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. […]

It is often assumed that we give compliments and acknowledgement for the benifit of the reciever. But consider the other side of the coin: what does giving compliment do to you the person giving compliments. I would like to argue that giving professional compliments is as important for the giver as the reciever, but in […]

In a recent blog, Solution-Focused Change: The compliment and the acrimony, the very productive and always interesting solution focused blogger Coert Visser talks about Maya Angelou’s stance of not letting neither compliments nor acrimony disturb her work, since work should be a reward in itself.

Maya Angelou says: The reward for the doing must be […]

Nobody doubts the value in using compliments, acknowledgement and validation in solution focused work. But sometimes it doesn’t work as well as we would like. Not everyone in every situation responds well to compliments. It might feel or be experienced as tacky or patronising. Another problem with compliments is that they are short-range. The compliment […]