Over a decade ago, I remember reading a story that stuck with me. I think it was connected to the famous Harvard Study on Adult Development that studied a group of men across their lifetimes, but I can no longer find the reference. A much-beloved doctor, upon his retirement, was given a notebook filled with letters of praise and appreciation from his patients. After he received it, he put it up in his attic, and never opened it or read the letters.
I’ve often thought of this story since I first heard it, wondering about what motivated the doctor’s behavior, and the larger question of why praise is typically welcomed and makes us feel good, but can also make people feel uncomfortable or embarrassed.
In today’s episode, I take a stab at answering this question with Christopher Littlefield, a speaker and consultant who specializes in employee appreciation. But first, we talk about the power of recognition, why we can be so stingy in giving compliments, how compliments can go wrong, and how we can offer them more effectively. We then turn to why getting compliments can make you cringe, how people deflect them and how this deflection affects relationships, and how to get better at receiving compliments graciously.
Resources Related to the Podcast
- AoM Article: Why and How to Offer More Compliments
- AoM Article: How to Accept a Compliment With Class
- AoM Article: How to Avoid Giving a Backhanded Compliment
- Sunday Firesides: Compliment Deflection Is Gift Denial
- Sunday Firesides: Give Them the Cream
- HBR Article: Do Compliments Make You Cringe? Here’s Why by Christopher Littlefield
Connect With Christopher Littlefield
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Read the Transcript
Brett McKay: Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness Podcast. Over a decade ago, I remember reading a story that stuck with me, I think it was connected to the famous Harvard study on adult development that studied a group of men across their lifetimes, but I can no longer find the reference. A much beloved doctor, upon his retirement, was given a notebook filled with letters of praise and appreciation from his patients, after he received it, he put it up in his attic and never opened it or read the letters. I’ve often thought about this story since I first heard it, wondering about what motivated the doctor’s behavior and the larger question why praise is typically welcome to makes us feel good, but can also make people feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. In today’s episode, I take a stab at answering this question with Christopher Littlefield, a speaker and consultant who specializes in employee appreciation, but first we talk about the power of recognition, why we can be so stingy in giving compliments, how compliments can go wrong and how we can offer them more effectively, we then turn to why getting compliments can make you cringe how people deflect them and how this deflection affects relationships and how do you get better at receiving compliments graciously. After the show’s over check at our [email protected].
All right, Chris Littlefield to welcome the show.
Chris Littlefield: Happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Brett.
Brett McKay: So you are a consultant and an expert in employee appreciation, so you go and train managers and bosses on how to show more appreciation to their employees, but also you just talk about appreciation in general, this is applicable to your personal life and things like that, and we’re gonna talk about compliments today, so in your experience, what’s the power of a compliment in both our work lives, and our personal lives.
Chris Littlefield: I think complements are the foundation of connection. If you think about it, it’s kind of the building blocks, most of our relationships start with a compliment, whether it’s a smile, whether it’s expressing our appreciation, noticing something about somebody else is usually how we start those connections, and they end up forming the foundations of maintaining our relationships, I can’t remember, I think it was in a book called The Leader Lab, where they talked about that We are always hearing people’s messages through two different lenses, what are they saying and how do they feel about me, and those positive signals that we’re sending to people both in what we complement and what we express, but also in how we show our appreciation, ends up maintaining that relationship. And I think the last piece that we often don’t think about is Compliments are also the most powerful tool we have to turn around a toxic dynamic or a challenging relationship.
Brett McKay: Okay, so it builds connection and then the ability to turn around a toxic dynamic, and I guess good positive feedback is more powerful than negative feedback in causing changes is that What you’ve seen?
Chris Littlefield: Well I got into doing this work, my background, which you probably won’t find if you go and search online, is in international conflict resolution, so I used to facilitate dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians, which has a different context now at the time that we’re having this conversation, and used to facilitate cross-border dialogue with, folks between Armenian and Azerbaijan, and the reason why I shifted into doing work around recognition appreciation is that I had a two-year toxic dynamic with two co-workers in conflict resolution that we couldn’t resolve, and when nothing else was working, it was a 15-minute recognition activity that turned around that relationship, and that’s what kind of sparked me on trying to understand Why did this work when every other conversation we had about our hopes, about our needs, about our fears, using all these techniques, nothing worked. And that one activity turned around the relationship.
Brett McKay: I think if you’re a parent, you’ve probably seen this dynamic, so typically, when you give feedback to your kids, it’s whenever they’re doing something annoying and you tell them “Don’t do that, why are you doing that?” And they just keep doing the thing that you don’t want them to do, but I’ve heard this idea that we need to start catching our kids doing good things, and so when you see them do something that is actually good and you want them to do, you need to tell them like, “Hey, I really appreciate how you do that, or what great job picking up your bedroom without anyone telling you to pick it up.”
Chris Littlefield: Yeah, what gets recognized gets repeated, and I think one thing I wanna call out in the beginning is I hate trophy culture, and I think there’s this perception that it’s like everybody gets a participation award for showing up, and we’re recognizing people when they’re not doing anything, but also what we see and we notice out loud is the thing that people tend to repeat afterwards, and I’m sure at some point in time you’ve had somebody reference the Gottman Research, I think it was done in the 80s where they studied couples. And This is probably one of the most misquoted studies, but they did a study where they filmed couples for 15 minutes in the first year of their marriage, and it was actually talking about a conflict or a difficult subject, and that often gets left out when people are talking about this, and then they coded the video down to positive and negative interactions, positive interactions like, “Oh, I’m sorry to interrupt you.”
Or, “You’re right, I do do this sometimes,” to a smile, to negative, Like an eye roll or, are you kidding me? Kind of thing, and they were able to predict with 92% accuracy whether they’d be married in five years, and it came down to this magic ratio of five positive to each one negative, and I think that that ratio in general applies with our kids and their openness to our feedback, it applies in our relationships, and it applies in our relationship as work as well, and so those little signals that we’re sending to people all the time, whether it’s to our kids of noticing what they’re doing right.
Not just saying, “Good job, good job, Great job eating your dinner, good job doing this,” but really being specific, like I have an eight-year-old daughter, and I always notice like, “Hey, I noticed that on the soccer field today, that you actually were less scared today, you really went and you targeted the ball today, and I saw you were really paying attention to where you were,” and I won’t go into this long conversation, but just noticing that or, “Hey, I noticed that you worked really hard in your homework tonight and you sat through it opposed to getting up five times, and I notice that you’re really making an effort.” And that specificity that shows them what specifically we’re seeing. Has that person see, “Hey, they’re noticing this and they’re appreciating what I’m doing.”
Brett McKay: Yeah, I think one thing I’ve been learning more and more as I’ve gotten older is that everyone is craving… There’s like a hunger for affirmation, everyone wants to know that they’re noticed and they’re appreciated, and I think paying attention and letting people know, “Hey, I notice what you’re doing. It’s an act of service.”
Chris Littlefield: 100%. And I think, like I said, is that we’re looking for those signals in those cues, and I think many times, many of us were grown up too, I remember asking people and I was doing my research, “What were you taught growing up around recognition. Well, if I’m not telling you’re doing something wrong, then you’re doing it right, but I don’t need to tell you you’re doing something right.” Even I was chatting with my mother the other day and she was saying that she told her father that, “Dad, I really love you,” when he was older, and he goes, “We don’t need to say it to know it.” There was this idea that we don’t need to actually express things, but when we don’t express them and make them explicit, then many times people are sitting there with an open loop, how do they feel about me? Do they care about me? And I don’t think it, we need to be in deep meaningful conversations all the time, that would be exhausting, but it’s just sending the message and it may just be like a fist bump, it may just be like, “Hey, I noticed what you did, I saw that,”
And it just is that kind of We’re looking. We’re constantly wondering, Am I on the right track? Is what I’m doing landing with these other people. Do people appreciate this? Am I doing the right thing? Do you feel loved? Do you feel cared for at home and well? Do you feel loved and cared for at work, we just don’t tend to use that language in the workplace.
Brett McKay: I wrote a study that said that people would rather get appreciated at work than get a raise, but it seems like bosses are pretty stingy with compliments, why do you think That is, why do you have to exist as a profession teaching bosses how to give compliments?
Chris Littlefield: So first, I need to address the money conversation, ’cause any time somebody will say it’s like, “People don’t work for the money, they just work for the appreciation,” I’m like, “Well, stop paying them and see if they show up next week.” No, of course no, that base needs to be there, but I think it’s important to understand the difference between feeling compensated and fairly compensated and feeling valued, and those are two different experiences, ’cause I can feel fairly compensated but then not feel valued like I had a manager who reached out and somebody in HR was saying, I think we need to work on recognition organization, and the CEO came to the call and he goes, “I don’t get why our head of marketing… We just gave her an award last month, and she still says she doesn’t feel appreciated.
And it’s like, that’s because we’ve got a terminology problem where we’ve collapsed rewards in our words of recognition, and we need to decouple those things. I think people think that If I give a reward, if I give a gift card, if I give a paycheck, then I’ve done my job of recognizing people, and that’s often times an outcome of poor messaging from HR and also the recognition, and I’m putting air quotes right now, industry that calls their reward and award platforms, the recognition program, when really it’s a reward or award program, and then oftentimes those reward and award programs exist in HR and under compensation and benefits, ’cause there’s money associated with it, so people are left thinking that recognition is an HR thing.
And it’s not their job. And then also, they think that when they go to go recognize people, they need to fill out this long 17-page nomination process and decide on points and all the rest, and they’ve over-complicated it. And so they think that that’s the recognition thing or the recognition box. And they don’t think that it’s theirs. And this is why I think to this is kind of a long answer to your brief question, is we need to first decouple rewards and awards from recognition. And so when I explain it, when I’m training managers and organizations is recognition as kind of a big theme. Are the things we do to signal the people that we value who they are and what they contribute every day. And then I break recognition down into what I call the inverted peer of importance, with up at the top, ’cause we have Maslow’s hierarchy, where we do self accusation up at the top, but that’s really on top of everything else.
So really the most important thing is appreciating the person, which those day to day things we do to signal people, we value them, and then there is acknowledging the circumstances, “Thanks for coming in when it’s really cold or really hot outside,” or “Thanks for showing up when we’re down staff,” or “I was a jerk the other day, and I want you to know that I noticed that and here’s what I’m gonna do differently,” and then there’s recognizing effort in progress, and these are these messages where we show people that we see what they’re working on, and then we reward results and Award stand-out Results.
Brett McKay: Okay, so I like that. So when you do reward someone, it’s for results, but that day-to-day recognition, it’s for just the effort that that person’s putting in, you recognize that, “Hey, I see what you’re doing, other people might not see what you’re doing, but I see what you’re doing, and it’s important.” That’s what people are wanting at work.
Chris Littlefield: 100%, and I think one of the challenges, and it’s only been made worse in the hybrid and fully remote world is, and I joke, we don’t see 98.35%, which is a made up statistic percent of what people do every day. Like you have nearly a thousand episodes, and none of us listening in understand what it takes to be able to do that. And everything that it takes to be able to get the interview set up to do the research, to do the back end of the tech. And that’s on top of everything that’s going on in your personal life as well. And we don’t see that. And so many times they go, “Oh wow, really great podcast.” And it’s like, “Thanks.” And it’s like, “Well, yeah, if you only knew what it took to be able to make this result or to do this thing that I do every day,” whether it’s being a parent, whether it’s being a spouse, whether it’s being an employee, whether it’s being an employee on top of taking care of a sick kid or parent. Or just being a parent in general. That’s what people really wanna be recognized and appreciated for.
Brett McKay: Okay, so in our work life, we need to disconnect this idea that awarding somebody for a result, that’s the only time we give recognition or give a compliment or appreciation, appreciation is something we can do all the time, it’s a process.
Chris Littlefield: Every day.
Brett McKay: What about… Why do you think we’re so stingy giving compliments in our personal lives, there’s nothing… We don’t have that problem there in our personal lives, where there’s an award for being a great mom or a great friend, so why do you think we’re so stingy. There’s like this meme I’ve heard, I’ve seen where it’s like, dudes are talking about, “The last time I got a compliment was when I was in elementary school.” And I still remember that compliment, so people feel like they’re not getting compliments in their personal lives, why do you think we’re so stingy with that?
Chris Littlefield: I don’t know about you, but I think that We invest energy, and I feel like people bring themselves fully to their jobs, all this stuff about bring your whole self to work and then only bring 10% of you back home to the people that you’ve made commitments to, and they’re just gonna put up with you. And I think that we at home kind of assume our relationships are good, I’ve done the work I’ve said I do, or I bought you flowers last week, and So we forget that we need to invest. And I think in every relationship, when we stop investing, when we stop expressing those things, then we sometimes unintentionally neglect those relationships, and when we neglect them, then they turn. People become resentful, resentment turns into anger and frustration and hurt, and then we end up spending more time fighting with each other, than we do building relationships with one another, and I think that it’s easier to do that at home and let our guard down because we feel safer to do that. But then we also neglect the relationships and we also, when we see people all the time, we think that, “Well, they know how we feel,” when many times they don’t.
My wife sometimes say to me, “Can you just give me a compliment today,” and the irony she’s saying that to the guy who teaches people to give compliments, ’cause sometimes I’m getting so focused on what I’m doing, and I think that stress factor plays in as well as we’re doing logistics or doing stuff, and I think that’s why it’s good to just make a habit of, “What’s one nice thing I can say today? What’s one compliment,” and then also I think we get uncomfortable, what if it doesn’t land right? What if they misinterpret this? What if they take this the wrong way?
Brett McKay: Yeah, I think all of that. I’ve seen that in my own life. Also, I think we’re just keyed in on the negative, that we’re just hard-wired just to focus on the negative, going back to kids, we’re always focusing on what our kids are doing wrong instead of thinking about what good things they’re doing. I also think there’s a scarcity, we’re kind of stingy, ’cause we feel like, “Well, If I compliment this person, it’s gonna make me less than.” ‘Cause when you compliment someone, you’re basically… Sometimes you might be saying, You’re better than me at this. I think it’d be really hard if you’re giving a compliment to someone who is in the same domain as you, so maybe another public speaker.
Chris Littlefield: Where it’s more similar.
Brett McKay: Where it’s more similar, yeah. Okay, so sometimes people don’t offer compliments because they don’t notice the good things people are doing, or we start to take our relationships for granted, we get self-absorbed, someone might be insecure about giving compliments, maybe they might feel anxious or they feel like recognizing someone else’s gifts diminishes themselves. Another reason people might not offer compliments is because they have bad associations with complementing from getting badly giving compliments. What’s going on there? What are some ways giving compliments goes wrong?
Chris Littlefield: When I was… My original research, I don’t think I’ve mentioned here on the podcast. Yes, is I interviewed 400 people on the subway in Boston, that was my original study. I came back from that interaction with my conflict resolution partners, and I was so blown away by this, and so my commute to and from work, I was working at children’s hospital Boston at the time. I interviewed one person a day on the subway about their relationship to recognition, and when I asked people what made a good compliment more often they shared what made a bad one, and I think that many of these negative ways or manipulative practices that people use around recognition, is what also gets in the way of us doing it because you know what? That person just complemented me ’cause they want something. I call it the butter them up technique. Like, “Brett you look really great today. Thank you so much. This Is awesome. Can I be on your podcast,” or whatever someone does, typically to you where we compliment before we ask for something, or when we make mistakes, instead of admitting the mistake, we over-complement to make up for it, that I was a jerk yesterday and saying, “You look great today, or you buy flowers for your spouse,” and I think all of those kind of break down trust with the other person, because if we’re not authentic in our compliments, people don’t believe we’re authentic in other areas of our life as well.
Brett McKay: Yeah, I think something that a technique or tactic people use maybe subconsciously when they’re giving a compliment to somebody, but they still want to maintain their status, is like the back handed compliment, you tell someone like, “Oh wow, you’re not as awkward as you used to be” or, “You went to a really good college for a state school,” it’s stuff like that, you’re kind of giving them appreciation but at the same time, you’re kind of still cutting them down to size.
Chris Littlefield: Yeah, and that wasn’t appreciation at all, it’s like that’s not actually a compliment, that’s a jab. And I think that’s where when people are really hesitant because we don’t know and we don’t know what’s authentic, or that was a jab that wasn’t actually a compliment, it’s like, “Yeah, you’re really good for somebody who’s not that good,” is what they’re saying, or “You’re really good, but you’re not as good as me,” and that tearing people down, or those humble brags that people do right now, I think make it really complicated, and when it’s authentic, and I think one of them is that many times adults unwittingly or unintentionally, I think is a better term, often use complementing one person to try to motivate the other or to try to pressure the other, it’s like, “Brett I wish you were just… Your brother’s really great. You should be more like him.” And when we compliment him, “Oh wow, you did really great,” and then we’re looking over at the other kid hoping, “You’re really organized and you’re really great in school,” you’re trying to get the other kid to notice that you should be like this too, and that’s just manipulative.
Brett McKay: Yeah.
Chris Littlefield: Nobody, people can see through that.
Brett McKay: Any advice or any tips that you found in your experience on delivering effective compliments either in the workplace or at home?
Chris Littlefield: I think being great at recognizing people means that you are a person who’s always observing. You’re looking at what’s going on in people’s lives. What do they really value? What do they care about? And I think that’s really important. But I think that the elements of a great compliment, and I break recognition into two different forms. You have standard recognition when we’re sharing how what somebody did impacted us. And so when we’re doing that, we want to want, of course, it needs to be authentic. Don’t just recognize somebody because you want something or some hidden intention. People can read through that. And then I think it’s important to let other people know what you see and what you specifically appreciate and what they did and how it impacted you. You know, one day I said to my daughter, I go, “Alia, I was really proud of you today.” And she goes, “Why, Papa?” And I was like, “Oh yeah,” I knew in my mind what I was proud about, but I didn’t let you see. And it was like, “Hey, I was really proud of you out on the field today because you did X, Y, and Z.” “Okay, thanks.” So when you’re recognizing somebody, they should never be left with a question in their mind of why you’re recognizing them and for what.
And so to be specific on what you see and share that and share the impact on you and others. And it may be like, “Hey Brett, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I know that, you know, I’m another guest and I’m gonna be part of the show. And maybe you do this and this is just what you do, but having me on makes a huge difference and it’s a huge acknowledgement to me and I’m really proud to be on it.”
Brett McKay: I love it. So first off, pay attention. You gotta get outside of your head, pay attention to what other people are doing, and then be specific. I like that, ’cause I’ve done that before where I see someone give a talk, I’m like, “Oh, great talk.” And I’m like, “I probably should have been more specific and tell what exactly I liked about the talk,” like the delivery or the content or the organization. And the other thing too, I’ve heard about or a tactic I’ve used to be effective in giving compliments and recognition is relaying secondhand compliments.
Chris Littlefield: Oh, I love that.
Brett McKay: For some reason, whenever I get a secondhand compliment, when I hear someone say, “Oh, my brother said, oh, he just loves your podcast.” Like, “Wow, that makes me feel really good.” What do you think’s going on there? Why are secondhand compliments so, they feel so great?
Chris Littlefield: Because you wouldn’t have heard it otherwise. I did this two days ago. So I have a friend who’s in university fundraising and another friend on LinkedIn who I’ve never actually met in person, but we’ve talked a couple of times and all the rest and she did consulting work with that university. And so we were talking about her when our kids were playing the other day with my friend and she was talking about this person, Shana, and I was like, “Oh, that’s great.” I immediately took out LinkedIn and when you’re on your phone, you can record voice messages like, “Hey, by the way, I was just talking with Lindsay about you the other day and she said this, this, and that about you. I just wanted to let you know how much she appreciates and values working with you.”
And she sent me this message saying, thank you so much. And we can do that so easily. Sending that message or extending it. And when somebody recognizes us for something that somebody else did, because that’s gonna happen at some point in time, “Thank you so much for that great thing you did the other day.” And they go, “Oh, actually, you know what? That wasn’t me, that was actually Brett.” And next time you see him, make sure you let him know. And next time I see him, I’m gonna let him know what you shared.
Brett McKay: We’re gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. And now back to the show. Something you’ve done a lot of work on is receiving compliments. And I’ve noticed this too, you made this observation that it seems like people have even a harder time accepting a compliment than, we have a hard time giving compliments, sometimes we have even a harder time receiving them. And it’s weird because we say we want more compliments and more affirmation, but then that affirmation and appreciation and recognition and compliments can make us feel uncomfortable. You’ve done some research on this. How many people report that compliments make them uncomfortable?
Chris Littlefield: So I would argue, I don’t know how many people are narcissists, is it like 1% or 2% of the population? I think other than those folks, I would argue that probably everybody is. But in my research, when I studied this, I got about 70% of people admitted to associating embarrassment or discomfort with recognition. But if I think of, I’ve probably run workshops for over 20,000 people on six continents now, I would argue that that number is closer to 100%. Not the narcissist, because they’re never going to think that, but the ones who aren’t, everybody, without even realizing it, like I recognized a senior manager once, and I told her my stats that I found that, you know, the number one thing people associate with being recognized, 88%, is feeling valued, and nearly 70% of people associate embarrassment. She goes, “I have no problem accepting compliments.” And her employee was right next to her and goes, “You are really good at accepting compliments.” Gave her a compliment on her ability to accept compliments, and her response was, “I’m not that good.” And so we divert it without even realizing it, many times it’s a knee-jerk reaction, but I find that many times the reason why we do this is because people have manipulated us. People have used the guilt praise technique, the butter them up technique, the sandwich feedback model.
And so we’re always wondering, is there hidden intention, or we disagree with what the person’s saying, and so it makes uncomfortable. No one’s gonna hire me to come into a company to train people to accept compliments, but that’s really how we shift people’s ability to give them as well.
Brett McKay: Okay, so people can be uncomfortable with receiving compliments because maybe they’re suspicious, maybe they’ve had some negative associations around compliments. What about the idea that you hear a lot that when someone is uncomfortable with getting a compliment, it’s because they have low self-esteem, right? It’s like they feel uncomfortable getting the praise because it jars with their own negative self-perception. Does that explain people’s discomfort about being complimented?
Chris Littlefield: No, I think that, so in my research and for one of my HBR articles, I interviewed Guy Winch, phenomenal person, and check out his work. And one of his lines, which is people with low self-esteem will often be uncomfortable with accepting compliments, but not everybody who’s uncomfortable accepting compliments has low self-esteem.
Brett McKay: That makes sense. What about the element of surprise? Sometimes compliments are unexpected. Can that play a role in why people feel uncomfortable receiving a compliment?
Chris Littlefield: There is that element if somebody catches off guard and they say something, and we didn’t expect that to come out of their mouth, and they notice something about us that we didn’t really think anyone was seeing or noticing, and then that catches us off guard. “Wait a second. Am I safe or is this person picking on me? Like that person did in eighth grade, and was that compliment really had a hidden agenda or something else going on?” And so that catching us off guard does kind of throw us off kilter for a second. And so we freeze for a moment, and then we’re searching for what’s going on here, what’s happening. And so that element of surprise does play a factor into it.
And then I think it kind of triggers that what’s going on in this situation right now? And I notice it for many people. Our mind goes, do I agree or do I disagree with what they’re saying? Do I agree with their analysis of me? Do I agree with their analysis? Do I think I really am as good as they say? I don’t feel that way. And then that knee jerk response often comes out. Without us even realizing it, we say, “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s no big deal. It was a team effort,” to deflect that away ’cause we didn’t want that attention or that intention may make us uncomfortable. And sometimes we just need to like pause ourself for a second or after we deflect it, say, “I’m sorry, thank you. I appreciate you noticing that.”
Brett McKay: Yeah, I think in the process of deflecting gives you a sense of control of the situation again. So someone tells you, ” You did a great talk,” and you think, “Oh, well, I didn’t think that.” I feel caught off guard by this. I’m going to regain control by saying, “No, actually it was a mess and it wasn’t as great as I thought.”
Chris Littlefield: Yeah, or leveling out their perception. Like we need to fill in the gaps. One thing that I found in my research that kept on coming up is that many times when we’re recognized, people are pointing at a result we produced. And in our mind, we’re thinking about all the things that we could have done that we didn’t do. And I call this the gap trap. It’s the gap between the result we had in our mind that we wanted to produce and the actual result we did produce. And so when somebody recognize us for maybe the 80% we did deliver, we’re thinking about the gap between that 80% and that 100%. I could have done the design better. I could have been better prepared. “I could have delivered different. I left out these two sections in the talk that nobody knew that I left out that I wanted to share.” And we’re thinking about that. They don’t see that. And so many times, the way that we burn ourselves out and we burn out our peoples is we constantly focus on that gap. And we forget that when people are recognizing us, they’re sharing and expressing appreciation of what they did experience. So when I’m recognizing you, “Brett, I’m sharing how what you did impacted me if I do it right.” And I’m not asking you, do you agree or disagree with what I’m sharing? Because I’m sharing my perception with what I feel or the impact you’ve had if I do it right.
And so as the receiver, our job is only to just say, “Thank you.” They’re not asking whether we agree or disagree. So you simply just say, “Thank you,” and give them the opportunity to give us that gift.
Brett McKay: What are some common ways we deflect compliments that you’ve seen?
Chris Littlefield: What do you find that you do when somebody compliments you? I’d love to hear for yourself.
Brett McKay: Oh, sure. It was nothing. It wasn’t a big deal. Or it was like, oh, we just worked really, I don’t know. That’s the kind of, yeah, it wasn’t nothing. It was, that’s pretty much it. That’s one I go to a lot.
Chris Littlefield: It’s no big deal. It’s a team effort. Or like, I think the one that we do without even realizing it is compliment ping pong. It’s like, “You’re great.” “No, you’re great. Have a great flight.” “You too.” And they’re not getting on the plane. And we do it because someone gives us something. We feel like we need to give them something back and we need to notice or it makes us feel good. And we want them to feel good as well. And many times this is built into our culture as well. Like if you look in Spanish, what’s the appropriate response? Donata, which means in France, derriere, it’s the same thing. And it’s many times a cultural training of what’s the appropriate way to respond. And it’s not wrong to do that. But we can interrupt that by just saying, thank you. It’s great to hear that.
Brett McKay: If one of your reactions to receiving a compliment is to compliment someone back, one thing you do compliment the person for them noticing and giving you the compliment. ’cause I think a lot of people, like we said, a lot of people don’t give compliments. A lot of people don’t have the gumption to do it, or they’re just not paying attention. So I think it is a talent and a skill that should be praised. Like, “Wow, thank you for noticing what I did there in that speech. A lot of people don’t see that. And so thank you for that.” Yeah, that’s another thing you can do.
Chris Littlefield: Yeah, and I think that that just strengthens our relationship.
Brett McKay: Another thing you can do, this is for giving compliments, but keeping in mind that a lot of people might be uncomfortable with receiving a compliment or appreciation. When you give a compliment, ask a follow-up question. Like, “Hey, this dish was fantastic. Where did you get the recipes? Is this a family recipe?” And it gives that person an out to kind of talk about that and maybe process the compliment that they received.
Chris Littlefield: Yeah, or move on. Some people always ask me about complimenting strangers. I don’t want them to think I’m hitting on them or something like that. And if you’re always complimenting behavior or effort, you never have to worry about that. But if you do, it’s like you just do and you just walk off. Yeah. You say that there’s nothing else going on. And then it’s just like, okay, ’cause the thing that you’re saying is like, “Hey, I just noticed this and I really appreciate this,” and then you walk off.
Brett McKay: Do you recommend complimenting strangers?
Chris Littlefield: I do, I think if it’s done tactfully. And sometimes it’s just noticing. And if it’s a stranger, like somebody working at Starbucks and you notice just, “Wow, thank you. It was just a really warm welcome,” and your attitude is infectious. It’s really made a difference for me today. Or, like, “Hey, thanks for pausing. I can tell you were in the middle of something else and thanks for being present with me to help me figure out what I need to do. Thanks for stopping what you’re doing.” I think if we notice and we pay attention to what people are dealing with and we call that out, it just shows that we’re observing and we are intentionally seeing them and what they’re doing and how it’s impacting us.
Brett McKay: Okay. So we’re uncomfortable with compliments because it might catch us off guard. There’s that gap idea. Another dynamic that I’ve seen is that maybe people are afraid of recognition or compliments or appreciation because they feel like once they get that appreciation, like the stakes are higher, the standards are now higher. “Now those people are gonna expect that I do that all the time.” Do you think that’s also going on with our compliments?
Chris Littlefield: 100%. And this is why it’s so important to train people on how to do this right. Because when we recognize just the result, then that creates the expectation that you’re going to produce the result. And as employees and even as family members, we don’t always have control over the results that we produce because there’s different things going on. There’s pandemics, there’s markets, there’s things that are going on in the economy that we don’t have control over. But what we do have control over is our effort. And that’s why it’s so important to recognize and appreciate effort and then reward results. And so when we’re recognizing people, sharing that appreciation, I really appreciate the effort you put in or I really appreciate how hard you studied for that test and that you put in all that extra work to really know things and to have things down so when you took the exam, you got that A or you got that B+ that you got. And so when we recognize effort, not just the results, then it removes that pressure for many people.
Brett McKay: Just from my own personal observation, it’s completely anecdotal. It seems like people who are more free spirited, like the commitment resistant type, you know, just like they’re just they’re great people. They’re happy you’re lucky. They often feel the most uncomfortable with compliments ’cause I think there’s that pressure of perceived expectations. Like it feels like a constraint on their future behavior. Do you think there’s anything to that?
Chris Littlefield: Well, and I think that’s based if you look at what is the narrative behind that. It’s like being in your 20s and someone says, I love you that you’re dating. You’re like, “Oh, crap, are they expecting me to get married?” Right. Like, it’s like, “Hey, you’re really good this way.” “Wait, you want me to do this forever,” which that’s rarely that person’s expectation. They’re just expressing what they feel and see in that moment. And that doesn’t mean that we’re tied down and committed because they said that thing. They’re just expressing something in the moment. And I think that what creates that expectation is our interpretation of what their compliment means. But if you think about how many interactions and conversations we have throughout our day, somebody saying, “I really appreciate what you do” or “I really appreciate you,” doesn’t mean that we are tied into this relationship for the rest of our life or I’m expecting you do that same thing forever. Right. Because if I’m a person who really cares for you as an employee or as a person in my life, I understand that your needs, your goals, your life is ever changing and a true relationship is supporting you to succeed in work and in our relationship as well. And so that compliment is just a signal that that person sending, it is not the end result.
Brett McKay: So we talked about how complimenting people is a way to build connection and foster a relationship. How does deflecting compliments affect relationships?
Chris Littlefield: Well, I think part of our relationships are built in the exchange. And if we keep on giving gifts to people, if we keep on reaching out to people and then they never accept those things and we never give them opportunity to contribute to us, to notice us, and we don’t give an opportunity for them to close that loop, then we break connection. And so I think that when we deflect, we don’t give that person an opportunity to contribute and we don’t give that person an opportunity to feel seen and feel connected to us. And so when we do that, we end up breaking down our relationships.
Brett McKay: Well, it’s like you said, a compliment is a gift. And just imagine how you’d feel if you gave someone a gift and they’re like, “Meh, I really don’t want this.” You’d feel bad. And so if someone gives you a compliment instead of rejecting it, like just say, “Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate what you did.” ’cause then it makes that other person feel good as well.
Chris Littlefield: Yeah. And if you’re uncomfortable with it, they’ll probably stop after you accept it. And I think it’s important, and I don’t often mention this much because I’m not a huge fan of kind of putting people into boxes, but you know, you’ll have the languages of love or the languages of appreciation. And I think it’s important to understand that this kind of difference between the golden rule and the platinum rule, the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated, the platinum rule, treat others the way they wanna be treated. And so I think if we notice that people aren’t really liking the way that we’re recognizing them, we may need to shift that a little bit. If it’s more about acts of service, if it’s more about quality time, and I think it’s important to expand our idea of how we express our appreciation beyond just words to also our actions and how we show up.
And by doing that and by saying, hey, maybe just sitting down next to somebody on the couch and spending a little time. I remember someone saying recently, “I really appreciated that my husband sat down with me for 15 minutes and did a puzzle ’cause I know he doesn’t like to do puzzles, but sat down and did it with me. And then we ended up chatting for an hour.” That can be more meaningful for somebody than actually expressing our appreciation in a verbal way.
Brett McKay: Right. So not everyone appreciates verbal affirmation as much as other people. So if you’re getting to know someone, if you notice that they’re uncomfortable with receiving compliments, maybe start shifting to other ways to show appreciation. So that’s something we think about as the giver of compliments. But when we’re receiving them, knowing that deflection can break connection and accepting them well can build connection. Do you have any tips on how to better accept compliments?
Chris Littlefield: I mean, I think the simple one is to just say thank you. It’s just the simplest thing is get in the habit. We’ve established these knee-jerk reactions our whole life. And just like if somebody, you know, a door swings towards you, your hand’s going to go up. If something comes towards your face, your hands are going to come up to protect, ’cause this is the knee-jerk reaction that we’ve established. It’s a habit. And so in order to change that habit, I know you’ve had a lot of amazing people on here talked about habit change through your multiple episodes. But I think just reminding ourselves and being aware of what do I do? So if somebody recognized me just paying attention and noticing how other people respond, try giving compliments to people in the coming days and watch how they respond. And if they divert it, go, “Did you get the compliment? Did you hear what I just said?” And it will break that reaction. And when we notice ourselves doing it, say, “Hey, I’m trying to get a little better accepting compliments. Thank you.” And just practice doing it. And if a bunch of feelings come up, just take a minute to examine those.
“Hey, why did that make me so uncomfortable? What’s going on there? Because that was really kind what they said.” And just observe, notice, and then just try to break the habit and just say, thank you.
Brett McKay: Just say thank you. The thing that really helped me is just this idea that the compliment isn’t about you. It’s really about the giver. They’re trying to let you know how something you did affected them. And so let them have that. Let them have that moment.
Chris Littlefield: And that’s their judgment. That’s their assessment. And that’s their gift. When I interviewed, one of my interviews on the train was a musician. And he said, “My instructor is always, or my mentor’s always recognizing me about how great I am and how amazing and how much development I’ve had.” And he goes, “I don’t need it.” And I go, “Well, for her, she’s also processing her work. You’re her student. She’s seen you’ve developed. She’s seen you how far you’ve progressed. And give her the opportunity to recognize that work and to see her work in action. She’s also processing that.” And when people come up to us and they recognize us for something that we do that is second nature to us, like, you know, people would be like, “Oh, great job on that spreadsheet.” You’re like, I’ve been doing this for 20 years. And what they’re doing is they’re processing their learning. So just recognize that’s what they’re doing and give them an opportunity to do that.
Brett McKay: I love that. So I think the takeaway from today is give more compliments and then don’t deflate compliments. Just just accept them as the gift that they are.
Chris Littlefield: Yeah. Let them in and know that that’s one of the most powerful tools that we have for building relationships.
Brett McKay: Well, Chris, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about your work and what you do?
Chris Littlefield: You can find me on YouTube. Just search Christopher Littlefield. You can go to beyondthankyou.com and I’ll put some special resources together if you go to beyondthankyou.com/podcast for the show today.
Brett McKay: Fantastic. Well, Chris Littlefield, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.
Chris Littlefield: It’s been great speaking with you today, Brett.
Brett McKay: My guest today was Christopher Littlefield. You can find more information about his work at his website beyondthankyou.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is/compliments where you can find links to resources. We delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles that we’ve written over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate if you take one minute to give a review on Apple podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think will get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it’s Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to AOM podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.
