How To Praise

There's a lot of literature on giving constructive feedback. How, when, why to do it, etc. However, not that much is said about giving positive feedback. People assume that giving praise is easy; it’s just a nice thing to do and not as important as constructive feedback. I disagree. I believe giving positive feedback efficiently can be a managerial superpower, something that, if used well, will have a long-lasting impact on the person receiving the praise.

This focus on negative feedback is likely rooted in people's preference for actionable advice. Constructive feedback is often more actionable, even if the feedback-giver botched it and was too generic. (”I guess I shouldn’t do this again” is still something…) But this preference for actionability has nothing to do with the direction of the feedback, it should only remind us that positive feedback can (and should!) be actionable too!

So, this is my point, if you don’t have time for the whole article: Construct your positive feedback the same way as you would a negative one. Ensure the situation where the action you want to comment on was well understood; focus on the actions of the person you’re giving a feedback to; and show the impact these behaviors had on you and others.

This approach will help your team members recognize and build on their strengths.

Why Give Positive Feedback?

Positive, or reinforcing¹ feedback is building a healthy, well-trusted feedback loop that helps your team be confident in their actions. If you only deliver negative or redirecting feedback, it's like explaining a board game by only listing the illegal moves. And if you only give feedback rarely, it's going to be challenging to keep the team aligned and ensure expectations are clear.

Positive feedback builds trust with your reports.² It avoids the impression that their manager only sees the negative. This trust will help when you have constructive feedback too, because they'll value your opinion more.

It supports strength-based development. Everyone has strengths and areas where they are weaker. People should be aware of both, but investments on the weak sides can at best result in mediocre performance — while focusing on strengths can result in exceptional accomplishments.

You as a manager should ensure people on your team are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, that these strengths complement and work together for the team, and that people focus on using their strengths to navigate around their weaknesses. Timely, well structured, and regular positive feedback makes this process much easier. (Read more about strength-based development here, this concept was eye-opening in my managerial development.)

Pointing out and praising the behavior you want to see is especially useful if you're pushing an organization through a cultural change. Finding examples of behaviors that would've been bad or neutral in the old culture, but are the preferred ones in the new one, has a great reinforcing effect and can set good examples for the rest of the team about expectations.

Preparing to give positive feedback is a great self-inspection exercise too. What actions do I want to see in my teams? What is it that I take for granted from a high performer who might need some reassurance that her actions are key for the team's success?

Science has proven that the effect of gratitude on the mental health and well-being of the individual is positive, which is not a negligible aspect in the high-pressure era we’re functioning in now, so giving regular positive feedback has this unexpected secondary benefit too.

How to Construct an Effective Reinforcing Feedback

Just like with redirecting feedback, the Situation-Behavior-Impact framework is a great tool to put together feedback that’s successful in reinforcing the behavior you want to praise.

To use this framework, think about the:

• Situation: Avoid generalizations, be concrete in when and what happened that you want to comment on;
• Behavior: What did the person do, what choices did they have, what effort did they take, etc. — focus on actions and not characteristics;
• Impact: What was the positive outcome of their behavior in you, others, or the environment.

Spend appropriate time constructing your feedback, paying attention to all three angles of the SBI framework - but don't wait too long. If you have to choose between an ideal time next week or a suboptimal moment now, do it fast, grab the person, schedule an ad-hoc 1:1, or just send a well-written Slack message. The fresher the memory the more efficient the feedback.

The fewer things you praise, the more effective your feedback is. Avoid piling praise, and don't mix it with criticism (the "sandwich" approach where criticism is packaged between two bits of praise). These cancel each other out, and the person will walk away with a confused feeling of "things are mostly fine, I guess".

Consider whether to deliver feedback publicly or in a 1:1 setting based on the recipient's comfort and preferences - but remember that an audience gives credit to your message.

Bad Examples

Before looking at how best to use this framework for reinforcing feedback, let me show a few inefficient praises, some you might have even heard in your career:

• “You’re a great developer who can solve every complex situation with an elegant, pragmatic approach.” - The Situation part is entirely missing, and it doesn’t describe concrete actions or efforts the person did.
• “Thanks for taking care of the interview last week, you had some amazing questions to the candidate.” - Concrete situation, but it’s unsure what was exactly good in those questions (and which ones were not so great?), and doesn’t detail the Impact of the actions too much.
• “I don’t know what I would do without you, you are the person who holds this team together, and the most important ally I can rely on.” - Too generic, the situation is missing, and the person being praised doesn’t know what exactly they did to help, so they can only rely on their instincts next time, missing an opportunity of clarity that would help them double down on their strengths and achieve their full potential.

Good Examples

Finally, some more effective reinforcing feedback examples:

• "It was a great idea to record a demo of the new feature you've worked on. I used the video in the product review, and stakeholders immediately understood the UX problems we mentioned in the ticket's comments."
• "The new hire told me on our 1:1 how much he appreciated your guidance in setting up his local development environment. I liked that you were not stepping in and doing everything instead of him, but let him lead while being available any time he was lost. Thank you for making sure the onboarding documentation is updated too, so the process will go smoother next time."
• "Thanks for the stellar coordination during the Sunday incident: you mitigated the problem quickly by deploying a previous working build before the owner team was reached, and kept on communicating with stakeholders online so they were assured we have things under control even while the sites were down."

These check all the SBI boxes and can have a lasting effect on the person receiving the feedback.

Takeaway

Train yourself to recognize the moment when you appreciate someone doing something good and make a mental note to construct positive feedback with the SBI framework. Plan all three legs of it with attention, and decide how and when you'll deliver this feedback. Don't let this be a one-time thing, document what happened, and use it when appropriate: in the team retrospective, talking with peers, or at the next performance review. You can also use this event as an illustration to show what good looks like if the person would be at risk to underperform.

I write about engineering leadership topics, especially targeting first-time Engineering Managers and ICs considering the managerial path. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive future articles similar to this one.

Notes

¹ I prefer the two kinds of feedback being called "reinforcing" and "redirecting", but sometimes I use other, more popular phrases like "corrective feedback", "positive / negative feedback", etc. I chose this to help the readability of the article.

² Most of what I wrote should be interpreted in the manager-managee context, and I’m giving advice to the former, an Engineering Manager giving feedback to someone on their team. While most of these ideas can be applied to any situation, I omitted important topics like building trust to ensure feedback is welcomed, selecting and filtering feedback (in peer and managing up situations), etc.