
Sockets and Lightbulbs 
May 7, 2011 at 10:59 am
Following up on your line regarding gratitude being a good start but a compliment being better – do you feel that the use of unique word (“awesome”) as opposed to a common word (“great”) contributes to the earwig effect?
May 7, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Maybe. It certainly makes for a good title/theme for a blog post 🙂 Seriously, I think it was more due to it being a very sincerely compliment delivered at the right moment. He knew he was on the ball; he takes pride in it. He knew it was seriously going to help me out and I was clearly grateful and acknowledged that doing his job well was doing the right thing.