Give honest, sincere appreciation

In the Dale Carnegie book ‘How to win and influence people”, we find the second principle: ‘Give honest sincere apreciation’. This might sound logic to most of us, but think for a second about how much you give honest and sincere appreciation for the achievements of someone you work with, your family member, a friend, your neighbor, the cashier, ...

There can be tons of reasons why you are NOT giving them. Maybe the person already knows he did a great job. Maybe someone else had said it already. Maybe we are afraid there might be an awkward situation because the other person never knows how to react to a compliment. It could be that we just didn’t think about complimenting the other person, we are to busy all day long doing our tasks. Maybe people only give a compliment when receiving one... I can go on like this but I assume you get my point by now.

Receiving a compliment can for some people be awkward indeed, but let's face it, when receiving a compliment, we will think about it afterwards and feel happy someone thought of us and did the effort to say so. Every person has an inner craving, maybe without knowing or willing to admit, for appreciation. If you put hard work and effort into something and you don’t get any recognition for that... it hurts. You start to wonder why you even bothered. You might feel a bit angry and disappointed in the others around you.

You might have noticed that the second principle of Dale Carnegie has the words “honest” and “sincere” in it. Think about giving a compliment without being honest and sincere... you might have said nothing at all! When receiving a compliment we feel when something is real and when something is just to be polite.

How can we fuel our compliment you may wonder? Well, that’s very simple. You give the compliment and you back it up with evidence.

Let me give you an example: “Devon, you did a wonderful job last day.”
When hearing this, Devon will probably hear the compliment, but do you think he will feel it, he will believe the words? I think we can do this better.

Let’s try again.
“Devon, you did a wonderful job last day. The reason I say this is because I saw the way you handled that situation with that client. You were helpful and calm in giving the advice and because of that he agreed to your proposition.”

Now Devon will be more satisfied. When you show you thought about the point you make, the other will take it. This is not manipulation. Please think about the fact that when giving a compliment, you must mean it.

Hope this advise helps, if you thought this was helpful, please give me an upvote. 😉👍