Do You Feel Appreciated? How to give a workplace compliment

I have a card pinned to my bulletin board above my desk that says, “You are doing a fucking great job.” Since I get very little feedback at my current job, it’s really nice to be reminded that I’m doing ok, even by an inanimate object.

Recently, my co-worker stopped by my desk, and said, “I just wanted to tell you, I think you’ve done a great job launching our residential program.”  This unsolicited compliment made my heart soar. Appreciating the people we work with (or live with) doesn’t have to be hard, but most of us don’t do it as often as we should. Here are four good things to keep in mind:

1. Everyone needs to feel appreciated.

Even Mark Twain; he said:

No one is exempt from needing to be fed compliments; we all need to feel valued by our peers. Lack of feedback makes me start to feel unseen at work, which often leads me to slack off a bit. Even in my personal life I need positive reinforcement. I recently had to fish out a good compliment from my boyfriend.

Even with the work I had to do to get it, it still felt good.

2.  One third party compliment = 3 direct compliments.

My co-worker also told me that our design consultant had said nice things about me. It’s a law of the universe that a third party compliment, where the person initially giving the compliment has no reason to lie or exaggerate, is worth at least three direct compliments.

I try to make sure to pass on this type of compliment when I hear them, and always love receiving them.

3. People like to be appreciated in different ways (even at work).

After revisiting the “5 Languages of Love” recently, I decided to see what their creator Gary Chapman had to say about languages in the workplace (he has another book just on this).  The different languages that people use to express appreciation in the workplace are the same as we use for personal relationships: verbal feedback, quality time, acts of service, gifts and even (work appropriate) physical affection.  Reading it blew me away. I had always thought of appreciation at work in terms of verbal feedback, like the unsolicited compliment that my coworker gave me. Once I read Chapman’s explanation of how other languages are used in the workplace, I immediately saw things more clearly.

For some people, gifts are really important at work, and show thoughtfulness and caring, while for others, the willingness to pitch in and help accomplish tasks is what counts. I realized that I feel much more connected to and appreciated by my boss after we meet one-on-one, even if she doesn’t give any verbal feedback. So now I try to set up regular check-ins with her.

Chapman notes that the emphasis on touch is far reduced at work compared to personal relationships, but that it is still present and important. People from a touchy-feely family (that would be me) are likely to be more touchy at work. I remember a moment, after I saw my co-worker Lou do such a great job presenting at a workshop, that I felt the need to touch him on the arm when I congratulated him. (To be clear, there is a line between physical appreciation at work and harassment. Harassment impairs a person’s ability to do work. It is more than momentarily awkward.)

4. Lack of negative feedback isn’t the same as a compliment.

In an experiment, Duke Professor and behavioral economist Dan Ariely paid people to complete simple worksheets where they had to circle pairs of letters. He paid them successively less for each sheet, until they chose to stop filling them out. He set up three different conditions: in one, people wrote their name on their sheet, and a reader would look at the sheet, acknowledge it briefly and put it on a pile. In the second group, participants didn’t write their name down, and the reader didn’t look the paper over (the “ignored” condition), but simply put the sheet on a pile. The third group had their efforts immediately put into a shredder.

The results of this experiment are surprising. We expect that the people whose work was shredded would want to stop much earlier than those who have their work acknowledged, and indeed, they did. But I was shocked that the people whose work was ignored filled out only a few more sheets on average than those who had their work shredded.

Of course appreciation and feedback is important, but I hadn’t realized how much I needed it. I try hard to motivate myself and live up to my own standards of what I want to be doing. Yet, so much of work satisfaction is tied to how I’m perceived by my peers. I want to be seen as being competent, smart and a good co-worker. I can’t make them give me feedback, but I am trying to make sure that it’s more a part of our team culture and look for opportunities to give it.

So readers– I want to make sure to tell you that you’re doing a great job!

If you would like your own “You’re doing a f*cking great job!” note, you can buy one from Emily McDowell.