An Excerpt from Validation
Clinical psychologist Caroline Fleck highlights validation—the acceptance of others' views and values—as a key to influencing others and fostering harmony in the workplace.
We live in a world filled with constant communication, making it challenging for our voices to be heard above the noise. What if the key to influencing others lies in demonstrating acceptance?
In her new book, clinical psychologist Caroline Fleck introduces the concept of validation—communicating in a way that acknowledges and accepts the worth of another person’s experiences. Research on validation indicates that it can have significant benefits, including improving relationships, de-escalating conflicts, and enhancing both influence and self-compassion. The following excerpt from Validation illustrates how the skill can be used in three common workplace situations to foster a culture that supports creativity and engagement and motivates colleagues to perform at their best.
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THE MOST OVERLOOKED, FREE SKILL: VALIDATION
Validation is the cheapest, sweetest, and most flexible reinforcement you can use in professional settings. It resonates with everyone—trainees, execs, colleagues, customers, managers, etc.—and can reinforce them for anything, from proposing new ideas to returning your stapler. But research suggests that validation in the workplace is seriously lacking. According to a 2017 Gallup poll, only three in ten employees strongly agree with the statement that their opinion matters at work. A separate poll conducted by Catalyst three years later found that nearly half of the women surveyed said they faced difficulties speaking up in virtual meetings, with one in five saying they were overlooked or ignored.
The lack of validation in work settings is an oversight, but it's understandable. Employees are paid to perform for a company. And the expectation is that they'll be routinely evaluated on their ability to do so. This culture of evaluation lends itself more to praise than validation. Praise signals positive evaluation or approval (e.g., "Good job," "Nice work," "Great presentation"). The emphasis on being professional—as opposed to personal—means praise is more likely to be focused on the work than the person.
There's nothing inherently wrong with praise. I mean, if a person's only mission in life is to gobble it up like the snack pellets in a PAC-MAN game, they'll run into some problems, but giving and receiving praise is generally healthy and helpful. Praise is a powerful reinforcement and can easily be used in combination with validation. "Praise the work; validate the person" is advice I hear myself giving on an almost weekly basis to my corporate clients.
The problem with praise is that when used excessively or not balanced (at least occasionally) with validation, it can seem hollow and impersonal. Impersonal might be what people expect from their interactions at work, but it's not what motivates them. A study of more than fifteen hundred employees showed that people are more than three times more likely to be engaged in their work when they believe their manager cares about their personal life. Yet less than a third feel their managers actually do. In another survey of more than nine thousand employees across twelve countries, 94 percent agreed with the statement that empathy is "an essential quality for a healthy workplace." Although employees value it, less than half of companies globally provide empathy training. Incidentally, those that do have significantly higher levels of employee engagement.
Your managers, employees, and coworkers value praise; it's just not the only type of communication motivating them. If we've learned anything from clinical research in the last thirty years, it's that validation is conducive to change. It not only helps create a culture that supports creativity and engagement, but also can reinforce specific behaviors. In work settings, validation is particularly well suited to reinforce people for the following:
- Exceeding expectations or making progress in the desired direction.
- Showing tenacity or sustaining progress when other reinforcements are lacking (in the final stretch of a project, following multiple setbacks, etc.).
- Engaging in behaviors that contribute to psychological safety, like admitting mistakes, asking for help, and providing feedback.
For a better sense of how one might use validation to reinforce someone in each of these scenarios, let's look at three real-life examples, only one of which uses real names.
Reinforcing a colleague for exceeding expectations and making progress
My client Pam was the last to say "Not me" when her team was deciding who should speak with their colleague Dwight about his attitude problem. According to Pam, Dwight was "an overbearing hothead," which is why someone needed to give him feedback and why nobody wanted to do it. Dwight had been condescending and dismissive of Pam in the past. She went into the conversation prepared for him to deny responsibility, blame others, and maybe insult her. She did not expect him to be non-defensive and nod along thoughtfully, which is what happened. Pam ended the discussion with praise: "This was a good meeting." We agreed she could have done more to reinforce Dwight's non-defensiveness and receptivity directly, so she followed up with a short email that I've re-created here:
"Dwight, I was struck by how non-defensive and receptive you were during our conversation. I don't know if I could have responded with the same level of grace and thoughtfulness to someone giving me difficult feedback. It was inspiring to see.”
Reinforcing an employee for showing tenacity and sustaining progress when other reinforcements are lacking
When I hit a lull in my book and sent my editor—also named Caroline—a long email about structural changes I was thinking of making. At the end of the email, I said:
"I'm afraid this work sucks. Like, really sucks. Please tell me if it does. I won't be offended. I'm good at self-validation, so even if my feelings get hurt, I can validate them and feel better."
Caroline's response:
"First, I have read a large part of this manuscript, and it most definitely did not suck. So unless you've rewritten the whole thing, it is impossible for it to 10 percent suck.
Second, being convinced at this point that it sucks is totally normal. This happens to all writers at about this stage. I might be more concerned at this point if you didn't think it sucked. It's like literary puberty—unpleasant but unavoidable.”
This email is a solid example of praising the work while validating the person. Caroline's response shook me out of my lull, enabling me to pick up my writing pace again. She also reinforced me for taking interpersonal risks—asking for honest feedback, expressing emotions, and using humor. Her words made me more inclined to bring "my whole self" to our conversations moving forward.
Reinforcing a colleague for behaviors that build psychological safety
Michael, a director I was collaborating with on a mental health initiative, made some comments that felt, shall we say, privileged. I decided to email him to say I was offended and express my concerns. Alienating the director would have been a disaster for the initiative, but it was a risk I was willing to take. He responded immediately:
"I hate when I'm worried I've offended someone in an email and am then stuck waiting all day for them to respond, so I wanted to get back to you asap, even though I can only fire off a few points.
- You did NOT offend me with your feedback; you informed me.
- I now see how insensitive my comments were.
- I'm embarrassed by what I said. More importantly, I hate that I hurt you. I want to make this right. More soon!"
Michael was speaking from the heart, like Pam and Caroline in the previous examples. Herein lies an important point: you don't need a detailed list of things you're hoping people will spontaneously do so you can reinforce them with validation; your emotions will cue you into these opportunities. Pam was shocked by Dwight's response. Caroline empathized with where I was at. If a colleague says or does something that evokes strong positive emotions within you, reinforcement à la validation might be in order.
Importantly, strong negative emotions, like what I imagine Michael felt, also can be an indication that you need to reinforce someone with validation. We typically feel attacked when people are trying to hurt us, but we also may feel attacked when they're trying to stop us from hurting them. The sense of mischaracterization and indignation we experience when we're called out is our ego's knee-jerk reaction to being put in its place. These fighty emotions are secondary to the hurt of having hurt someone and the fear of what that means for our character, relationship, and work. The mind's natural response to all this negativity is to spin up an egocentric, defensive narrative to protect you ("They're so sensitive!" "That's not what I meant!"). Instead, these negative emotions and the thoughts surrounding them should serve as your cue to go looking for kernels of truth. The other person might be operating on misinformation or unrealistic expectations, but focusing on what they got wrong is as easy as it is counterproductive. You may disagree with others' interpretations, but if you want people to tell you if you've offended them, you need to find some way to reinforce them when they do.
The examples of Pam, Caroline, and Michael illustrate how validation can strengthen workplace relationships and encourage open communication. When we validate others in the workplace, we're not only investing in our relationships but creating the conditions for exceptional performance.
