The Stroke Economy

Your role as a supervisor is to give strokes as you manage your people’s performance.  (And when I talk about managing performance, I am not just talking about the once/twice a year performance appraisals – I’m talking about the daily interactions that increase performance). It’s about giving people attention, whether that’s through praise, recognition, thanks, or any conversation that shows you care about their performance, and by implication them as a human being.

But Claude Steiner suggested in 1966 that there are 5 myths about how we give and receive strokes, that we learn from our parents/elders.

• Don’t give strokes
• Don’t ask for strokes
• Don’t accept strokes
• Don’t reject strokes
• Don’t stroke yourself

So maybe we should each ask ourselves how we would rate ourselves on these 5 myths.  How easy is it for me to:

• Give strokes?
• Ask for strokes?
• Accept strokes?
• Reject strokes?
• Stroke myself?

You should ask yourself this about both positive and negative strokes.  You might be good at giving yourself negative strokes for example (I’m rubbish at this), but not so good at giving yourself positive strokes.

So my ratings are as follows, and I can learn a lot from this.  In particular, I notice that I need to get better at protecting myself when I receive a negative stroke that is not true.  I get hurt easily, and take to heart things that people say about me/to me, even when I know these things are not true.

I could also do so much better with giving strokes.   I think I do an ok job of it, but there is ALWAYS room for improvement.   I’m working on that.

Positive	5
	4		x	x		x
	3	x
	2
	1				x
		Giving Strokes	Asking for Strokes	Accepting Strokes	Rejecting Strokes	Stroking Self
	1				x
	2	x
	3		x	x		x
	4
Negative	5

 

How would you rate yourself, and what does that tell you?