The Courage Solution by Mindy Mackenzie

Author:Mindy Mackenzie
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-62634-331-3
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Published: 2016-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

17

Stroke, Stroke...

WHEN I WAS in graduate school studying to become a marriage and family therapist, one of my professors taught me a therapeutic method known as “stroke, stroke, kick.” The basic concept is that people don’t like to change. Even if they show up in your office and pay you for your help, they still don’t like it when you challenge their belief system. Which is a pretty fundamental thing to do for successful psychotherapy.

So you employ the stroke, stroke, kick method—which means looking for ways to support and offer affirmation to the client twice as often as you challenge or “kick” them.

I am going to share how the stroke part of this method works on the job with your boss. We’ll get to the kick in the next chapter.

This method is applicable not only to your boss, but it’s included in this section—rather than in “Lead Your Team” or “Lead Your Peers”—because I’ve noticed that most people do a fairly good job of providing positive feedback and commentary to teams and peers—at least in comparison with what they provide to their boss.

I’m often struck by the general lack of affirmation, support, gratitude, and encouragement shown to a boss. It’s almost as if people think their boss doesn’t need it—that the boss is invincible or perhaps getting affirmation elsewhere.

But the opposite is true. Yes, the more senior a person gets, the more ego stroking and ass kissing they receive—while receiving less and less authentic praise, support, and encouragement. This is a trend that needs to be reversed.

You cannot get a positive response or change or shift from a well-placed kick if you have not first provided genuine strokes.

Not only is the ego-stroking approach disingenuous, but it propagates the “emperor has no clothes” phenomenon that occurs with many leaders. No one tells them the truth and really challenges them (the “kick”). Yet they are constantly being sucked up to.

But you cannot get a positive response or change or shift from a well-placed kick if you have not first provided genuine strokes.

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