KEEP YOUR TEETH—
And Your Employees

You brush your teeth, do you not? If you were either to stop brushing, or to begin brushing badly (by applying sugar instead of toothpaste, say), then over time you’d likely lose friends, social influence, possibly your job and of course, your teeth.

Let’s agree that would be dumb, because proper tooth-brushing is an easy habit to maintain, with a nice ROI.

So what if there were something that you and your company could be doing that’s easy, costs almost zero, and would prevent the loss of friends, influence and your best employees?

It’s a practice most organizations either aren’t doing, or are doing improperly in ways that cause harm (sort of like brushing your teeth with sugar).

This one thing can boost engagement, performance and retention.

It drives me a bit crazy, but most businesses don’t understand the power or importance of this practice, nor the proper strategies—which, btw, used to be true for tooth-brushing.  (A century ago, less than 10% of Americans brushed their teeth. Dental disease was rampant. Then folks got educated, so today you and I brush our teeth.)

Let me ask: When was the last time you gave sincere, specific praise to another individual for something well done? Does your company have a policy for ensuring that employees regularly receive thoughtful, genuine appreciation for their good work?

Any organization that has not yet implemented a science-based praise protocol is missing out. It’s time to get educated. Training leadership in how to give effective praise will foster greater engagement, performance and retention.

Although the science is vast, let’s begin with simple.

There’s enough juicy new research on this for a seminar, and much of it is surprisingly counter-intuitive. But today let’s talk beginner basics that you can start using immediately to produce results not only at work, but also in your personal life. Here are three must-haves for high-ROI praise:

1. Specificity.
2. Strengths-orientation.
3. Frequency. (You wouldn’t brush your teeth only once a year, would you?)

Specificity protects your praise from seeming cheap.

You see, one common mistake is to hand out vague praise like free candy. That’s all right once in a while, but it won’t nourish personal development, and too much will cause trust-decay.

Imagine you’re the receiver. Getting generic praise—“Well done!” or “You’re great!”—feels nice for a fleeting moment but then turns empty. Did they really mean it? Can you build a future with it? Vague praise can do harm because it often backfires by seeming insincere, thereby eroding trust. Also, the person praised may feel cheated when their hard effort is met with cheap words. Sadly, even when well-intentioned generic praise can cause secret resentment.

Praise packs the best punch when it acknowledges strengths.

Here’s an example of effective praise: “Your enthusiasm despite a tight budget, and your hands-on support of other team members helped make this project a success.” This is specific and it also points to personal strengths—enthusiasm and being a team player. That makes it useful to the person being praised. It gives them something to build on.

Putting people in touch with their personal strengths has been proven to measurably boost performance. Research shows this is true for virtually everyone, from grade-school children to college students to spouses to military recruits to corporate teams.

Commit to practicing daily—and it actually gets easier.

Giving specific strengths-oriented praise requires effort. Then again, giving any sort of praise requires effort! That may be partly why many managers don’t bother. But the bigger reason is that they don’t understand the cost of inaction. Recall that people didn’t brush their teeth until they learned the dangers of not-brushing.

Well here’s some good news: It takes less effort to follow a regular practice than it does to do praise intermittently. Because of how the brain works, it’s actually easier to share praise daily—allowing the automaticity of habit to carry you along—than it is to have to keep reminding yourself to praise someone, oh, every now and then.

Bottom-line benefits come through frequent praise, not one-offs.

And for an organization, praise must be frequent to make a difference. A few times a year won’t cut it. For strong engagement and employee retention, you’ve got to make effective praise a companywide regular habit.

Reading this post shows you’re a learner. But companies can’t assume everyone’s as proactive as you are. It’s up to organizations to get educated about praise, and then to educate their people about praise, and to implement a policy of giving frequent and regular praise. Establishing any new habit requires initiative—but hey, training adults to give effective praise tends to be lots more fun than teaching kids to brush their teeth.

Science shows that praise boosts engagement & retention.

Research in the business world shows that praise increases productivity and strengthens loyalty. Maybe you already knew that. And YET most of us don’t give—or get—nearly enough. A Gallup poll found that 65% of American employees reported receiving no praise whatsoever for good work over the entire previous year. This is not only heartbreaking, it’s very bad for business.

Gallup surveys of 15 million people worldwide showed that the Number One reason people quit their jobs isn’t because they’re underpaid, but because they’re under-praised. Study after study shows that employees care more about getting recognition than getting raises. This impacts both retention and productivity. The most loyal and highest achievers are those who receive meaningful positive feedback. And folks, it costs little to no money. Hello?

Praise also uplifts the giver.

There’s another “secret” science-proven benefit, as well. Sharing praise is a form of practicing gratitude, which means that a person who regularly praises others receives their own gift set of physiological payoffs, from increased self-discipline to a stronger immune system.  

What is your company’s praise strategy? If ya’ll don’t yet have one, please know we offer an exhilarating seminar on Praise At Work as part of our Self-Intelligence℠ training. It’s worth investing in your people.

As renown SAS CEO Jim Goodnight once said, “Ninety-five percent of my assets drive out the gate every evening. It’s my job to maintain a work environment that keeps those people coming back every morning.” In today’s world of increasingly high turnover, implementing a praise policy is a smart way to protect assets.  

Another benefit: Praise reduces stress.

If you’re not the boss, it may be easier to convince the higher-ups if you let them know that praise also reduces sick days because it keeps employees healthier by lowering stress—and even a little can make a difference. The science on this is more obscure, so let’s take a look.

Consider this odd experiment from La Trobe University in Australia. First, scientists put all participants under a stress condition. Then half of the subjects watched a video of a person offering praise— “You are doing well,” or “That’s good.” Those subjects’ heart rates slowed and their stress hormone levels significantly dropped. (The control group experienced no such relief.) If canned video praise from a stranger measurably lowers stress, imagine what heartfelt praise from someone who actually knows you might do.

In-person insincerity generates brain confusion

Now, perhaps you noticed the recorded encouragement was generically vague yet still produced a measurable benefit. That’s because on a neurological level, we won’t care whether a video made by a complete stranger is “insincere.” But if we sense that a real, live person is toying with us, we will care.

When we suspect another individual of flattering us with packaged praise, we feel ambivalent—wanting to believe, yet not fully trusting—and such ambivalence causes stress. Our brain’s right-hemisphere amygdala—ultra-sensitive to social cues—kicks into threat-alert. Meanwhile, our conscious left frontal lobe perks up at the superficial niceness. This puts our conscious versus subconscious brain areas woefully out of sync. That disconnect confuses our judgement and triggers stress.

Ambivalence raises blood pressure.

In a study at Brigham Young University, 100 men and women wore devices that checked their blood pressure during every person-to-person interaction over three days. When interacting with allies, their pressure dropped. Interacting with adversaries, it rose. But their biggest jump in blood pressure came not from consorting with enemies, but rather from interacting with people they felt ambivalent about. Simply put, we like to know where we, and others, really stand.

Being sincere and specific with your praise allows the receiver to accept it stress-free without ambivalent suspicion. Which means, it also makes you more popular—sweet!

But wait. What is the highest purpose of praise? Is it to increase your influence, win others’ loyalty or to show your munificence? It will do all those things, but its highest purpose is to empower and improve the person you are praising.

This is why a science-based praise practice can boost employee performance companywide; support child development at home and in school; and bring out the best among teammates, partners and friends.

Become a praise artist through daily practice.

Don’t wait any longer. Being a proactive learner, YOU can start right now. 

• Develop a praise habit. Praise at least one person every single day.
• Make your praise specific and sincere.
• Target your praise to help others recognize their strengths.

Practice praise to up-level all aspects of your life—professional and personal.

Does your colleague’s mentorship of an intern demonstrate her remarkable compassion? Does your child’s refusal to give up on calculus indicate deep determination? Does your sweetheart’s deft planning of your joint trip to France show a knack for strategy? You get the idea.

Ride out the initial resistance of a new habit.

Commit to giving praise daily for at least a month, because at first it may feel like a chore. When one of my clients, María, began her praise practice, she found that while others gladly accepted her kind words, they weren’t necessarily returning the favor. “I was making all this effort, which they didn’t even realize. It felt unfair,” she said. But her initial flicker of resentment naturally subsided over time, as her habit became more ingrained and effortless.

In the long run, when you give praise, you not only empower other people, improve your influence, and groove on gratitude, you also receive another bonus. Three weeks into her praise practice, María noticed a real boost in self-worth. “The more I’m praising them, the less I’m criticizing me,” she reported. “Now I’m experiencing myself as a wonderful person.” Which she is. And so are you. It’s time to get in touch with your full self-worth for better energy and a truer smile (yep, even beyond what tooth-brushing can do). Start your praise practice now—as in, immediately. Sincerely praise someone—zeroing in on something specific they did, and which showed a personal strength—within the next 15 minutes. On your mark, get set… go!