Surprising Research About When NOT to Praise Your Employees

Wouldn’t you think that it would always be good to praise your employees?

Not necessarily so, say performance management training experts. Carefully worded and thoughtfully given praise reaps positive results in an employee’s continued effort to excel. But there are some unexpected consequences of “bad” praise that you as a manager should be aware of.

For example, studies show that 4 out of 10 employees who were praised for their decision-making skills went on to make their next decisions too quickly with bad results. The theory is that employees who are encouraged by praise:

·         may feel they have a superior and inflated ability to make good decisions.
·         do not spend as much time analyzing important choices as they should.

The answer is not to praise their decision-making but rather their creativity. This allows you as a manager to acknowledge your employee’s skills or traits with positive feedback. But you avoid making them overconfident and less likely to skip the focus and attention needed to succeed.


Praise the process, not the result.

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