You have high standards. That’s really why you got into business. You felt that there wasn’t enough high-quality and attention to detail in the products and services in your market niche. You saw an opportunity to fill that unmet need. You know how important it is to you personally to hear positive feedback from your customers, suppliers, and employees. So why don’t we use praise more in our own business? Maybe we’re just too busy and preoccupied with the daily workload to notice good work. Or we think our employees should be grateful for the pay and benefits should be reward enough. Or we fear if we give too much praise, people will get big egos and become arrogant, unmanageable and ask for more pay and benefits. Or we find it hard to praise work when it is only 80% or 90% of what we wanted. This was one of my problems as a boss of 30 people. I was focused on fixing the 10% to 20% that was lacking.
Recognition is more important than money
If you’re not good at giving praise, here’s help: Donald O. Clifton’s book Soar with Your Strengths. Clifton was chairman of the Gallup organization, whose annual employee surveys showed that the No. 1 reason people quit their job was to get away from their boss. Clifton’s view was that we should spend most of our time focused on an employee’s strengths and talents rather than their weaknesses. He blended his skills as a data scientist and psychologist with his business sense. His book transformed all my ideas about how to run an organization.
The benefits of praise
• It can help reinforce the values and the standards of your organization.
• It helps teach what you mean by quality.
• It can help people recognize their own strengths and develop them.
• It makes people more open to receiving criticism if that moment comes.
• It motivates people. Your best people appreciate sincere, specific praise and will go over and above to get more.
In my experience, people will develop much faster by focus- ing on their talents than by trying to improve their weaknesses. This is not to absolve people of responsibility for eliminating errors. It’s just to say that the payback is greater when they work in areas of talent.
How to do it
Much of this how-to comes from the 1982 book The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. Saying “good job” is not enough.
Your best people discount unspecific praise. The person must know exactly what the qualities are that you appreciate. Tell the person what is good about the work and how much it helps the organization.
• If the work is not perfect (and it never is), hold off on saying, “but” or “however” at this point. You can touch on those things in another conversation.
• It is better to do it in private to create an air of significance. Tell the person, “I want to compliment you on something.”
• Pause and let the person enjoy the moment.
• Shake the person’s hand. Encourage them to do more.
Levels of praise
At the lowest are some spoken words. Some written words by email might be better. A handwritten note is much more powerful. Beyond that, public recognition or a prize might be appropriate. But be careful: some people are embarrassed when praised publicly; it’s a good idea to ask someone if they would enjoy this.
Final thought
In general, our biggest personal mistakes are seared into our memory. The trick is how we respond. We can make that memory a source of self-flagellation and anger or we can trans- form it into a lesson, strength. As leaders we can help people recognize how their talents will help them avoid making mis- takes. The point is not that we were perfect and had a perfect organization but that we learned as a group how to deal with these issues. We treated our mistakes as learning experiences.
Have questions? Reach out to SCORE for free, expert mentoring and resources to guide you through your small business journey. Visit score.org to learn more.
