Compliments: An Irony

We Love Compliments, But Don’t Give Them Often Well done, you.  You’ve found a great article, are reading it, and are improving yourself.  Nice.  (See what I did there?  I just gave you a compliment.) 

As a motivational speaker on social and emotional support, I research delivering positivity ON PURPOSE to get more out of ourselves and those around us. It turns out that one of the easiest ways to deliver social and emotional support is by giving compliments.

What we know from credible studies about compliments is that people love them. Our common sense syncs with science:  people love a good “Well done!”
Receiving compliments positively affects our behavior. People who receive positive praise and recognition feel better about themselves, record boosted performance, improve productivity, are more motivated, and tend to stay in the job because they feel accepted and acknowledged. I’m talking about RETENTION.

But here is the irony: We don’t tend to offer enough compliments, even when we agree on the power of positive reinforcement.

In fact, there’s a recent study published on Harvard Business Review that found that around 90%of people studied feel they don’t give enough compliments – THEY UNDERSTAND the importance of offering positive, but they DON’T give them. That means there’s a 90% chance that you don’t give enough compliments.
Fascinatingly, as part of the same study, participants were asked to write a compliment for a specific person down on paper.  A whopping 50% chose not to deliver that compliment even though they had already done the hard work of selecting a recipient and writing the compliment.  What a tragedy. Again, your takeaway should be that you most certainly don’t give as much praise as you feel you should.!

Why Don’t We Give Compliments? There are multiple reasons.

One,  we tend to not give compliments because we fear that we’ll awkwardly deliver it or stumble through it and end up looking or feeling silly. However, science proves that our predictions are wrong. It turns out that even how poorly or awkwardly delivered reinforcement is still very well received.  People live compliments, even awkward ones.
Second, we fear over-complimenting people. But again, those assumptions are proven wrong.  Even frequent compliments are powerful.  It turns out that the last compliment was as potent as the first one.
Third, we tend to be afraid that the recipient might feel awkward. No. Just no. That’s not the case. When was the last time you felt silly about a compliment?
In other words, your best excuses for not giving compliments don’t hold up to science.

What’s My Biggest Fear?

My biggest fear is that you’re going to read this article and agree that you should be giving more praise and positive recognition — but you do not increase the number of compliments.  You don’t need a social and emotional keynote speaker to show you how to craft a compliment and deliver it. You already know.  You’re good at it. It’s time to get started.

Get Started Now

How Will you craft a compliment to deliver today based on reading this article? Whom will you praise? Who is it in your life that you know could use some positive information from you right now? Don’t just think about it. Act on it. You’ve got this.It is crucial to understand the science behind offering compliments, but nothing beats the power of actually DELIVERING the compliment.
Well done, you! You read this entire article. Good for you. See? You’re awesome! (Yup, I did it again.  I gave you a compliment.