May 9, 2006I Don’t Have Time for Praise
Hi Meryl – here’s a poison phrase for your files. “I don’t have time for praise.”
Last week I was helping out a friend with his business because he was shorthanded, I had the free time available and it would have been impossible for him to meet his commitments to his clients without assistance. I enjoy doing much of the work around our house, and feel very confident in my skills as a woodworker, painter, electrician, handyman, etc. However, my friend is a professional tradesman, and thus I needed his advice and instruction up-front on how to perform certain tasks related to the commercial job I was assisting him with. After I completed a number of pieces of work in the first couple of hours without any feedback from him, I asked my friend if I needed to adjust anything in my process.
- I don’t have time to tell you if you’re doing a good job….if you don’t hear anything from me, just take it as a compliment.
Surprised at his retort, I reiterated that I was just trying to ensure I was doing the work correctly (hoping he’d see the value in verifying that for me), but he again said he didn’t have time to offer praise – that he’d let me know if I screwed anything up; lacking that, I could assume I was doing fine. Hmmm.
Though I didn’t pursue it any further, I think my friend must miss many opportunities to “catch people doing something right” and reinforce the behavior he surely desires. Ironically, it took him longer to explain how he was too busy to praise good work than it would have taken to verify I was doing the work correctly and thank me. At the end of the day, I left with an inkling of why his two boys each “flew the nest” to find their own places to live as soon as they turned 18. We’re still friends, but I may be somewhat reluctant to volunteer to assist him in the future.
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I recently had the opposite situation. A friend of mine J.L.W. recently thanked another friend K.L. for her assistance in a typing project that really helped J.L.W.. K.L. immediately went into a tirade about how she did not want any praise for such a simple task especially when her trade of software technician was so much more important than this little task. We were all in shock. I immediately defended J.L.W. and asked why it was so difficult for K.L. to accept a thank you no matter how small the task. K.L. continued to escalate and demanded to quit wasting her time and didn’t want to receive any thanks unless the job was more important. I am still in shock that anyone could react this way. I will refrain from ever giving K.L. any thanks due to not really knowing what she would consider an acceptable task to receive some recognition.
Comment by Shannon — May 11, 2006 @ 11:12 am
I work for a company that loves to point out any tiny error and circle it in red and sign it in big red letters like we are students. Yet you know you did a million other things correct we do not here abouth that. Yet these same people put themselves in for awards and pat their own backs and leave the real workers out. I know how that feels.A little prairse goes a long way .
Comment by Frances King — May 11, 2006 @ 7:10 pm
BY the way it sounds to me like you are doing an exceptional Job Praise yourself and smile big! God knows what you are doing and that is what is important to me. Just a little earthly Godliness would be nice.
Comment by Frances King — May 11, 2006 @ 7:13 pm
Frances King
I enjoyed your post. I work with a few people who do the same thing to. I am working with others to correct the problem now. Instead of saying this is an error, we ask to have the mistake reviewed. “We need to review this a little more”
We do it amongst ourselves in the open. I believe we are creating a new language hoping the people who like to see red ink grasp the idea and instead of using red ink we use green.
We call it the ink of life.
Comment by LaMoor — February 13, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
Those who work for people who are “to busy to praise” soon become “too busy to do a good job”. Lack of praise is a quick, efficent way to ruin morale, performance and profits.
Nik
Comment by Nik Nikkel — February 27, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
Gifts
Lack of acknowledgement of a talent is a sign of ingratitude and expecting praise is a sign is demanding.
Diplomats do not demand love which is a form of acknowledgement. We command it by the way we live.
Command means to influence.
Question: Are we acknowledging all the benefits we receive? Should we expect more than what we give? We are leaders and we need to be mindful our actions may be the cause of the responses we receive from others.
In my opinion, first one should acknowledge and appreciate the gifts they have inherited.
Second one should invoke modesty when a reward is given if the reward is not given we invoke understanding which is a sign of humility.
Next we need to ensure our gifts are not devalued because what can do good can also harm.
Last if the gift goes unrewarded the gift of understanding should prevent us from being offended because an undertanding person knows HE who gave us the gift is also offended and they have supreme discretion in rewarding the offender.
I come to understand when one is thankful and publicly announce their gratitude they appreciate the entire universe which makes the world a nicer place to be.
(Copied by the Voice of the Moorish Women)
Comment by LaMoor — February 28, 2008 @ 8:33 am
I once worked for a company that suffered a poor error rate in their correspondence for a long time. There were three teams. All three concentrated their efforts on improving. Two of the teams reached the quality goal and sustained it over several weeks. The third team continued to improve but just hadn’t quite reached the goal yet. Still, no word of from our manager.
About this time, I was invited to eat lunch with her. It was one of those “descend to mingle among the commoners” kind of thing. She asked if I had any issues to discuss, and I brought up the silence over the improved quality.
“Until everyone is performing well, no one is performing well,” she replied. “Besides, you are only doing your job. I don’t offer praise for just doing your job.”
I left the office shortly thereafter. While I might have been just doing my job, a word of acknowledgement would have been nice and reinforced my committment. As it was, I knew it was time for me to move on. The environment was just too toxic for my taste.
DLPoff
Comment by DLPoff — March 7, 2008 @ 11:42 am