I should have given more praise. – Arthur Wellesley
My Take – Appropriate praise is a wonderful motivator. Not the “everyone gets a trophy and a medal” kind of praise, but rather I mean the occasional kind word or public recognition of a job well done. Tell me every day how much you appreciate my effort no matter how much I actually produce is nice, but eventually it just becomes part of the background noise. Telling me I’ve done well after I actually accomplish something means a whole lot more.
DaddyBear’s Den 
Old NFO
/ November 15, 2012Agreed, but today it’s become so polluted by the ‘everybody’ succeeds PC crap you really never know.
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Wing and a Whim
/ November 15, 2012NFO – Having grown up in the “everybody gets a ribbon” stupidity, I’ll agree that I have a deep dislike of generalized praise. My team applies the same skepticism to praise and rewards that they apply to spam email – and if the reward doesn’t mean much to the managers, it doesn’t mean a thing to ’em, even if it is nice swag.
The way I get past that is by giving my people specific numbers, and being sincere when I thank them individually, or collectively during the AAR. They can smell sincerity and honesty like a shark smells blood – and they’re about as hungry for it.
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