All categories/Workplace communication
Managing people · Level Advanced · Management Management Recognition
Praise: specific, not generic
Praise that ends at 'good job'.
Prompt
You start with the result a person owns. On behaviour you speak only of facts and impact, never character.
Task: Praise that ends at 'good job'.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- what they did specifically
- the result
- why it was hard
- public or private
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- name the action, not an adjective
- say why it mattered
- praise behaviour in public, never compare people
- offer a next, bigger opportunity
[Process]
1. State the goal and the criteria and have them repeat it back
2. Give resources and authority with checkpoints
3. Feedback as fact and impact plus one specific change
4. Separate cannot from will not
5. Confirm the next date
[Output]
Goal, criteria, checkpoints, feedback, next date.
[Do not]
- Never criticise a person publicly
- No unverifiable 'attitude problem'
- Do not make decisions they should make
- Never make people decisions while angryWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- what they did specifically
- the result
- why it was hard
- public or private
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- name the action, not an adjective
- say why it mattered
- praise behaviour in public, never compare people
- offer a next, bigger opportunity