201–210 of 296 posts
Toxic positivity often comes from the idea that seeking happiness is the right goal always. If you believe that then you believe anyone who is not happy is somehow failing and you can give them a hand up. The right word I think should be contentment. Happiness is impossible to have all the time. You can have contentment pretty much all the time.
Having a critical but positive look at the world is most likely very healthy, in the spirit of 'Change what you can and accept what you can not'. Constantly emitting a positive image, on the other hand, leads to the problems described in the article. But the problem is not the positivity, but the need to express it even it is not coming from within.
Don't be afraid, to share your true feelings, but try to view the world in a balanced way (now I was preachy myself...).
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This may sound a bit cynical but it's honest: When everyone else is gratuitously praising engineering, it sort of creates an atmosphere that feels like engineering is being taken advantage of by these other people: managers, sales people, execs. It feels like these people think you're their cash cow, and also that they think you're kind of stupid, and gratuitous compliments are enough to keep the cash cow going. That…
Next time you get such a compliment, maybe ask for a raise or a bonus? Then you know whether the compliment was real or not.
Sometimes I've wondered if this keeps down ambition -- the only workplace I've been in where this is common, people seem to have a pretty low bar for success. I wonder if part of that is that folks think that they've achieved a lot when they get so much praise, even when they are not achieving a whole lot.
It certainly keeps down quality. It takes hard and thoughtful work to actually think about and evaluate the work product of others to the point that constructive guidance can be offered. It's much easier to just say 'wow, that looks great' and smile.
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Same for me. I hate the celebratory management emails after crunch time. They feel insulting to me. I expect management to help during the project and not celebrating once everything is done. That while not having fixed obvious problems during the project. My partner is the other way. She loves and needs praise. The more the better. Another interesting thing was at the end of one of the last projects. There was a sur…
> between a Patagonia shirt and a plaque If I wanted a shirt, I'd buy a shirt. If the plaque truly reflected some effort done by the team that accomplished something big and deserved proper recognition, I get why people would prefer it. You can't buy respect. Now, of course the cynical me will argue that the whole thing is a trick question and that no one of the alternatives are good - downright offensive actually.
And it was full of this kind of nonsense - plaques, award ceremonies, teeny-tiny presents as bonuses, and so on.
Cynicism and offence are perfectly reasonable and fair reactions.
I've felt a lot of "false" positivity espoused by project managers, especially those in charge of agile ceremonies. Examples: "I'm really {proud,impressed} of all of you for your output this sprint", "You guys are {killing,crushing,owning} it", "You all should be very proud of what you guys did", etc. These aren't given after periods of crunch time, they're literally every week to the point where it feels so contrive…
A lot of insight in the parent comment here. Most importantly this: "...there seems to be two camps of people: those who want constant positive reinforcement and those who it completely has the opposite effect ..." If you are leading and or managing a team, one of the most important things you need to know are how do people want their feedback. My experience is that it varies from person to person (I suspect that the…
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> "this team is killing it" for ahead of plan Why do you think telling your team this is useful? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/about-fathers/201202...
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of the linked article. There are a few important distinctions, most notably (from the article itself): > "We praise drawings ... because we want our kids to continue to work hard, and to do good work... But what we really want to teach our children... is that they should do good work because of the satisfactions it provides." While I understand how this could apply to children (i…
Like others have said, effect of praise would be very specific to individuals, but some have said praise hasn't helped them much. It definitely has not helped me, so here is my reasoning as to why you should not praise a good team. For me, stop the praise, tell me how to be better, and show me you care about me improving, and care about me on a personal level. Yes, I know that when I work hard and give you good output, it helps company, I don't need people to tell me that I worked hard. I can see it (If your company prevents your employees from seeing the effect of their output, thats the problem, don't say praise is necessary. The boss should not try to be the feedback loop). The reverse pavlovian effect can kick in otherwise: If it doesn't come when I am working hard, I feel bad. Also, the boss does not control reality, so becoming my feedback loops is bad, because he can warp reality based on his perspective.
It looks like this is highly specific to individuals though, the above works for me.
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A lot of insight in the parent comment here. Most importantly this: "...there seems to be two camps of people: those who want constant positive reinforcement and those who it completely has the opposite effect ..." If you are leading and or managing a team, one of the most important things you need to know are how do people want their feedback. My experience is that it varies from person to person (I suspect that the…
“We need to work harder” is not the kind of manager I like. The best ones just set a great example and work harder and put in overtime themselves and the rest of the team are usually are sympathetic enough to follow.
I vastly prefer honest negativity over dishonest positivity. An example of this is the behavior of service personnel in the US compared to my native country, every time I go there I almost want to tell them to tone down the niceness, but of course there's no point because I realize I'm the odd one out. Of course I appreciate the effort of being "nice" but when you're not doing it out of genuine care for someone I'd m…
As scripture says, 'Faithful are the wounds of a friend'. Sometimes the best thing we need is a little vinegar that is in our actual/tangible/observable best interest.