Recognize Their Greatness

We're all motivated by positive feedback--let's make it less rare, more regular

Brian McNamara in Summer of 2000 at the Product Marketing Association show (photo credit: me)

No matter how old, experienced, successful, or enlighted we become, we never stop appreciating positive feedback.

Last week I caught up with Gary, a senior business leader who I had not spoken with since he and his company tried to buy my last startup in 2018. His firm lost out to a slightly higher bidder back then. During our chat, Gary shared that a key reason they put an offer together was to bring in fresh leadership from my team and me—hoping we would make a much bigger impact beyond just our business unit.

Hearing this stirred up some interesting emotions.

On the one hand, it felt nice to hear such positive feedback—that somewhere there was a deck with my name in the “Pro” column to justify spending millions of dollars on an acquisition. On the other hand, I sure wish Gary had put this in his pitch to us. The company we went with did nothing to show our leadership team we had the potential for a longer-term impact—even years into the deal. That’s why most of us quit a few months after finishing our earn-out.

It left me wondering…If Gary had told me then that they saw our talent and had bigger plans for us, we might have gone with his offer. Many of us might still be making an impact at his company today instead of watching our band break up.

It’s a reminder that we must provide positive feedback to the people we work with. And it’s something I learned long ago from Brian McNamara.

Chaos in the Produce Aisle

It’s February 2000. Less than a year ago, I graduated from business school and moved from New York City to Cincinnati to work on the new products team at Procter & Gamble. As an Assistant Brand Manager (ABM), I was the lowest person in the hierarchy and on the hook for many tasks associated with launching Fit Fruit & Vegetable Wash.

I could have landed in the Febreze or Swiffer teams, which took off like rockets and are likely in your home today. But I’m on a natural soap for your produce that cleans 98% better than water alone. The produce industry hated us, retailers didn’t know what to do with us, and it seemed that everyone who worked for the brand was cursed. Seriously.

Fit had been in a test market for five years, looking for a way to create a new +$100 million cleaning category. The product never took off in testing, but it didn’t exactly die, either. So it kept getting funding and staffing. But no one wanted to work on it, and the buzz in the building was that Fit is where P&G careers went to die.

My first brand manager quit three months after I started. Last week, her replacement told us he was leaving, too. He said he started looking for a new job as soon as he landed on Fit. And here I am, in an up-or-out company where they told us 1/3 of ABMs were let go after their first year. I wondered if I should be looking to leave, too…

Then we are introduced to our third new Brand Manager, Brian. I had heard Brian was a good guy. I also heard Brian’s voice often over the high cube walls separating our new business team from his previous roles on Downy and Bounce. I regularly heard him joking with teammates, and it seemed daily he repeated the phrase, “I can’t believe they’re paying me to work here.” I couldn’t tell if he was for real or full of shit.

My fellow Fit ABM, Rob, and I have a first meeting with Brian and proceed to dump all of the brand’s issues on his head. We’re finally gearing up for a national launch, and issues are everywhere. The test market data is weak, the budget is getting cut, and every function leader is spinning things to their own benefit. Brian listens closely, asks good questions, and helps us see through our frustration to some good next steps.

Brian later shares his strategy for managing people. He believes in giving them broad freedom over their projects and being there to provide perspective and assistance when needed. I felt really good about the meeting, and I’m very excited about working for Brian.

In the months ahead, Brian and I crawl through piles of problems together. The product is in awful shape on every measure, but the GM of the group and the CEO himself are personally pushing it forward to a national launch. So we do the best we can. I see that Brian truly lives his supportive people strategy, especially when the pressure is on.

A few months later, I’m in Denver at a focus group session, trying to develop new ideas to save this business. My phone shows an incoming call from Brian, and I move into the backroom to see what’s up. He asks how the research is going, then tells me:

“Dude, I just want you to know you’re kicking ass. I’m making sure the right people here know you’re awesome, despite the challenges of Fit. And you’ll be taken care of no matter what happens.”

It’s hard to describe how good it felt to get such positive feedback and support early in my career and in such a difficult position.

By September 2000, it’s clear that Fit is going to fail. But Brian’s feedback and support still has me glowing. I’m now in a different city in a different focus group, and Brian calls again, but the cell signal is breaking up:

“Tide’s - done - announce - be in the office - so…”

I was laughing as I kept asking him to repeat what ended up being an amazing message: I was getting a new assignment on Tide, the biggest packaged goods brand in the U.S., and a huge signal that the company valued me. I sat there stunned, thinking about the positive turnaround in my fortunes and how much I owed Brian.

A few months later, Fit officially wound down, and Brian was named Brand Manager on Tide. I was ecstatic to work for him again, and we had a lot more fun taking a successful business up a few notches.

Today, Brian McNamara is CEO of Haleon (formerly GSK Healthcare). It’s a giant job he earned by growing businesses through the same people skills I saw those many years ago. He has positively impacted countless careers along the way.

Many years ago, I asked Brian what made him such a great leader of people—still the best I’ve ever worked for. He credited his family, and especially his father, then called out his first job out of college. Brian was hired by Procter & Gamble to lead a troubled soap factory in New Jersey. As a 22-year-old, he had to get 50-year-old union members to adapt to change. And he quickly realized the only way to succeed was to recognize their skills and bring them into the process of change as empowered equals.

I was fortunate to learn from Brian early in my career when I was mostly a blank slate. Many people he has managed have a “mini-Brian” in their heads, guiding us to treat others well and teaching the next generation in his model. I’m still working on this, and a long way from “Brian level,” but I’d like to share some things I’ve learned on the journey.

Business is Personnel is Personal

Of all the positives I learned from Brian, the most powerful is the value of directly recognizing people’s greatness.

Humans are programmed to crave feedback. We are a social species with every emotion, from delight to depression, triggered by how others treat us. Feedback hits multiple parts of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, including Safety, Love, and Self-Esteeem.

But genuine, positive feedback is too rare—especially in today’s corporate environment.

Ironically, sharing positive feedback at work is selfish—in the best way possible. The people who perform well are those you want to keep motivated. When we hear positive feedback, we feel good, want to stick around, and work to keep doing well. Telling people how well they are doing is a zero-cost solution. And since so few managers do this effectively, you will stand out in people’s minds for years.

Tips for Recognizing Greatness

Brian is probably a natural; the rest of us need some help. Here are some ways I’ve worked to make positive feedback more effective:

• Look and Listen - While it doesn’t cost money to motivate people with your words, you do have to pay attention. We must view our jobs as leaders to watch how people behave and note when they do great work.

• Make it Specific - Saying “Great job, team!” means very little. But when you say, “Chris, you did a great job figuring out how to use A.I. on our image recognition project,” it feels much more meaningful.

• Make it Public - Make sure the whole team knows who is doing well. “Kim is great at being the devil’s advocate,”; “Michael sets the highest ethical bar,”; and “Kristin has an amazing work ethic.” Public credit shows the whole group what greatness looks like, and the people you recognize will strive to stay “on brand.”

• Recognize Peers and Managers, too - Positive feedback is not just for direct reports—and as long as you’re specific and authentic, it won’t look like sucking up.

• Don’t Make it a Gimmick - You’ve got to really feel everything you say, or people will see through it. Bigger picture, this is about being a better human being.

This last point is where we can improve far beyond motivating people at our place of work. Our friends, spouse, children, parents, and other family members also want to know when they have made a positive impact on our lives. We appreciate them tremendously but don’t tell them often enough. I can’t think of a better habit to improve our relationships both at work and at home.

Bob Gilbreath is a 2x-exit entrepreneur and co-founder of Hearty, a curated matchmaking service that combines top software developers with early-stage, venture-backed startups.