Our self-regard is made up with a fusion of values, beliefs & attitudes. These are quite complicated in nature and remain unconsciously inside our emotional brain. For our self-regard to develop and remain in the pink, it requires feedback about us from other people. Your colleague told you “I love working with you”, is an example of positive verbal feedback. Where as, if she would have just given you a warm smile when you enter the office, it would have been an example of non-verbal positive feedback. On the contrary a negative feedback can make you loose your intensity of self-regard. Psychologists refer to these units of feedback from others as‘strokes’. We can receive and give four types of strokes.
Starting with positive strokes, we may receive positive conditional stroke. These are quite useful, provided they are specific. They focus on praising something you have done, such as, “your project report was outstanding. It was clear written, focused and concise on the key issues.” If you notice the second part of the comment is full of conditions. They are useful as they build on learning and development.
Positively unconditional strokes will have the largest positive impact on our self-regard if we somehow manage to accept it. They involve praising you for who you are. And not on what you did, unlike positive conditional strokes. An example of positively unconditional stroke may be a comment from your colleague “I always feel confident when working with you”
Negative conditional strokes are at times essential and when given in a specific & constructive way, are useful. They are feedback on persons behavior such as, “your project report would have had more impact if you could focus on the key issues.” They are useful as they build on learning and development.
Lastly, negative unconditional strokes will have the worst impact on his self-regard if the receiver accepts it and registers in his mind. A lot of negative feedbacks are implied by non-verbal communication. Like, someone shaking eyes & his head and delivering the message ‘I think you are useless’ to the person standing in front of him, for whatever reason may be. Negative unconditional strokes hits you for who you are rather that what you did.
So be careful in accepting strokes from others and then registering them in brain. It all depends upon ourselves. At the same also be careful in giving strokes to other people. Feedbacks are very often used by HR professionals for providing performance reviews.
- Saptarshi Dasgupta
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Strokes have to be understood in terms of “Neurological Levels” … This is a concept which has evolved thru studies in NLP. Gregory Bateson, an eminent anthropologist first brought in the concept of neurological levels. Later it was adapted by Robert Dilts as a component of NLP. If you study the concept of the 6 layered, hierarchical neurological levels then you would understand its application in determining how to give strokes effectively. Strokes can positively impact a person’s behaviour and self image. However if wrongly used, strokes can be disastrous too ! So folks please make the effort and spare the time to read about neurological levels and exercise your brains to apply the same while giving strokes !
Sandeep Mukherjee