This content was created by Dave Kashen. This content was uploaded by Dave Kashen. This is a YouTube video titled "What You Appreciate, Appreciates... #innergame #workculture #fortune500" (created 2025-11-15). The excerpt is a conversational exchange between Dave Kashen and Jesse about leadership and workplace culture, arguing that highlighting and appreciating what people do well increases joy and improves performance. They reference a basketball coach example to illustrate focusing on strengths, while noting the continued importance of candid, constructive feedback.
There's this cliché statement, what you appreciate appreciates. And I have found it to be true, right? If you say to someone, oh, I, you know, wow, I so appreciate how you went above and beyond on that, you know, assignment and you really, you know, checked all your work and I see how detail-oriented you were. I so appreciate you for how you, you step up to help other people, like what's naturally going to happen is they're going to do more of that.
There was, there's some famous thing, by the way, Dave, I think you, somebody told me this, but there was some coach, basketball coach who he showed, he showed videos of what the players are doing when they were making mistakes. And like they got, they got no better as a team and maybe got a little worse. And he showed them both what they did well as well as what they didn't do well. And they kind of didn't go. And then all he did was start to highlight all the things they did well, and the team got markedly better, like significantly better at basketball.
I think that, I love that example, Jesse. I think that's a huge unlock for leaders because we're human and our minds tend toward all the negative stuff, all the what's wrong, what's not good enough. So we as leaders do that, our team members are all doing that. And so everyone's missing all the good stuff. And if you can actually build a culture where you're focusing on what's going well, appreciating it, one, you'll feel just more joy, more love, more goodness, more positivity. And two, you'll actually improve performance. And to your point, Jesse, maybe more than even giving all the constructive feedback and finding all the places where people aren't doing it great. Again, I don't want to step over candor. I think it's important for people to be real with each other and give feedback.
