Leadership Snack - Stop Praising Employees Like Golden Retrievers

Here's Oren Yam's test for whether your praise is worth anything: if you could say the exact same sentence to a dog that just fetched a stick, you're doing it wrong. "Good job!" "Nice work!" "Keep it up!" These aren't feedback. They're treats. And when you upgrade to "I'm proud of you," you've just gone from dog trainer to disappointed parent reviewing a report card.

The problem isn't that you're being positive. It's that you're making it about you and your approval instead of the specific behavior you want reinforced. Your engineers don't need to know you're proud. They need to know exactly what they did that worked, why it mattered, and what impact it had. "The clarity in your design helped all of us reach a fast decision" tells them what to do again. "Great work" tells them nothing.

Yam's framework is simple: be specific about behavior, highlight the impact, deliver it while it's fresh, and speak at eye level. Not "You're a genius" but "The way you broke the problem into parts and led the team to a clear solution." That's the difference between flattery and reinforcement. One makes people feel good for a minute. The other teaches them what excellence looks like in your context.

The bonus insight that most managers miss: if you hired well and trained properly, your team should be doing good work most of the time. Which means your ratio should lean heavily toward positive feedback. Not empty praise, but real appreciation for real work. Because constructive criticism only lands when someone's emotional bank account has a positive balance. Great teams don't run on treats. They run on trust, respect, and leaders who can articulate what good work actually looks like.