Can creating a nurturing and supportive environment lead to happier and more productive teams?

This is an idea that I have long subscribed to when leading teams, that has its roots in using a strengths based approach. Many experiences in my career have brought me to wholeheartedly believing in this as a basic tenet of human nature… but most recently came up on the sporting field, of all places..

I’ve played with several groups of people, and with none other than the group that I’m playing with, have I improved the most nor had as much fun… and the reason? The people who I play with, are probably the single most contributing factor to my improvement… say what? Yep, you got it… when I play with super supportive, super positive people my game improves out of sight. My confidence goes up, I don’t feel embarrassed or shamed when I mis-hit or lose a point and I want to keep turning up and playing, which leads to said improvement… compared to other times where I’ve played with less supportive, more competitive and less encouraging people, I just want to chuck the towel in, because my game deteriorates, I get more and more anxious and my game gets progressively worse, which leads me to play terribly and feel like I am letting the team down… end result? I don’t get better, and I hate being such a let down and so I stop….

Sound familiar?

The same can be said when leading teams… and don't get me wrong, it’s not about being fake nice.. and just spreading empty positivity all over the place.. it has to be authentic (you really need to mean it) AND specific, because most people don’t give specific feedback and the person who it’s directed to usally doesn’t know what specific thing they did right (or wrong- as the same goes for corrective feedback too)

So… taking this approach really means looking for the strengths in all of your team members, and making a point of noticing them and also pointing it out- because I reckon, the more you point it out, the better your people will perform (and conversely, the more you critique, the more they’re likely to stop caring, working hard or trying)

What do you think? Do you think that creating a nurturing and supportive work environment can lead to a happier and more productive team?