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A significant amount of reinforcement-opportunity is lost when all an employee hears after doing commendable work is, "Good Job." While the work done might have actually been good—even great at times— the net outcome of this reinforcement attempt is what we refer to as a warm fuzzy. In essence, the employee might feel good after receiving this acknowledgment but there really wasn't enough information provided in the "Good Job" statement to truly reinforce desired behaviors/activities. Too much is left to chance ...
Activity-Focused Reinforcement (AFR) is critical to getting higher levels of consistency. AFRs increase consistency by reinforcing the activities, behaviors, and competencies that are appropriate and important to you and your organization. We define an activity as any observable action(s) or behavior(s) an individual takes to achieve a successful outcome.
AFRs build on the 'what-gets-reinforced-gets-repeated' concept. A good rule-of-thumb is to incorporate two activities in your AFR—one may not be enough to make a lasting impression but three (or more) can become too 'sugar-coated.' When stating the activity, it is also desirable to include the outcome of doing the activity as a positive reinforcement strategy.
Consider the differences between these two reinforcement approaches:
Of the two examples, only the AFR method conveys the information necessary for someone to truly know which activities made a difference to the person providing the reinforcement. By highlighting appropriate and desirable behaviors in this way, there's a stronger likelihood of these behaviors being repeated in the future.
When a result is achieved—regardless of how small—there will typically be several steps (activities) incorporated in the process. The AFR methodology highlights the activities used to reinforce the steps of the process. Here are a few examples you can use as 'practice.' Use the 'Warm Fuzzy' versions as a start point and then add your [imagined] activities to build your AFR version.