Seriously though, I hate it when people throw in some praise completely unrelated to the thing we are talking about at the moment in an attempt to soften the criticism. It just seems really transparent and fake to me. Praise people for things when they are doing them, not as sugarcoating for your criticism. That just devalues the praise and your criticism.
But maybe that’s just my stereotypical German directness.
Context matters and if people just throw praise around without reading the situation it won’t work anyway. Sugarcoating is still valid to make people feel good about themselves, but it should a well timed sidenote, not more
So which is it?
Seriously though, I hate it when people throw in some praise completely unrelated to the thing we are talking about at the moment in an attempt to soften the criticism. It just seems really transparent and fake to me. Praise people for things when they are doing them, not as sugarcoating for your criticism. That just devalues the praise and your criticism. But maybe that’s just my stereotypical German directness.
Context matters and if people just throw praise around without reading the situation it won’t work anyway. Sugarcoating is still valid to make people feel good about themselves, but it should a well timed sidenote, not more