Episode #81: How to Give Praise That Resonates

Cynical, skeptical, doubtful, cautious, suspicious, worried – yep, that is our usual reaction when we hear praise being directed toward us. You're the boss, you have read about the power of praising staff, however it never quite seems to work the way it should. You recognize and praise outstanding work by your Japanese staff to the whole work group, but nobody looks very happy about it, especially the praised. Why is this so hard?

Japan throws up a few additional challenges when it comes to praising people. We all know about Japan’s strong group culture, the preference here for consensus decision-making and the submersion of individual preferences to the bias of the group. One of the by-products of this groupthink, is that the boss singling out one person publically for praise, creates issues within the group dynamic.

The majority of the group are probably OK with the praise, but there are bound to be those who feel unhappy. They think they should have been recognized too, or that the recipient of the praise is hogging the group limelight. The praised staff member feels the cold hard steel of piercing eyes in their back and faintly hears the muffled, malicious comments being passed around about them. Instead of the praise being a powerful motivator, it becomes a burden and an embarrassment, as the herd harmony is damaged. The expression “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down” tells you a lot about the pressure to conform in Japan.

So how should bosses in Japan use praise to motivate people? Pick your mark carefully. For some, public praise is what they want and they don’t care about a few whiner losers. They have the strength to stand apart and are comfortable. For those who are more concerned about what their work neighbours might think, then best to praise them in private.

As mentioned earlier though, even praising in private has its challenges when we who are on the receiving end are doubtful about the praiseworthy words we are hearing. Praise is also a pretty rare commodity in the Japanese business world, so it’s oddity draws double suspicions. One is that the praise is a trap and the other that it is not warranted. The idea that praise is dangerous or misdirected often springs forth because of the way it is delivered. The boss has good intentions but is a fluffy and flawed communicator in the praise department.

The main problem is a poor connectivity between the worthy deed and the word choice. Vague stuff, such as “good job” or “well done” are feeble, unconvincing and ineffective. To help wind our way though this semantic minefield, let’s use a simple acronym to prompt our thoughts around how to give praise. TAPEQ stands for Things, Accomplishments, Personal Qualities (strengths, traits), Evidence and Questions.

Things includes appearance, accoutrements, possessions.

Accomplishments are their achievements, the outcomes, the results.

Personal Qualities are items like patience, discipline, concentration, energy.

Evidence is the observable indictor of the above three areas for praise.

Questions refers to switching the airtime away from you and over to them, to get them talking about what they did.

TAPEQ can be applied anytime, anywhere but in the workplace, Accomplishments and Personal Qualities are most likely to be the focus of praise. The key is to link these observations back to the proof of the achievement or trait. An example would be, “Thank you for your work on landing Megacorp as a new big client. I saw the email traffic and noted your sustained effort, despite all the difficulties thrown up by the client, to satisfy their needs, so well done. How did you manage to keep it going, when it looked like this deal was going to collapse so many times?”.

In this case, we have mentioned the outcome, provided proof of what we saw and then tossed the ball to them to talk about how they did it. The comment and the evidence were linked and therefore credible. The pivot to them talking allows them to add further proof by dropping in some detail that backs up your observation, thus making the whole story hang together. The focus is off the boss and on to the praised and so there is little dwelling on any feared second agendas behind the words of praise.

Bosses be ambitious – look for those TAPEQ moments and get busy engaging your team through praise.