Recently back-to-back emails reminded me of the value of a sincere compliment. In the first, a friend related a positive experience in her life then closed with the words, “Like everyone else, I always respond well to compliments.” The next day a former student whom I had congratulated earlier on a new achievement said, “Your approval feels just as good as it did in high school when you wrote encouraging words in the margin of my journal.”
Even the famous agree about the worth of a compliment. Beloved American author Mark Twain says, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
In Mum and Pup, a book about his parents, William F. Buckley, Jr. recalls an incident in their dining room. “Toward the end of his life, Joseph Conrad, grumpy over a bad review, said at the table with admirable ingenuousness - not always a trait in evidence among great writers - “I don’t want criticism. I want praise.”
Although some berate others in an attempt to improve their performance, all of us, like my friend, give our best after being praised, not brow beaten. If someone gives us a harsh tongue-lashing, we may meet their demands, but in doing so, we will never give more than required. Likewise, a gnawing resentment begins to build. Fear of a reprimand may motivate us to avoid an individual but it does not improve our skills nor our thoughts. While certain incidents may prompt us to imagine those scenarios where we would tell our supervisor off, we know in our hearts that we would not feel better if we ridiculed another. Certainly, the old proverb, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar” applies to humans more than to insects.
More than 20 years ago, the best seller One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spenser Johnson hit the book stores. The management philosophy of these two authors still attract the attention of many administrators..So far, the book has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide and today’s adherents continue to compliment its validity in their own businesses.
One of its many techniques advises managers, in a private session, to spend one minute praising a specific attribute of an employee before taking a second minute to offer constructive criticism for improving work. Any time we hear a commendation, we all are more open to accept, then apply, good advice offered kindly.
Of course, none of us like those gushy compliments we know to be disingenuous. We literally run away from those people known for such artificiality. We want to believe any praise given to be sincere, and when we doubt a person’s honesty in heaping praise on us, we don’t feel better, we become more cynical. Except in sit-coms, no one appreciates a backhanded compliment.
According to former U. S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, novelist Alex Haley lived life by one simple philosophy: ”Find the good and praise it.” It goes far beyond the advice that Thumper’s mother advises in Bambi. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
Haley’s admirable philosophy has two parts. It starts with the search. Find the good. Look for it. As a yearbook adviser, I witnessed the value of student searches year after year. Once a staff had chosen its theme, each young journalist set out to find stories reflecting the events of the school year. As they looked, with theme in mind, they quickly saw how the chosen concept actually mirrored events. In the frequent correlation between story and theme, some found the coincidence mysterious. But there is no mystery. When we look for the specific, we find it in many different ways and places. Likewise, when we look for good in people, we can see it.
Haley then advises “praise that good.” When we, in a truly positive way, acknowledge the success, accomplishment, work, achievement of others, they are spurred to do even more.
Yet , the amazing reality of praise goes far beyond the recipient. Praising the good in another never diminishes us. Instead, our genuine applause of someone not only makes us feel good about ourselves for vocalizing the obvious, but it also pushes us to do better.
As a former English teacher, I cannot address the subject of “compliment”, spelled with an “i”, without mentioning its cousin “complement”, spelled with an “e”. Correct spelling of such words so similar in meaning always perplexes language students. As the start of this column indicates, we all understand the usage of “compliment," both as a noun and a verb.
”Complement,” which may also be used as a noun or verb, reflects the addition of one item to complete another. For example: “The exquisite floral centerpiece complements the entire table setting”. Or: “That amber scarf is the perfect complement for your navy suit.
May we always remember that every sincere compliment we express complements both the receiver and the giver.
2012
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