Hey, the Sucrists acting your leadership on today's discussion on employee engagement. I want to talk about something that I think is often overlooked by leaders when it comes to engaging employees, and that is the simple act of complementing them. And I know, you know, when I first read this, I kind of rolled my eyes a little bit too. And I always think, you know, I do compliment employees.
I tell them, you know, when I give feedback on when they do things right, when they do things, you know, wrong, from a constructive way. You know, I go through that. And that's not what I'm talking about. I'm actually talking about giving them a compliment from a very basic standpoint of something they did that could be either work related or not that just kind of helps get through the day.
There was a study that was just done out of Ottawa, Canada where they had an actor pose as a psychology student and that psychology student was tasked at getting people
to help him hand out flyers for an event. And they asked a lot of people to help hand out flyers and on half of them, the person complimented the person that walked up to the table on their outfit before asking them to hand out flyers, and almost eighty percent of the people that were complimented said yes to help a hand out flyers, whereas less than half of the people who weren't complimented said yes to handing out flyers. And it goes back to this idea of the idea
of reciprocity. So human beings our reciprocal creatures, and when we feel like somebody has done something for us, there's an inherent need or feeling to do something for them too. And it could be as simple as someone complimented me, and now I feel like I have to kind of
repay that in some way. And if you're a leader of people, that way of repaying it might just be focusing on something that is important to that leader that day that may not be as important to you in the moment, but should be, and it's a way to kind of like balance the scales back again. People don't like feeling like that that reciprocity is out of out of sync. So if you end up if you if you feel like you owe something to somebody, that doesn't
feel good. If you feel like somebody owes something to you, that also doesn't feel good. So we're constantly trying to to kind of put that balance back in place and an individual simple compliments on something that a person did well or even as the study shows just the outfit they were that day. Obviously not in a respectful way, of course, but but keeping in mind that people like feeling good about themselves and whatever you can do as a leader to to help them feel that way is
going to be a positive. Yeah.
I think it's It's interesting because I think that there's a lot of kind of tips and tricks over the years from a leadership standpoint that are that are that are really at the core of just like kind of human behavior. And I think it's like you said, like like yeah, compliments, Wow, they work. Huh. I rolled my eyes.
But it's one of those things that when you when you utilize that understanding of something, it's like when you talk to somebody for the first time and I say, hey, Chris, hey man, how's your day going, versus how are you doing?
Right?
Like like like like hey, how you know, Hey, what's
going on? Like how how's the family? Like like starting conversations with something in dialogue around the person and how they are doing and how like the people they care about are doing Like those things when done over time and done authentically and there's conversation and dialogue, it just creates this like there's a larger purpose here, there's a larger priority here, there's something that's actually you know, important to me about you that is bigger than just like
this job or whatever's going on. Like we'll get to that point, but like those types of things I think are so important, or even starting conversations with gratitude, you
know what I mean. Like that's another thing too, when when somebody comes to you, you know, with with the with the you know, a complaint or feedback or their thoughts or perspectives or their frustrations, even saying like well, first, like thanks for bringing that to me, Like the fact that you know, trust me to want to share what's going on or the situation or your frustration or what this is. Like I appreciate you coming to me to talk about it because that allows us to have some
dialogue here to see what's going on. But thank you. Like like things like that that we can miss so many times but are but are critical in my belief to like really building you know, great type of interactions with our people and customers and whatever. They're so important, and I think that just compliments, you know, giving compliments is a big part of that again when done authentically, and real people can read right through a fake compliment, of course, real ones, real ones mean something.
Right for sure. So I want to talk about some of the things that as a leader can do to to make this happen from a standpoint of real you know, so you where people don't think you're just trying to get through something to get to the thing that's really important to you, which is the job, if that's what it is, or that you don't mean what you say, or that it's hollow or it's not coming from real play. So it's really important that you don't do these things
unless they are real. So I want to show you some of the ways to make that happen in the right way. But first I want to get up toward for one of more sponsors. All Right, if you're going to give somebody a compliment, it needs to start with it being real for sure. Don't do it if it's not going to be one hundred percent real. And so I'll go back to the example you gave Lorenzo a few minutes ago. Hey, how's your day going. You could even go one step further and say, hey, how's your
day going. The last time we talked, I think you said that one of your kids was about to play a basketball game? How'd that go? You know, like just recalling back something that happened in the previous conversation to say, oh, my gosh, that person was listening, actually listening to what I had to say in that conversation and following up on it. That in and of itself, shows that you're valuing that person's time and that you are are interacting with them not from a standpoint of what can they
do for you? But what can you do for them? If you if you truly believe in servant leadership, that's what those conversations are, is what can you do for them in order to help them get the job done they need to get done. And part of that servant leadership is saying that you are actually listening to what they're saying. And then compliments need to be relevant, They need to be you know, you have to kind of have like a social awareness to know what's going on.
So if a if a person is you know, has shown signs that they do not like being complimented, then don't you know or pick a thing that is that would not fall into that category. Talk to people about
it afterwards. If you if you've never had an interaction with a person before where you've tried this, and you try it, it's important to follow up later on and say, hey, I want to make sure if you don't feel like one hundred percent then it went really well to follow up with them and say, hey, I just want to make sure that that interaction we had earlier went well. I didn't you know, get like maybe one hundred percent
you know, positive vibes from it. So if there's something I can do differently in the future, then let me know going forward, because you definitely want to meet people where they are and not make them feel uncomfortable. But if the compliment is coming from a genuine place of belief and it's said respectfully, then then it usually goes over really well, assuming they know about you as a person and you as an individual and that that's the
kind of person that you are. But the compliments or the comments or the discussions they need to be centered around something that is specific enough to where you didn't just make it up or you can't just repeat it to every single person, because if it's if it's repeatable to every person, then it's not individualized to them and they'll see right through it. That's the first thing. And the second thing is it needs to take into account
something that potentially that they brought to the table. And so if it's a compliment on their outfit, they bring it, they brought that to the table. If it's a hey, great job with that last client call that you had, you know, an hour ago. I was listening and I love the way that that went, or I love how you how you diffused that situation with that customer who was who came in angry or was you know, I rate about something and you took it down a notch.
You know, the compliments that are specific to something that somebody did or that they brought to the table are the ones that work. The ones that are generalized or that could be said to fifty different people, I mean, the exact same thing, those don't work.
Well, yeah, I can just as you were talking through it. I can imagine if I just went and like was like, wow, hey, that's a great you know set of shoes you got on there. That's awesome. Hey, that's a great pair of shoes. Hey, hey, you know what, I like your shoes over there? Just like giving the same kind of like stale compliment to everybody. Yeah, it's just like shoes. Yeah, yeah, that guy just likes things that are on your feet.
Kind of weird. Have you seen that thing? Weird? He's always focusing on your feet.
What is that?
Yeah?
What is that all about? Yeah, no, it's it's it's so true. It's like the you know, I think compliments, genuine compliments and authentic compliments, I think are a great
way to build, you know, great relationships with people. But I think you have to know enough about them to your point to be able to compliment something that means something to them as well, you know what I mean like that, like yes, like when you're first starting to get to know people, like, yeah, they'll be compliments, they'll be things I think I either think they'll Compliments for me are more than just saying like oh that's cool or I like that or that's neat, and it's more
around like I compliment people, I think in a way where it's like giving them time and attention or going deeper into something that they are passionate about, or they're talking about you know what I mean, Like, oh, you like you're into you're into playing, you know, guitar, Also like what what brand of guitar? Or like let me guess, like me, let me guess, like what what kind of
music do you listen to? Okay, Like I think you may play a Gibson, right, and they're like, wow, I do play Gibson, Like Nope, not gives them So you're defender, right, So like you you just you're you're have You're giving somebody a compliment through talking about something that they're interested or passionate about in a way that's fun and interactive and in kind of you know, gets deeper into something
that that that means something to them. And I view that as also being complimentary outside of just like the basic elements of saying that you'd like something.
Yeah, I agree with that completely. The last thing I want to say about this is that it's important that you never make it about you. So to give a perfect example, uh, if you you compliment somebody on their music taste or like oh I heard you you know, I heard you know music coming out of your headphones when you were in the office, the other day, I love that song. That's a great that's a great song. And you get in a conversation about music, that's fine.
That's a reciprocal conversation. You can compliment with them other music. But if you say, you know what kind of guitar do you play? And then they give the answer, if instead of acknowledging that, you say, oh, I play this. I got this when I was five years old, and I've been doing this for this many years. If you're using the compliment as a springboard to talk about yourself, you've already lost. Don't volunteer the information about yourself until
it's solicited. Make it about them. Listen and allow them to talk and learn more about them. And if they want to ask you about something, then they can ask
you about something. But don't find ways of inserting the things about you or making it about you, Because even if you were genuinely interested in hearing what they had to say, if all of a sudden you're just become more excited about sharing your own perspective too, it will negate any progress or potential that that interaction started out with, because it takes away any idea that they think the interaction was about them, and they'll start thinking that you
only interacted with them because you wanted to talk about yourself, and so really keep it about them, regardless of what you think you can add to the conversation or perspective you have wait till that perspective is solicit from them, and if it's not, then it's for another time. You know, if the interaction is about making sure that you are engaging with them in a complimentary way, then keep it about that and then move on to the next person
or whatever you were doing with your day. Thank you all for joining us on this episode of Employee Engagement. We appreciate your time you's feing with us today. You have a great day.