Imagine that you are a manager. Here are three different ways you might deal with your employees: when presented with work artifacts (project proposals, emails, ideas, ...) from that person, you
take the time to take a look at things and might even offer some constructive feedback face to face, or
ignore them, or
destroy what they come with in front of them (or in writing in an email)
How motivated do you think that employee is after each of the three ways of dealing with them? Well, obviously the first option must be better than the second, and the third must be the worst of the three. But how much worse?
Professor in Psychology and Behavioral Economics Dan Ariely from Duke University have done some experimental research on this topic, and his research shows/indicates this: if you treat people with attitude number one above, it makes them 100% more motivated than if you treat people with attitude number three. What surprised me was that option two is almost as destructive for motivation compared to option one.
Think about this for a moment. Ignoring your employees (yeah, I know that you are super busy and have to prioritize your time) is almost as destructive for peoples motivation as destroying their work in front of them. So maybe spend just a little time reviewing their work, talk to them about it, or just reply on their emails with a "nice idea, tell me more about it during lunch."
And do spend 20 minutes of your life watching Professor Dan Ariely explain about his research here:
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good_about_our_work?language=en#t-742397
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