If you have a problem with someone on your team, have the conversation in private: IM, one-on-one email, face-to-face meeting, etc.
But if you want to praise someone, do it in public so others can see it too: via a Basecamp/Backpack message, in your group’s Campfire chat room, in a blog post, an email that CC’s others, etc.
It’s a modern way to apply the advice Dale Carnegie gives in “Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment”:
Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly…Let the other person save face…Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
Related: A transaction makes a customer [SvN] discusses Carnegie’s suggestion that if you want to make someone your friend, you should ask them to do something for you.
Jordan
on 01 Oct 08I’m reminded of what Fake Steve Jobs says in his book:
“My advice is: no praise. Ever. You start praising people and they’ll start thinking they’re smarter than you. You cannot have that.”
And:
“Be unpredictable. Be random. One day say something’s great, and the guy who made it is a genius. Next day say it’s crap, and the guy is a moron. Watch how hard that guy will work now, trying to impress you.”
Rob H
on 01 Oct 08The Japanese also follow the same principle of praise in public, reprimand in private.
R
GeeIWonder
on 01 Oct 08Should be common sense.
The exception: putting accountability on senior people. Even if it’s staged. This allows everyone to know that screwing up is ok, and happens to everyone.
Andres
on 01 Oct 08@GeelWonder
A lot of what these guys write is common sense.
37signals monetizes common sense.
GeeIWonder
on 01 Oct 08True enough. That wasn’t a knock. ;)
Joseph Fusco
on 01 Oct 08Great, common sense advice, to be sure.
But if I may (gently) “chastise”? Maybe I don’t understand the younger generation today, but I think giving negative feedback by IM or email is a mistake, and the source of a possibly prolonged or extended “problem” or misunderstanding.
In my experience, 90 percent of the message you are trying to communicate exists in non-verbals, e.g., tone-of-voice, body language, etc. E-mail and IMs are notoriously deficient in those areas, leaving people on their own to fill in the blanks of what you really mean, what your true motivations are. Risky, if you are trying to repair or build a working relationship.
Leadership requires an investment in time-inefficient methods such as walking down the hall (instead of emailing), looking people in the eye, and having a conversation.
In the long run, it’s worth it, and problems tend to get solved quicker and more effectively.
You guys are great, by the way; one of the most valuable parts of my RSS feed daily.
Braxo
on 01 Oct 08I prefer the passive aggressive way.
Even if you know who the culprit is within a group of people, it is best to write a note in marker (preferably blue) and tape it up in the common area for everybody to see. Make sure you don’t name specific names or sign it with you name.
Fakey F. Fakenheimer
on 01 Oct 08Question: An employee acts negligently and it directly damages a number of his/her fellow employees. As a made up example, two salespeople work on a big deal for a long time and it represents a significant commission to them. A marketing person mistakenly sends some incorrect materials to the prospect, and undermines the deal at the last moment. Assume the marketing person made a bonehead mistake, that was completely avoidable. The marketing person is “sorry.” The salespeople are out $10k each. The company loses a $75k profit opportunity. The salespeople are steaming mad, and want to see somebody’s head on a pike. I am the boss. How do I handle the situation?
And @ Joseph: “[whenever avoidable] I think giving negative feedback by IM or email is a mistake.” Agreed.
ML
on 01 Oct 08I think giving negative feedback by IM or email is a mistake.
Joseph, I see your point. We’re a remote team so face-to-face meetings aren’t always an option (and we rarely call each other). But a quick in person meeting or phone call could certainly be a wiser, “soften the blow” option for folks in traditional workplaces.
Andrew Cornett
on 01 Oct 08I was lucky to have a close friend/colleague of mine tell me via Twitter he doesn’t appreciate me publicly chastising him:
I quickly realized that it’s the same way my boss and other superiors talk to me while at work. It was a very bad habit to pick up on, and I’m doing some work trying to make it go away.
Steve R.
on 01 Oct 08I would add -
Don’t overdo praise. If you praise too much – even to the ADHD-suffering 20-somethings you work with ;) – you will ring false, which will do you a serious disservice when you want to be taken seriously – like when they do something you need to ‘correct’ them on.
Also – ‘corrections’ should be SMART (yah, an acronym, hate them, but this one works) – Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable, Timely. If it isn’t all those things, your feedback is useless to the person and the organization.
And above all, no matter how much you don’t want to, be nice. It costs you nothing and makes everyone feel better, and no that isn’t touchy-feely HR garbage, it is a hallmark of decency.
My $.02. YMMV. Good luck out there.
Yossef
on 02 Oct 08I had a boss who had this backwards. It was extremely frustrating and degrading.
I’m glad I have nothing to do with that company anymore.
Martin
on 02 Oct 08The advice is too generic.
Communication really depends on the character of the receiver. There are people who really hate being put under the spotlight and praised in front of the whole team. It is very uncomfortable for them and they really want you not to do that.
GeeIWonder
on 02 Oct 08Communication really depends on the character of the receiver. There are people who really hate being put under the spotlight and praised in front of the whole team. It is very uncomfortable for them and they really want you not to do that.
Only if you have no feel for who you’re dealing with. A lot depends a lot on the nature of the spot—which could range from a well timed ‘by the way’ or a pat on the back to an over-hyped ‘Mission accomplished’ banner that feels like a setup.
But the point, I think, goes beyond just one person. It’s about communicating to, and indeed building, a team.
Scott
on 02 Oct 08At a bare minimum, phone. F2F wherever possible on anything related to criticism or constructive feedback or a smackdown. We underestimate how much we depend on visual cues and body language in conversation, especially when dealing with difficult subjects. F2F can go a long way toward minimizing natural defensiveness and the tendency to misconstrue the meaning or intent of a discussion like this.
Re: public praise—know your employees, adjust accordingly. If you don’t know that a public standup would embarrass one of your team, you need to spend more time with him or her.
David Andersen
on 02 Oct 08@Fakey -
I don’t think your example provides enough info because I’m left asking these questions:
What, exactly, did the marketing person send that would undermine the deal? Why couldn’t the sales people apologize and resurrect the deal? Was there really a solid deal in the first place?
Stick
on 03 Oct 08I have seen people who chastise the whole group with a message only applicable to a particular person and make everyone wonder “huh, who is the one being reprimanded here?” and people start to speculate.
Add that with no public praise (backwardly, all praises were private, bordering on the edge of secrecy). you get a team with spectacularly low morale.
How do you like going to team meetings where no praise was ever uttered and random chastising comments for things that you didn’t do and weren’t sure who did them?
Mike Riley
on 04 Oct 08I always find it difficult figuring out how best to deal with this situation when the person who messed up is inevitably going to end up being publicly questioned as to their actions, case in point:
An employee of mine linked a portion of our application which was unfinished and contained errors, broken links and bad content to the homepage while he was testing it. This link got picked up and subsequently the unfinished application, spammy text, 404ed links and error messages were indexed. This was an honest mistake, but the entire process of what had happened was readily apparent to me and to my client through communications that had taken place on basecamp. My employee’s error was public, but nobody had said anything about it yet, I almost feel like my client was expecting me to make some kind of comment about it to my employee. It was an akward situation, but one that you’re bound to come across when you keep transparency in your development, and even if the error had been more severe, I don’t think I would have felt bad chastising my employee (politely) publicly in this case.
GeeIWonder
on 04 Oct 08Mike: Take a page from sports team (e.g. hockey). Put the blame on the team (yes, including yourselves), use lots of ‘we’ in the public reprimand (we’ve got to get better, we’ve got to learn), turn the page and then address what is, essentially, an internal matter in the dressing room.
GeeIWonder
on 04 Oct 08(If you can’t take part of the blame for the teame you lead, you’re not leading at all)
This discussion is closed.