The professional compliment as used when we are leading or coaching is different from the everyday compliment. To say “your eyes shine like the sun” or “that hat looks good on you” has limited use in organisational life. Everyday compliments functions like a social lubricant. And are as such a very important part of communication. This includes, of course, also organisational life. Social compliments also have different weights in differnt cultures, compliments that would be natural in Italy or USA, would be regarded with suspicion in Scandinavia and be regarded as flattery.

The professional compliment is different, it is tool of change, something we use to develop individuals, teams, and organisations. It is also a way to give appreciative feedback, which is a resource that is lacking in most organisation. Therefore, the professional compliment has to meet higher standards of credibility, relevance and content than everyday compliments.

I see four conditions that need to be fullfilled for a compliments to be professional: meaningful, real, sincere and tailormade:

1. Compliments need to be meaningful and purposeful. The have to fit in the context. If you are working on a project, a compliment a collegue about their great recipie for apple-pie is out of context. Unless your are starting a café.

2. Compliments need to be real. They should be facts, that is, based on things we know by having seen and heard them. If you want to give someone a compliment for being a caring person, it is because you have seen or heard some caring behavior or words. It comes down to this: If someone replies to a compliment with Why do you say that? you must be able to answer it is because you said or did this or that. We need to back professional compliments with facts.

3. Compliments have to be sincere. You must say what you mean and mean what you say. If we are not seen as credible and sincere, our compliments might be experienced as flattery. It doesn’t really work to say to someone who obviously is overworked and haven’t slept well, that they look fresh today. It might work to say we are impressed that the took the time to come, given that they have so much to do.

4. Compliments have to be tailormade The must sound right in the ears of the reciever. The simplest way to do this is to use the words and language the other person. It must also reflect the kind of relationsship we have. I can’t use the same langauge talking to a kid or to a adult employee. When my son learned to ride a bike, I did’t tell him that I was truly impressed by his recent progress in developing coordination skills. And when a collegue writes a great report, I will not tell here she is a good girl.

To sum up. Everyday compliments is an important part of communication and social life since it a social lubricant and builds relationsship. An organisation is, of course, also a form of social life, and needs to be lubricated. But is a special kind of social life, though, where we create things together; we have projects, products, customers, budgets, and so on. Things need to get done. Here, compliments play an important part too: as a change tool, as a way of coaching and motivating, and as a way to create positive, constructive feedback. The professional compliment must therefore, if we want it to work, be meaningful, real, sincere, and tailormade