Toss out that stale sandwich!

A pinch of praise is worth a pound of scorn.  A dash of encouragement is more helpful than a dipper of pessimism.  A cup of kindness is better than a cupboard of criticism.  ~William Author Ward

If you have to deliver bad news, criticism, or anything negative, sandwich it between two positive statements.  I'm not sure who first suggested this analogy but I think most of us have heard it.  Many of us probably do it.  Well, I've learned that this sandwich technique is stale and should be tossed out with the trash!

Harvard researcher, author, and entertaining speaker, Shawn Achor, shares some eye-opening research in his book The Happiness Advantage.  Results from psychologist and business consultant, Marcial Losada, contradict the age-old sandwich ratio of 2 to 1 for delivering something negative.

Based on Losada's extensive mathematical modeling, 2.9013 is the ratio of positive to negative interaction necessary to make a corporate team successful.  This means that it takes about three positive comments, experiences, or expressions to fend off the languishing effects of one negative.  Dip below this tipping point, now known as the Losada Line, and workplace performance quickly suffers.  Rise above it—ideally, the research shows, to a ratio of 6 to 1—and teams produce their very best work.

Here's what one skeptical CEO said when his company went through a "notable transformation" after incorporating Losada's recommendations to increase their ratio above the Losada Line.  "You untied knots that imprisoned us:  Today we look at each other differently, we trust each other more, we learned to disagree without being disagreeable.  We care not only about our personal success, but also about the success of others.  Most important, we obtain tangible results."

Given the clarity of this data, I'd suggest that this 6 to 1 ratio has many applications in addition to successful work teams.  What about friendships, families, neighbors, and communities?  I'm a fan and admirer of psychologist/philosopher, William James, and one of my favorite James quotes is: "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."  It seems to me that if we're living a 6 to 1 ratio, we're growing in the art of wisdom and learning to overlook what we might have been tempted to point out in the past.  The 6 to 1 ratio could make us far more selective about what negative statements and critiques we choose to actually say, out loud.

My understanding of this research is that it does not suggest that because the negative is a 1 to 6 ratio with the positive that we are able to somehow bypass the negative.  But rather, when the negative is cushioned with a good dose of positive, we're in fact far more able to receive the negative and accept the need for change and modify our behavior. 

As a consultant, I'm really sort of paid to point out what's not working or the negative.  But I've learned, the hard way, that I need to be very selective about what negative aspects I choose to highlight if I want the negatives to be received, accepted, and have a chance at making some impactful change.  So even when hired to identify what's not working or the negative, I have to remember that we're still human, we're still fragile; we still need lots of sugar to help the medicine go down.  

If you feel some kinship to the sandwich analogy, then I'd suggest you start to think about it more like a club sandwich with lots of layers, maybe six layers.