Man : Big Hand (Praise)

 

Praise

One of the most powerful forms of human communications is praise. We are surrounded by opportunities to use it — in teamwork, in the workplace, in family life, in volunteering, — and when we do it well, it works wonders.

Effective praise can permanently raise someone’s performance; dramatically alter someone’s self-image, or even the trajectory of their life. At the very least, it can make their day better.

     At the same time, wrong praise at the wrong time, in the wrong manner, can be worse and useless — it can be devastating.

Psychology

An interesting aspect about praise is the chemical reaction it causes in us. Research shows that when we hear something we like, a burst of dopamine is released in our brains. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, and it's associated with feelings of joy, pride, satisfaction, and well-being.

    When you praise someone else, not only does that person feel great, but it leads them to want to experience that same feeling again. Giving praise cements good working habits and behavior, both chemically and intellectually.

Note:
While giving praise is an essential part of developing good work relationships, it's important not to praise others just to get something in return. Enjoy giving praise, and enjoy its positive effect on the people around you!

Basic concepts,

To give truly effective praise every time — you can praise like a man.

a.   Basic Praise

At the very least, your praise should always include these three elements:

·     The name of the person you are praising

·     The specific thing you saw them do, and where and when

·    Sincerity   

                    i.      Their name –

Always address a person by their name because it conveys respect. The sweetest word in most people’s ears is the sound of their own name. Addressing by name, it means you know the person by name — it means you’ve noticed the person. One of the great cravings of the human soul is to be noticed. If you start any sentence with someone’s name, you’re starting off on the right foot.

                  ii.      The specifics –

If the praise is vague, it can sound insincere. When starting to praise more, frequently it will encounter people resisting your praise — with the say of “it was nothing” or “I was just doing my job.” And maybe, deep down, they don’t think they deserve praise, or perhaps they suspect you are trying to manipulate them. If you are extremely specific, you can bypass that resistance and earn their trust.

                 iii.      Sincerity –

Give praise that you actually mean. Unearned praise is mere flattery. A real man doesn’t manipulate people’s emotions, or use false or empty praise. Think of a time you earned the praise of somebody you respected. You valued that praise because you valued the opinion of the person giving it. And, you valued that praise because you trusted the sincerity of the person giving it.

         And when you praise, you are making a statement about right and wrong. You can only give sincere praise for good work if you know what good work is. 
      You can only praise someone for taking the right path, when you know which path is right. A real man knows right from wrong, and is not afraid to champion the right.  Effective praise is a gentle and effective way to champion the right.

 A Warning

Praise is powerful word tool, it is also dangerous. When praising someone praise that they truly don’t think they deserve, they can feel worse off than if you’d said nothing, and they can even start to think that you are clueless. Similarly, if someone is convinced they did good job and you criticize or nitpick, that can be profoundly demoralizing.

    So, be careful, and practice. A real man can handle power with responsibility. As you continue to grow in manliness, you will find effective praise comes easily to your lips and honestly from your heart.

Obstacles with Praise

Many people (including—just possibly—yourself?!) can be so stingy with compliments:

• “Recognition-deprived”

If growing up in “recognition-deprived” family (by  parents far more likely to criticize than to commend them), praising others might be not easy or unsettling feeling. Giving someone the acknowledgment in which they never themselves received themselves would be a pain on their never-healed emotional wounds.

• Competitor

If they’re competing— the need to constantly prove themselves—then by explicitly paying tribute to another’s achievements might make them feel as though they’re admitting their inferiority, ineptitude, or defeat—a confession of failure on their fragile. Some individuals only feel good about themselves by putting others down, the only compliments they're capable.

• Worthiness

If they think that other’s accomplishments and contributions (particularly their children’s) are no more than what ought to be expected, they may not regard such acts as even worthy of acknowledgment.

• Overboarding

If they believe (praise-withholding parents) that giving praise to  another for their achievements might go to the recipient’s head—that is, leading  them to become conceited, cocky, or egotistical—then they may intentionally withhold recognition (and regardless of how much the situation might warrant it).

• Inability

Due to their unmet need for acknowledgment for some person, to them positively recognizing other person’s efforts, as well as accomplishments—might be good but they are incapable and unable to say it. For example, commending a friend, when appropriate, is a responsibility (in fact, almost a “requirement”) in a close relationship; yet they’re unable to do so.

• Rightful

If they have a strong sense of entitlement (because, say, their parents actually prompted them to believe the privileges they received were actually “rights”), they belief that receiving praise from others will be expected, or taken for granted. They actually won’t even consider expressing appreciation, thanks, or  gratitude when someone acts generously or kindly toward them.

· 
Culture

Some people find it very difficult to give compliments. Raised in an environment where giving praise wasn't the norm, it might not occur to them to praise people. Other people feel uncomfortable giving praise, due to their low self-esteem, or make them feel embarrassed.

  Key Points

Praise is an essential part of keeping people motivated and engaged in their work, and it's also good for building good working relationships with team members, customers, and colleagues. 

Follow these tips to provide meaningful praise.

1. Be specific.
2. Praise often.
3. Show as well as tell.
4. Praise appropriately.
5. Spread your praise.

In some cultures, praise can embarrass people or even cause them to look at you with mistrust. In these situations, it's important to be sensitive in the way that you give praise.

 

The power of praise

Praise is the act of making positive statements about a person. Is it a powerful motivator? Certainly, but you do have to get it right.

a.   Your relationship grows.

Life is about relationships. Family relationships, friends, and co-workers. When we begin to praise people for their positive aspects, our relationships grow. It puts them, and us, on track. Your leadership and influence grows. Who is going to have greater leadership and influence capacity in the lives of their followers, the one who tears down or the one who builds up?

b.   Stronger relationships and loyalty.

When the person is appreciated and praised, they become fiercely loyal, because they know that you care for them, love them, and appreciate them. This will take you to success.

c.   Happier, more fulfilled people.

It is our job to build others up and that they need it. It is a good thing, in and of itself to invest in the lives of others by praising and encouraging them. Even if we never get anything in return, it is the right thing to do to build up other people. Someone else will always come along to tear them down; the successful person will instill in them the power of praise!

d.   Affirmation

Praise affirms the person and their sense of identity.  It develops meaning   for their lives and tells them they are worthy.

e.   Surprise

In its raw state, praise comes from a person who is pleasantly surprise  as you achieve more than they had expected. Natural praise is not expected by the recipient and so also is a surprise.

f.    Conditioning

Praise as a reward acts as a form of conditioning, and is often intended this way. In conditioning, you get more of what you reward, so praising a person for things you want to do is a way of getting them to behave more like you wants them to be. 

 

The danger of praise

It is very easy to get praise wrong. Here are a few ways that praise can unexpectedly demotivate people.

a.   Ability vs. effort

In a research work done by Mueller and Dweck, they gave 400 children a test and each of them had 80% right. Half of the children were told the reason for their success was due to their intelligence and the other half due worked hard. They were then offered a choice of undertaking either an easy task or a hard task. 65% of those told they were clever/intelligent chose the easy task, while only 45% of those who were praised for effort.

Those who had been praised for being clever subsequently avoided difficult tasks that might make them appear less intelligent. Interestingly also, more of those who had  been praised for effort chose the harder task as they now saw hard work as gaining desirable praise.

Further tests found that those praised for effort worked harder whilst those praised for intelligence worked less. If you tell a person they already have the ability do so something, you are also telling them that they do not need to work.

b.   Suspicion

Man is naturally suspicious species and when we are praised by someone, we do not automatically assume that the person means what they are saying. Tell a person they have done well and the first response might well be 'So what do you want?' The person easily believes that you are invoking the exchange principle exchange principle, whereby you are giving praise in order to get something in return.

According to research, by the age of 12 many children believe that praise from a teacher is a sign of encouragement rather than the teacher really is impressed by their work.

c.   Self-esteem

Praise is often used in an attempt to build self-esteem, based on the belief that a person with higher self-esteem will strive harder. There can be a problem when the praise used in a general, non-specific way that says in general ‘you are wonderful' but does not pinpoint specifically how, where and when the wonderful is. Self-esteem is a general feeling that is hard to pin down to specifics and so praise can be a mismatched method that backfires when not used in a sincere way.

Praise can make a person dependent, becoming a 'praise junkie' where their self-esteem will last as long as the praise keeps coming in. They seek constant reassurance and may become more narcissistic   when not praised. The self in self-esteem decreases as they become more dependent on the overt esteem of others. Imaginary beliefs become everything as truth fades and they may even lie or cheat to sustain this facade.

d.   Social pressure

There are at time, pressure on people to praise, from managers to teachers to parents. Books and training are incalculating that praise is essential and powerful, and that to not praise is to punish. So people praise simply because they think they should and because they see others praising and think they should do the same for not wanting  of being though a bad manager, teacher or parent.

In this way praise can easily become empty and meaningless, where the person praising does so because it is what is expected and the receiver does not believe the praise is genuine. Praise hence turns into a social ritual or a game  that is played for ulterior motives.

e.   Embarrassment

Some people do not like being praised in front of others. This is typically because they feel that others may envy them at the cost of their relationship. This damage is far worse than the service of praise and we typically try to moderate it with shows of modesty.

Public praise also puts you on a pedestal and high regards whereby you are not expected to do no wrong from then on. Failure and ridicule will follow suit if the person does the opposite of the praised.

f.    Non-praise

Another danger around praise is that if a person expects to be praised but did not receive the recognition of praise. It will act as a cruel punishment and as a de-motivator. Especially children showing their work to their teachers (or adults to their bosses). If the work is ignored, then the motivation goes down.

g.   Rationale

Whatever happens around us we are always trying to work out why it happened? If someone praises us, we want to know why they are doing so. Only if we do something well then we feels that praise is deserved and are motivated by it.

h.   Criticism

The opposite of praise is criticism and can easily act to demotivate, particularly if it is destructive or targeted at the person rather than what they have done. Even well-intentioned constructive criticism of a person's work can have the wrong effect if the person is not able to accept the comment.

Effective praising

The bottom line is that praise is not a magic pill. If you praise anyone for anything, then the praise is meaningless. If you make them look good they may want to stay looking good and so become risk-averse.

For praise to be motivating it has to be sincere, specific and deserved.

·     Sincere

To be sincere, you have to believe the praise that you are giving. For this, you need to make some kind of judgment that determines the person is as good in some way, in comparison with some standard or mark.

One way of doing this is noting that the person has improved in some way against their past self, doing things better or achieving some goal. Another way is comparing them with others, showing they are the best at something or better than another person. The former method is often the better approach as social comparison can also bring social anxieties with it.

              
              You have significantly improved your understanding of mathematics over the year.

              You are top of the class! Well done!! 

A good way of showing sincerity is to make it personal, telling them how you feel about them.

I like the way you have used a balance of shades across the picture. It makes me feel intrigued.

People are generally good at detecting deceit and an insincere praising can do significant damage to a relationship as well as making the target feel that the praiser can find nothing about which to praise them.Trust   is an important component of believing in apparent sincerity.

·     Specific

Specific praise talks about the act or achievement of the person being praised. The word 'you' may well feature in the praise.

       You have passed all your finance exams now, making you fully qualified. Well done!

 Praising can be about achieving a particular goal or can be about a specific act or activity.

             
            Thanks for cutting the grass for me. It looks really nice now.

            I like the way you are taking time to help your sister.

 As praise seeks to encourage, then avoid praising for innate ability as this can result in the person doing less, so always praise for effort or achievement. Note that it is better to praise at the end of a piece of work rather than in the middle as this may create premature closure. 

If you are not specific about what you are praising the person for, two things can happen. First, they may generalize and assume that they are being praised just for existing. Secondly, they may be confused and not feel praised for anything. The critical thing about either of these is that no particular way of behaving has been reinforced and so you will not get more of what you want and may get things that what you do not want.

·    Deserved

When a person is praised for something, they may well feel that they deserve the praise, in which case they feel affirmed and justified and that they have received the due reward for their actions.

If the person does not feel that the praise is deserved, then they will check for sincerity of the speaker. If they do not feel the other person is sincere, then they will not accept that they deserve the praise.

If they do feel the person is sincere and they are not expecting praise then they will feel pleasantly surprised. This is a particularly important reason for sincerity of praise.

       As a society we must strive to eliminate praise deficits and learn to appreciate each other. We must minimize the sense of alienation, prejudice, and ongoing anger that pervades the lives of far too many people and replace these negative feelings with emotions and behaviors that are filled with compassion and caring. If we can accomplish this, we will all be the beneficiaries.

  
Excerpt and extracts taken with thanks form: 
Tom Cox

Chris Widener
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/giving-praise.htm

 http://changingminds.org/explanations/motivation/praise.htm