There
is an old saying that most of us accept uncritically: When
giving feedback, praise in
public, criticize in private. On its face it
seems to make sense. When giving positive reinforcement, we
assume that the person receiving it will be even more
excited if others are aware of the accomplishment. We also
assume that others will be motivated by the person's success
to increase their own efforts so that they too might be the
object of public praise.
At the same time we should
consider a caveat. If the
praise has as it primary purpose the intention of
criticizing others, it should be given in private.
Too often a supervisor or manager will use this
opportunity to "send a message" to those who have achieved
too little to be included in the public tribute. For
example, recently one supervisor confided that he took the
opportunity to let everyone know their documentation
activities were sloppy by announcing a "perfect" score one
employee had achieved during a mock survey. The same
employees who the supervisor was trying to motivate,
however, will always know a whole lot more about the inner
workings of the program. They might understand, for example,
know that the "perfect score" employee shirked other more
important duties.
What generally happens in these
situations is that the employees who are the subject of the
"message" will judge their contribution very differently,
deciding in their minds that even though their scores were
not "perfect," they had contributed to desired outcomes in
other significant ways. The result will not be increased
motivation, but at a minimum,
reduced levels of morale.
The upshot
is that we should leave public praise for those situations
where what the person (or persons) achieved can be
celebrated by everyone. If we need to "send a message," we
should address those who underachieve consistent with our
on-going coaching responsibilities.
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