What’s So Hard About Giving Someone an Atta Boy or Atta Girl? | No BS Management Advice
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
For some, it it is sooooooooo hard to give praise. An episode of “Billions” is the catalyst for this video.
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This is some No BS Management Advice I want to share with you. I was encouraged to give it to you for after watching an episode of “Billions,” a Showtime series that is my new current addiction. And, in the episode, the lead character is talking to one of his managers about a subordinate of that manager who had done a great job going undercover and helping the owner make some more money and did it in a sneaky kind of way.
So, the manager and the owner are having a conversation and the owner is offering praise to the manager about his person. The owner talks about giving an Attaboy to the guy.
“It took me three years before you gave me an Attaboy.”
The owner basically turns around and says, “Well, just tell them, ‘okay, you did your job,’ and ignore the whole thing.” He leaves the office and decides to give
the Attaboy. It reminded me of how difficult it is for many managers to give an Attaboy or an Attagirl. So it begs the question of what’s so hard about giving praise to someone after you coach them into a situation that they were wrestling with?
Why is it so difficult to give praise to someone who moves beyond their comfort zone and steps up?
Why is it so hard to praise someone who puts in extra time or effort or helps their colleagues or customers to do better?
Why is it so hard for a manager to praise someone who contributes to the big picture or gets closer to their career goals or represents themselves as someone who embodies a team value that you want to foster on your organization?
Why is it so hard to recognize someone who’s doing something small but it really contributes in a big way in that? It’s like one of those things that it’s easy to overlook, but it really is a major contribution when you stop and think about it.
Why is it so hard to call attention and give praise to someone who makes it easier for you or exceeds expectations? I’m not talking about at the time of their review. I’m just talking about spot praise?
Why is it so difficult, as Ken Blanchard wrote in “The One Minute Manager,” and spoke about the notion that a manager should catch someone doing something right?
Because the habit that managers have, I’ll put myself in that category from when I was managing people. . . You know, some years ago as a young man, in recruiting, you know, the habit was catching them doing something wrong instead of catching them doing something right. It’s like I took it for granted that they would do the good stuff and I criticized them when they didn’t and they did something wrong.
You foster the behavior you give attention to. You encourage people to do the things that you want them to do, in one of two ways — fear or praise. If you want to be the tyrant, by all means that can work and you will drive people out the door. By the same token, you can foster good attention, not just by simply wandering around and saying all the time because I know, in my family, if I compliment someone with regularity, it rolls off their back like water off a duck’s back.
You want to be specific; you want to be honest and authentic. You just want to talk to that person. Again, I remind you, don’t just do it with people who look like you. Do it with everyone in your organization, particularly the people who don’t look like you in a variety of different ways. People notice who gets the attention, and they noticed that they can’t win.
Always give people attention for the good stuff that they do.
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. He is hired to provide No BS Career Advice globally. That can involve job search, hiring staff, management, leadership, career transition and advice about resolving workplace issues. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2500 episodes.
I do a livestream on LinkedIn, and YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) Tuesdays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me via messaging on LinkedIn or in chat during the approximately 30-minute show.
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