What We Focus on Grows

Take a look at Lilly’s daily report. It uses the classic red mark for bad days, yellow for warning days, green for good days, and purple for days that exceed expectations. Lilly, a sweet girl who is full of energy, life, and enthusiasm gets a lot of yellow and red marks—and on each of those days, she gets specific feedback about what she is doing that is bad, wrong, and unwanted. Look closer and notice that when she occasionally has a green, or good day, there are no words—she doesn’t know what she did right. Even her first purple day of the entire school year goes without specific feedback.

What we focus our attention on grows. This teacher was focused on the negative behaviors, perhaps to such an extent that she couldn’t see the good in Lilly.

Have you received or given performance reviews like this? Do you focus on customer complaints to the exclusion of the praise from customers? Do you always see the negative before the positive?

Think about flipping your perspective. Focus on the good. And, create more of it!