Sun, 31 Aug 2014 09:31:21
Every team member is a potential source of positive reinforcement for every other team member. Peers exert tremendous influence on the behaviour of peers, for better or worse. Team members have more contact with each other than do their managers, so reinforcement can be more frequent and, since they are together while the work is occurring, reinforcement can be more frequent and, since they are together while the work is occurring reinforcement is likely to be immediate. Yet with all the team training that is being provided, little is devoted to teaching people how to positively reinforce one another for efforts made and results achieved. Without that kind of training, team members will probably use more of the common interactive practices, such as negative reinforcement [avoiding the behaviours that get you told off] and extinction [ignoring the behaviours that you don’t like]. The outcome will be teams that are not very effective at teamwork.
from “Bringing Out the Best in People” by Aubrey C. Daniels