Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Managers and leaders should encourage their colleagues. Sometimes the well of compliments runs dry. There is, however, one fundamental compliment that is always appropriate.

I was wandering through a new, unfamiliar, and uncomfortable place hoping to find something on which to anchor myself. Then I heard someone call my name. All was well.

This happened to me a couple of weekends ago. I was at a high school marching band competition, the weather was lousy, I knew no one, I was wandering, and heard a young woman yell (they don’t call out in Mississippi, they yell), “Hey Uncle Dwayne.”

It was my niece. She was sitting with some friends, saw me, and thought enough of me to call to me and run down and give me a hug. I was impressed that she wasn’t embarrassed to let her friends know that she knew an old man like me. My niece gave me a fundamental compliment,

She recognized me

Now to managing and leading. As a manager and leader, I find it important to compliment my colleagues – often. Okay, go out and buy a little paperback with a title like 99 Good Things to Say to People. Cheaper yet, Google “good things to say to people.” (Google returned 164 million hits.) Perhaps we can say some of these things and sound sincere.

Yet I sometimes exhaust the encouraging things I have to say to people. Recognition is one thing that encourages and never seems to wear out.

Simply acknowledge that the other person exists. Use their name. I can even smile when I do these things.

I think it was Dale Carnegie who once wrote about how a dog “smiles” and wags its tail when it meets someone it knows. Recognition, that is all.