Be Careful With Praise
Alfie
Kohn, writing in Punished by Rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive
plans, A's, praise, and other bribes,
What's wrong with praise?
cites several valid reasons for praising
people in the workplace:
- Enhance performance
- Promote appropriate behavior
- Help raise self-esteem.
All are valuable objectives, but Kohn concludes that
"over the long haul, praise, at least in the form it usually takes, fails
to achieve any of these objectives and may even prove counter-productive."
What's wrong with praise?
- Praise often implies low expectations for low ability. "Nice job" can be an encouraging aside, but more often it's a casual comment about a low-threshold activity. When people sense that the praise is being used to get them to do better at what is essentially an easy task, their self-esteem drops, and their persistence at more difficult tasks is likely to drop with it.
- Praise is intended to raise someone's
self-consciousness. By drawing
attention to something positive, the hope is that it will be repeated ("Do
this and you'll get that.") But for some, self-consciousness applies pressure that actually inhibits
performance, a common challenge for piano teachers and sex therapists.
- Praise sets up expectations of continued success. Kohn cites a study by Mary Budd Rowe in which she found that elementary school students whose teachers frequently used praise showed less task persistence than their peers. Expectations of continued success can lead to fear of failure. In Kohn's words, "If we steer clear of situations in which we might fail, we eliminate any chance of being criticized by the very person who just praised us."
- Praise, an extrinsic motivator, often undermines the
intrinsic motivation that is essential to high performance. If a child loves to play a game, he'll
play it without compensation. If
offered token rewards, he'll eventually play for those rewards, not the love of
the game, which, in time, will diminish.
These
consequences are not what most people intend when they offer praise. How can a manager avoid the pitfalls
and make praise work to enhance performance, promote appropriate behavior and
help raise self-esteem?
Two principles of effective praise will help:
Two principles of effective praise will help:
Promote self-determination: All rewards, including praise, are designed
to control others. The intentions
may be noble, but the technique still implies control. Ask yourself if you praise to help
people extend their control over their own lives or to manipulate them toward
your own purposes.
Build
intrinsic motivation: Praise should create the conditions for someone to become
more deeply involved in her work (intrinsic motivation), not turn the task into
something to win your approval (extrinsic motivation).
The
value of praise is in the information it conveys. If praise illuminates information about a person's
success -- that is, the specifics of what they did that was praiseworthy and
suggestions for building on that success -- it will be valuable and appreciated
feedback. Before you praise
someone, ask yourself if you have any information to convey, and if that
information has any value to the other person.
Some
final advice from Kohn:
"It takes skill and care and attention to encourage people in such
a way that they remain interested in what they are doing and don't feel
controlled. It is always easier to
do things to people, or to take over and do things for them, than it is to work
with them to help them make their own decisions. It feels good to have someone
in the position of looking to us (figuratively and sometimes literally) for our
approval."
Praise can be a valuable tool if used as information that helps people
extend their control and competence in pursuit of something they love to do.
Trailheads:
Punished by Rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A's,
praise, and other bribes by Alfie Kohn.
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.
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