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In Praise of Praise
Jan 21When you’re young you get lots of praise. First word gets weeks worth of gushing. Potty training? As far as your parents go, you get the Nobel Prize for Domestic Peace. You get praise by the bucket loads when you first start working. You get promoted. More praise. You complete a project. Even more praise.
Then one day the praise fountain turns off.
I don’t remember what age I was when I noticed that people no longer told me that I was doing a great job. It’s not like I stopped doing good work — it’s that people think that once you get to a certain age or certain place in life that you don’t need praise anymore. It’s funny how that works.
Now, I’m not saying that I want praise. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Mark.) At least not here. But what I do realize is that people need praise throughout their careers. Senior managers like to hear that they’re doing well as much as they did when they were junior functionaries. It applies to everyone — the price of praise is free. Tell someone today.
About the Author
Frank Roche
Frank started IFRACTAL over 7 years ago with Sarah Chambers. Together, they've created HR communications and HR software for some of the world's leading companies. Frank is also studying Flamenco guitar and origami.
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Praise is nice. A worlds without praise or blame is even better:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm
I wont say “good article” (praise), I will say is I appreciated your article. Thank you.
Mark
Congratulations! Here's a bit of praise for you. This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/01/21/...
Wally Bock
Wally…that is the best praise of all. I'm honored. Thank you very much.
Legal Process Outsourcing relates to obtaining legal support services (legal research, document review, intellectual property and corporate transactional The U.K. Law Society Gazette and National Law Journal articles include contributions from senior counsel at major corporations and international law firms as well as senior executives from the legal outsourcing space.
Frank what a wonderful post. You are so smart, so talented, such an out of the box thinker! (digging the PRAISE?)
Let me know when you hit that “age” as I am right behind you my friend!
This is a terrific post, Frank. Saw it in the CEB Review — nicely done. Now there’s some high praise indeed.
@Derek Thanks so much…that made me very happy.