Keywords

#Råbra is a system for reporting about exceptional efforts in Norwegian hospitals. It was initiated by doctor Marianne Nordhov, who found inspiration from the Learning from Excellence initiative in Britain (Kelly et al. 2016). #Råbra (a Norwegian slang term for “excellence”) provides a system where colleagues can report about each other when they have witnessed excellent professional work in their units. These doctors and nurses are used to systematic reporting about harm to patients and mistakes at work. #Råbra creates a balance, in that it opens for reporting even of small wins and positive developments. It is a system that energises hospital workers and highlights the good they contribute to through their professional efforts. In line with Amabile and Kramer (2011), it ignites joy, engagement, and creativity at work.

I have personal experience in energising effects of receiving generous and precise praise. Some years ago, I wrote a report on the dissertation of a Finnish doctoral candidate in philosophy. The candidate had written a dense and comprehensive scholarly text over several hundred pages. It was hard work to read it and provide precise critical feedback. I attempted to offer friendly friction, combining goodwill and kindly interest with input on strengths and weaknesses in the argumentation. In the report, I listed elements the candidate should improve and revise before submitting the final version of the dissertation. The philosopher Esa Saarinen had requested me to do the report, and some weeks after I had submitted it, he sent me the following message.

Your statement on the candidate’s work is the finest I have seen in the category of pre-examiner’s reports. It is so nuanced, accurate, sharp, to the point, wise, beautifully written and composed. You truly are a fine mind, scholar and human being. I am proud to be your friend and fellow researcher in the realm of applied philosophy. (E. Saarinen, personal communication, June 1st, 2020)

This was a rather overwhelming show of appreciation. I am not accustomed to receiving such an outpour of praise for my efforts and personality. My initial response was that it was too much, that I did not really deserve this string of compliments. Then I let the message sink in and experienced that the words gave me a jolt of positive energy and made me proud of the work I had done.

Saarinen is not one to hold back when he has something positive and uplifting to say to others. As noted earlier in the book, he and collaborating researchers have argued that groups and individuals tend to be caught up in systems of holding back, where they are reluctant to express positive messages to each other based on the often misplaced assumption that it would not be valued or reciprocated (Hämäläinen and Saarinen 2006; Hämäläinen 2008; Hämäläinen et al. 2013).

The fifth and final quality I will draw attention to as part of a well-functioning communication climate is that people are generous in pushing each other’s plus buttons. I learned this concept from Saarinen, who uses it in his teaching to outline countermeasures to tendencies to hold back. He describes how everyone can energise colleagues and collaborators at work by taking time to appreciate truly their efforts. Miracles of collaboration can occur when group members generously push each other’s plus buttons, and thereby mobilise individual and collective resources. The opportunity to push a colleague’s plus button can appear in an instant, and it can be a critical quality moment. The time window for doing it may suddenly close; therefore, if you are going to do it, it must be now. Hesitancy can cause you to miss an opportunity to lift the colleague and thereby fuel the collective capacity to move forward and do splendid things together. The #Råbra system described at the beginning of the chapter provides a systematic approach to appreciating other people’s work, and lowers the threshold for speaking up to celebrate excellence.

Equipped with the concept of pushing plus buttons, I have started to notice patterns and nuances in how group members express their appreciation of each other’s efforts. I have also brought the concept into workshops on communication climate in organisations and invited participants to reflect on their practices and the extent to which it is common to express admiration and appreciation for colleagues’ efforts.

Remaining close to my professional life, it is striking to see how researchers and authors, particularly male ones, hesitate to complement each other on work achievements. A standard thing to say to a colleague is, “I have read your recent paper.” Nothing more than that. No elaboration on positive aspects of the paper or congratulations on having it published. One could interpret the sentence as a minimalistic form of appreciation. Everyone is busy with important tasks. Taking time to read a colleague’s paper shows that you have given it some priority. That is a sign that you take the colleague’s work seriously and count them among the people worth reading. However, what you made of the colleague’s effort remains silent. This habit of saying nothing more than “I have read your paper” constitutes a kind of silence mystery. Why not be more elaborate and concrete about your impressions of the paper? Why not share your thoughts on its strengths and weaknesses? The author is likely to be curious about what a qualified reader thinks about the arguments and thoughts laid out in the paper.

Inspired by Saarinen’s teaching, I have invited participants in workshops to play with numbers when considering a scenario where a group of six people are going to collaborate. Imagine that each of them has a ground level of energy that is set at 1. If they enter the collaborative process while they are at that level, their common energy level is 1 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 1 = 1. However, if one of them is down on energy, due to stressful circumstances at work or elsewhere, the numbers look different: 0.8 × 0.8 × 0.8 × 0.8 × 0.8 × 0.8 = 0.26. Another possibility is that they have a practice of encouraging each other and providing uplifting input ahead of the collaborative process. They are pushing each other’s plus buttons and are thereby elevating each other up from the ground level of 1 to 1.2. The common level will then be 1.2 × 1.2 × 1.2 × 1.2 × 1.2 × 1.2 = 2.98, which is about 10 times as high as if they had entered the work process in the stressful mode. This is a playful and unscientific use of numbers, but people recognise that individual and collective energy levels are crucial, and that simple ways to influence them are within grasp. Minimal effort can provide significant fuel to individuals and groups before collaborative work processes.

To push people’s plus buttons effectively, an individual needs to identify where they are located. A compliment for an effort that is not close to the heart of what the other person sees as their core strengths may not count as an example. In his teaching, Saarinen explains that he is an enthusiastic driver, and that he can be very proud when he has been able to manoeuvre his car into a narrow parking spot. If a passenger then notices the efforts and says, “Very nice parking manoeuvre, Esa!” it gives him immense and immediate pleasure. This is precisely where one of his plus buttons is situated. Another driver may not place similar pride in being able to park the car in this manner and will not experience the same jolt of energy from receiving the same praise. This person’s plus buttons are located elsewhere, and it may take some time to identify them through socialising and working together.

Searching for other people’s plus buttons is an activity conducted through trial and error. You try out simple expressions of admiration, praise, and acknowledgement and note what happens. Sometimes the other lights up, indicating that this is where a plus button is situated. Other times, there is no particular response, and you can assume that the other takes no particular pride in being skilled in this concrete activity. No plus button is hidden here. The search is a form of experimentation. One simple experiment Saarinen suggested is to say, “Well done!” to someone who has finished a particular task well. It often happens that people choose to say, “Well done, but…” and then mention something the other could have done in addition to the task. The “but” signals that someone is not fully satisfied with the work laid down thus far. No time to rest on your laurels. However, the “but” also reduces the expression’s energising potential. It is possible to make a conscious effort to stop mentioning the extra task that also should have been done. In collaboration with Saarinen and my colleague Arne Carlsen, I have invited executive students to perform this experiment outside of class. Some of them have returned with astonishing testimonies about the difference it makes to say, “Well done!” without mentioning any extra tasks the other could also have performed. The simple version has a far more uplifting effect on recipients. They can savour the input and gain energy from it. The “but…” is more of a takedown than the students had initially expected.

One reason for being sceptical of a practice of handing out and receiving compliments at work is that it can have manipulative undertones. Research on persuasion techniques has well shown that an appreciative remark increases the likelihood that the recipient will say yes to a request (Cialdini 2006). I once received an email from two of my students. They wrote that I was the ethics guru at the business school and one of the sportiest teachers they had. Then, they wondered if I would be willing to participate in a short film they were going to make. My immediate response was to say yes. Later, I learned that these students had recently taken a course in persuasion and influence and had become familiar with studies documenting that a compliment increases the likelihood that the recipient will say yes to a request. When I confronted students about it, they admitted that this had been their strategy, but added that the compliments were genuine and the procedure therefore ethically justifiable. My reflection afterwards was that the compliments from the students had made me switch from what Kahneman (2013) has labelled System 2 decision-making (a slow, analytical method) to System 1 decision-making (the fast, impulsive, and intuitive way). Normally, when I receive a request from students, I prefer to think carefully about the consequences and the precedence I would set by saying yes. This time, I made a quick decision. Therefore, pushing plus buttons can lead people to scrap analytic thinking and give in to an emotional response in their decision-making.

Despite the possibility of manipulation, pushing plus buttons can enhance a group’s ability to do excellent work together. Dutton (2003) developed a theory regarding how to establish and maintain high-quality connections at work and described how respectful engagement was a key component. Colleagues who are present and attentive towards each other create energising relations and lay the foundation for excellent and miraculous collaborations. I take the practice of pushing plus buttons to be a crucial part of keeping the collective flame alive in groups and organisations. Work environments where people hold back and seldom give compliments will miss a rich and inexpensive energy source. The uplifting word need not be as expressive and emotionally loaded as those I received from Saarinen. Microexpressions of acknowledgement can have astonishing positive effects.

In this chapter, I identified pushing plus buttons as the fifth quality I have found present in well-functioning communication climates. I have noticed this set of qualities in my studies of how people communicate in groups and organisations. To recapitulate, the first quality under scrutiny was friendly friction. It is present when colleagues and group members provide friction to each other’s ideas and suggestions in a friendly atmosphere. Friendly friction is situated between two undesirable opposites. When there is friction without friendliness, people tend not to listen carefully and to notice the constructive elements in the input they receive. When there is friendliness without friction, immature ideas are taken forward without having gone through thorough criticism and testing. The middle ground of friendly friction is crucial to establish and maintain in a group or an organisation as a platform for high-quality dissent in collaborative processes.

The second quality was that of having tolerance for false alarms. I distinguished between active and passive speech mistakes, as well as between saying something that should have remained unsaid and not saying something that should have been said. People may assume that remaining silent is the safest option because it means that you did not make a mistake, but that assumption disregards the category of passive speech mistakes. In organisations where it is important to speak up even when someone is in doubt, it is useful to have a tolerance for false alarms or for making active speech mistakes. Otherwise, employees will hesitate to voice their concerns in critical quality moments. If those who have sounded false alarms receive repercussions, people will sense that it is best to remain quiet even though they sense that something bad is about to happen. It is better to celebrate and be grateful for the initiatives, even in situations where they build on a false understanding of the situation.

Psychological safety was the third quality I outlined. It is present when group members perceive it safe to take interpersonal risk by raising concerns and criticism in front of others in the group. Psychological safety does not mean that the work environment is comfortable and cosy. Rather, the foundation makes it safe to engage in heated conversations where participants can freely challenge each other’s perspectives without fearing repercussions. Neutralisation of hierarchies can strengthen psychological safety. Possibly, psychological safety can reach a tipping point, where people feel it is safe to use harassing language towards colleagues because they sense they are insulated from negative consequences.

The fourth quality I identified as crucial to communication climate was that of having scope for agency. When people sense that there is scope for agency at work, it means that they perceive themselves as agents rather than pawns. Agency is crucially bound to the past, it takes place in the present, and it is oriented towards the future. Habits and routines have established schemas for coping with present challenges, but when something unexpected happens, there are no established scripts for what to do next. Critical quality moments occur when the conductor gives the wrong tone to the choir, or the senior engineer moves forward with a faulty plan for a bridge. These moments call for innovation and initiative. They are best addressed in a communication climate where there is scope for agency.

Finally, I showed that the practice of pushing plus buttons generates energy in individuals and groups. In a communication climate where it is common to be generous with compliments and positive feedback, high-quality connections can be made among colleagues, and they can achieve wonderful results together.