The Rules of Management, 4th Edition

RULE 14

Encourage people

If you don’t let people know you’re pleased with them, they’ll wilt. People come to work for a whole raft of reasons – most, nothing to do with the money despite what they’ll tell you – and right there at the top of their unwritten, unspoken, undeclared list will be ‘Praise from the boss’. That’s you by the way, the boss.

They might call it ‘recognition’ or ‘acknowledgement’ or ‘feeling I’ve done well’ – but how do they know? They know because you tell them.

Now you can praise them retroactively, so to speak – wait until they’ve done good and then tell them they’ve done good – or you can encourage them in advance – active praise. Tell them they’re going to do good before they’ve done it. Why? Because the chances of them ...