Praise…. A small word with a huge impact….

Every single day, millions of people work hard to fulfill their dreams, targets, quotas, and goals. They put in an extra effort because they are proud of what they do and because they want to make a difference for their customers, company, colleagues, their families or themselves. But most of the time, nobody notices.

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In businesses, as well as countries, families, and most other communities, we strive to make things better every day. And the simplest way to make things better is to find and fix mistakes. So, we put a lot of effort into identifying problems and root causes and making laws, plans, procedures, or rules to prevent future mistakes and failures. It is all very logical and efficient. But recently, it has also made me aware of how much it actually drains my motivation and drive to constantly be asked to fix problems instead of focusing on all the things that people do right every single day.

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And it becomes even more obvious when we look deeper into the way we work and what we teach our kids. When we have a great day at work, it is often described as “We had a great day - we didn't make any mistakes” So we use the lack of mistakes to describe greatness instead of using greatness to describe greatness. In school, my kids are faced with tests and assessments weekly. When I ask them how it went, they say “I had 5 mistakes”…. I say, “So that means that you got 45 answers correct!!!”, but to them, they still feel that the 5 mistakes are more important than the 45 correct answers because in the school, they are taught to fix mistakes…

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So why is this? Maybe we have created a culture where avoiding and fixing mistakes is better than going for greatness. Maybe we are happier when we can measure ourselves against others by number of mistakes instead of greatness, because greatness is more difficult to measure? I doubt it...

In Denmark, we are not very good at praising each other for many reasons - it isn't really part of our culture to praise a lot. We often say that “No news is good news”, because that means that you didn’t screw up. Unfortunately, it could also mean that nobody noticed what you did and you are not very important. We often have to infer the praise from the context e.g. nobody complained, nobody asked critical questions or nobody asked you to explain why what you did was important. But at best, this just makes us survive in quiet doubt about our own performance and impact. It doesn’t help us grow and it doesn’t help us to understand the impact we have on projects, people, or results. And it doesn’t give us the energy we need to deal with all the problems we have to fix along the way.

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I often hear people say that they only praise when people go above and beyond the expectation. But what about just doing a damn good job every single day? Sometimes hard work doesn’t show up in the numbers, but the numbers would have been much worse if people hadn’t worked hard. We need to stop just looking at numbers and start looking at the individual and the impact they have and the difference they make for others.

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We also need to be much more specific when it comes to praise. When we deliver corrective feedback, we are always taught to be specific so people can change their behavior. But on the rare occasion that somebody actually praises somebody else, it is often in the form of a “Good job yesterday” pat on the back and nobody learns anything from that. It is nice, but it loses the effect when it isn't specific. We do not know what we did, so we can’t learn and grow from it. Sometimes, I receive praise through my manager. It is always nice to be praised, but most of the effect is lost, because it isn’t personal, and it isn’t specific. Corrective feedback can’t be delivered through somebody else, so why do we think that praise can? Please remember that if you want to praise someone, do it straight to their face and then perhaps afterwards also tell the persons manager for extra effect.

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I am blessed with fantastic colleagues and even though I try to praise them when they have done a good job or something that had a positive impact on me, I also forget sometimes. Often, I am met with the sentence “Yeah, but I am just doing my job” when I praise people. And yes, that is exactly why I am trying to praise you!! You are so good at your job and it has a positive impact on me!! So perhaps, we also need to learn to listen to and value praise instead of just writing it off as something unimportant because it is more important to find and fix mistakes…

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Don’t get me wrong, we need to fix the critical mistakes, anything else is negligence. But I sincerely doubt that we should focus as much on mistakes as we do, and I wholeheartedly believe that everybody will thrive even more if we all took a little time to praise each other for having an impact on us.

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I am a product of the culture I grew up in, so sometimes, I also focus too much on the negatives and the mistakes but it drains other peoples energy and it certainly drains mine too. Do not take your loved ones or colleagues for granted. It is time for me to change my approach to praise so I want to make a concious effort to praise the important people in my life a little more – the amount of energy it will create will be fantastic!!!