
When your coworker does great work, tell their manager - asicsp
https://jvns.ca/blog/2020/07/14/when-your-coworker-does-great-work-tell-their-manager/
======
ping_pong
This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the
practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does
is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I
needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really
sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a
high performer, because it didn't foster the type of environment I wanted to
work at, which is collaborative.

I heard from my friends at Facebook that the environment there is equally
crazy. Everyone knows that the performance reviews are based on lazy stats, so
they game the stats. Every time someone requests a meeting, they are expected
to give a "thank you" which is one of the measures for performance. Also,
things like the number of reviews commented on could be easily gamed by adding
a "+1!" as a comment which sounds like another undesirable place to work at.
Maybe current Facebook employees can comment, however.

~~~
jedberg
This is what I loved about working at Netflix. We didn't have performance
reviews. It was assumed that your performance was good to excellent, otherwise
you wouldn't be working there anymore. You had a constant feedback loop with
your manager on performance, but nothing was ever formal.

Raises were completely divorced from any performance assessment. You were paid
whatever they thought the max was for your skillset, based on a bunch of data
they had on what people at other companies got paid for similar work.

What we did have was 360 reviews once a year. It was basically a small survey
you could fill out about anyone in the company, which they and their manager
would see. You could evaluate your boss, your VP, or people who worked for
you, or anyone else you worked with anywhere in the company. It was expected
that managers do a 360 review for all of their reports, but beyond that you
could do as few or as many as you wanted to. It was basically a
start/stop/continue kind of thing.

It was such a refreshing change from the stack ranking at eBay, which forced
good people to get shitty reviews just so they could "fit the bell curve". And
as you said, it incentivized you to not praise coworkers and some people even
actively sabotaged their coworkers to get a better rank.

~~~
Traster
I think this culture is often the difference between a company that's in
exponential growth mode - where you care more about velocity than costs. When
a company becomes a stable giant, the engineering department is no longer
necessarily creating value in the same way it was before and often slowly
becomes bloated.

~~~
sleepydog
I agree, but in the specific case of Netflix, people are let go _all the time_
, and managers have a lot of authority to make the decision to fire someone.
Tenure doesn't matter, either -- you could work there for 6 years and end up
getting fired when you get a new manager or the existing one decides you're
phoning it in.

~~~
xvector
That's a massive amount of trust placed in managers. I've had asshole managers
before that didn't have this much power thanks to company structure.

Honestly I would never work at a place like this. Maybe it's lean and
efficient for the company, but it definitely doesn't sound fun for the
employee.

~~~
jedberg
It's not as bad as it sounds. Yes, it certainly happens and it sucks for the
good person that it happens to. But managers like that don't last very long.

When you get let go, they ask in the exit interview if you were warned, if
your manager gave you any feedback leading up to it, etc. And then they follow
up if the person says, "it was a total shock". I've definitely seen managers
make some bad firing decisions, but they were let go soon afterwards. Word
gets around quickly to their manager that they let go someone who was a strong
contributor.

~~~
HarryHirsch
_When you get let go, they ask in the exit interview if you were warned_

Why would anyone give any kind of useful information in the exit interview?
The only one who benefits is the company, they need to cover their back in
case a suit over harassment comes up. If anyone wants revenge over poor
management, keep silent, let the fellow continue to lose the company money and
set them up for a lawsuit.

HR is not on your side. The company is not on your side. The union would be,
but in software we can't have that.

~~~
jedberg
That's a very cynical view. While the company may not be on your side, helping
your coworkers by proving feedback about bad management is a good thing.

Also, why would you want the company to fail? Just because they have one bad
manager? My friends still work there, and if you have stock options, you even
have a financial interest in the continued success of the company.

I see no downside in providing truthful feedback during an exit interview.
Sure, it won't help you, but it helps everyone else that's still there.

~~~
iainmerrick
The context being described is one in which you were just sacked at the whim
of a manager. Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview
to ask if it came as a surprise? Maybe they’re going to act in that
information somehow, perhaps sacking that manager if it’s part of a pattern of
poor decisions, but they’re not planning on doing anything to help _you
personally,_ like overturning the dismissal.

Maybe you’re inclined to help them out just to be a good person, and that’s
fine; but I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to do that.

~~~
jedberg
> Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview to ask if it
> came as a surprise?

When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of
the decision.

The process is you get a meeting invite for a 1 on 1 with your manager. They
come in, tell you that you're getting let go and why, and then invite HR to
come in. They then leave and HR goes over the paperwork and asks you about if
you expected it. If you were a poor performer, then it's most likely not your
first meeting with HR.

I'm not sure when else they would ask.

~~~
solarengineer
" I'm not sure when else they would ask"'

Perhaps have the manager give their decision making and their inputs in
writing, have the employee review these and provide a response. After all, if
the employee were good enough to have lasted six years under the scrutiny of
other good peers, then a sudden firing needs investigation. That's how it is
done at other places where people are valued.

This entire thread reminded me of the callous attitude toward firing shown in
the movie "Margin Call". Is it all related to American culture that the rest
of us don't understand?

~~~
jedberg
You will never ever get a reason for being fired in writing here in the US
because all that does is provide evidence for a possible lawsuit.

> Is it all related to American culture that the rest of us don't understand?

In part, yes. Here in the US we don't really have worker protections. Many
believe it is because of this that we have such a strong growth in business.

It objectively makes our economy more nimble and adaptable, but at the expense
of employees.

A perfect example: I worked at a startup in 2000, and we had a bunch of people
in the US as well as Europe. When business was down and we had to lay people
off, we ended up laying off engineers in the US, because we couldn't get rid
of any of the people in Europe quickly enough. We had to pay people for months
before they were let go, and they didn't even show up to work. It was great
for them, but it was bad for the company and also bad for our growth since we
had to pay people to do literally nothing.

To be clear, I think workers need greater protections. But those protections
should not be at the direct expense of the company. It should be indirectly
through taxation.

But to get back to your question, yes, here in the US, workers are not treated
as well as elsewhere. Entrepreneurs and businesses are seen as the drivers of
the economy, not the workers.

------
crazygringo
The flip side of this is, if you want to sink someone's career, badmouth them
to their manager.

Having worked at many companies, I've observed how shockingly easy it is for a
manager's assessment of their reports to be colored by "hearsay" whether good
or bad.

I once had several members of another team who deeply disgreed with a product
decision I'd made complain to my manager that I was being uncooperative, not a
team player, etc. To avoid getting fired, I had to ask a bunch of members of
various other teams to (honestly) tell my manager what a good job I was doing.
Which worked -- according to him I'd really "turned things around" in the
space of just a couple weeks (!). In the end it was 100% political, a bad
manager who had no idea how to actually assess my work for what it was and so
relied entirely on what he was "hearing", and I quit as soon as I could for a
better job.

So yes, tell someone's manager when they're doing a great job. But it sucks
that we have to rely on this stuff at all, rather than managers who can
actually assess your work directly.

~~~
jmchuster
I would also add that it's important to always be communicating with your
manager and building that trust. You need to make sure that their initial
reaction to any negative hearsay should be that the other party is then in
fact bad and uninformed.

Maybe it helps people to think of their manager/work as being analogous to a
startup product? You build an awesome product, but then spend zero budget on
sales and marketing, and are then super-sad that you're not magically growing
up and to the right.

~~~
rocqua
Many people choose jobs over a startup to not have to do marketing

------
cmrdporcupine
Google has a culture of internal peer bonuses and kudos, which in some ways is
great and meant to help with this kind of thing... except that it also leads
to an internal culture of "congrats!" and "thank you for your amazing work!"
centi-threads which often overlook other contributors on a project, or are
used strategically by overly political managers to boost their own reports and
projects and gain corporate visibility for them.

Lost in this is just the work ethic of doing incremental non-glamorous work
and managers and people around you _doing their job_ by recognizing it. Many
corporate perf processes, peer bonuses, and so on simply smudge this over, and
they indirectly or directly encourage _fame seeking behaviour_ which is in my
opinion the most corrosive thing to a company's long term performance and
bottom line.

~~~
moab
Not my experience of Google, at least having worked there as an intern
multiple times. All of the peer bonuses on our teams and affiliated teams have
been for people going out of their way to help out with some project even if
it was not part of their day-to-day work. I can only speak for the research-y
side of Google, which in my experience seems to avoid most of these problems
probably due to having managers that also do research and write papers. Having
a separate academic status system other than your internal work position
probably helps in this regard.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
It's true peer bonuses in particular seem to be mainly reponsibly used.
Probably because there's $$ and an accounting chain attached to them.

But just last week I watched the hard work of a coworker get completely bowled
over by another manager's "congrats on amazing work" email chain to someone
else who used the work of my coworker without recognition.

~~~
moab
That's really unfortunate. I agree that the $$$ and accounting help make sure
the system is not abused in the usual case. Unfortunately jerks are
unavoidable, and even if the manager knew the true story they could ignore it
to emphasize the contributions of their own reports.

It's hard to imagine a promo system that rewards hard work, where feedback
comes from ones peers, and only promotes a fixed number of people where these
kind of zero-sum issues don't appear.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Unfortunately I don't think it's a case of jerks vs not-jerks. Many years at a
BigCorp has underlined to me now that the ethics and "professional economy" of
working in one is entirely different than SmallCorp.

SmallCorp you all work for the bottom line or company goes bust. That acts as
a damper on empire builders who build for their own sake, though there is
still that behavior.

BigCorp it's unlikely your contributions are going to impact much of that kind
of thing, even if you're up in senior management. So you're there for your
Career(tm) first, company $$ success second. And in fact that is directly
promoted through Perf, etc.

So the aggregate behavior of individuals is not only to self-promote but to
encourage the self-promotions of others, that's how we get ahead by the
measures defined as "getting ahead" by the company: internal promotion,
project glory, internal and external speaking engagements and publications
about your project, etc.

So a 100 person "congrats" and "that's amazing!" email (or its equivalent on
LinkedIn) or whatever is just reasonable professional behavior. You're not a
jerk for promoting yourself, you're just doing what is expected of you. The
professional behavior of the modest but "plug along and do my job and help out
and not self-promote" person is the one that's suspect in this scenario. The
company _wants_ you to self-promote.

~~~
joshuamorton
This is so strange. I feel weird enough telling people to send me a gThanks
when they _ask_ what the best way to recognize me for something is, doing it
unsolicited is just crazy.

------
AceyMan
I worked for the airlines (first career) and for public-facing employees it
was a big deal if you got a 'good letter' from a customer. (It was equally
suck if you happened to get a bad one...).

We also could file 'thank you / attaboy' paperwork for our colleagues, both in
our own department or ones we interacted with. Those were just as valuable (if
not more) than ones from the customers.

Over the years (11) during my employment there I received a couple of good
letters, and they were recognized by the management in a very sincere way.

To this day of & when I have an extraordinary collaboration with someone in
the corporation I'll take the time to write a thank you letter to their
manager.

It's just a great practice that harkens back to the old adage, "there's
nothing better than a nice handwritten thank you card." Since I'm in
management, it serves as a nice means to to move the needle for a colleague in
the eyes of the company.

~~~
duxup
Ages ago when I did basic PC support we had a "attaboy" system.

The thing about it was nobody liked it because attaboys were random. They had
nothing to do with doing a good job or anything, they showed up randomly.

Most of the time "attaboys" showed up for doing the absolute most basic thing
that is part of the job. You do it every day... but randomly an "attaboy"
shows up, because by the roll of the dice you helped a nice person, that's it.

In the meantime if you went the extra mile for someone, never would any sort
of attaboy would show up. In fact you might even get complaints from those
folks.

For the support team watching some manager trot out an "attaboy" for no
apparent reason as if it was a merit type thing was kinda demoralizing.

~~~
vidarh
It can be extremely demoralising for co-workers in all kinds of roles when
they see that kind of recognition being given to someone who they feel don't
deserve it.

Personally I think it's risky to acknowledge these kind of things in front of
a team for that reason unless it's better quantified. I've personally as well
been in situations where

I've been outright resentful because the recognition of someone I knew was
doing a bad job made it clear we could not expect recognition based on merits,
and so what was the point of putting in the effort?

~~~
BurningFrog
> _It can be extremely demoralising for co-workers in all kinds of roles when
> they see that kind of recognition being given to someone who they feel don
> 't deserve it._

This is why wages are secret. Everyone is convinced they deserve to be in the
top half of earners.

~~~
meej
Businesses want wages to be secret and may even adopt policies that ban
employees from discussing it, but in the U.S. employees' rights to discuss pay
amongst themselves are protected under the NLRA.

[https://www.insperity.com/blog/when-employees-discuss-
wages/](https://www.insperity.com/blog/when-employees-discuss-wages/)

------
jkubrynski
From my experience, especially in big companies (but not only) most of the
feedback is negative. People are not sharing positive feedback, and when they
contact your manager it's usually an escalation process. That's why it's so
important to reach to people who support you or simply create a content you
like (blog posts, webinars, etc) and say: "thanks, I found a lot of value
here".

~~~
jedimastert
> That's why it's so important to reach to people who support you or simply
> create a content you like (blog posts, webinars, etc) and say: "thanks, I
> found a lot of value here".

I've been trying to start up a blog this year (three posts in 7 months, woo!)
and someone recently contacted me to tell me that my RSS feed was down and
they didn't want to miss the next post. It carried me into the next week it
meant so much.

~~~
teachrdan
I had a radio show in college (low power station, small college town) and a
friend of a friend told me that, when he listened to the show while delivering
pizza, he'd sprint to and from the customer's door so he could get as much of
the show as possible. This was about the highest praise I could think of.

------
GEBBL
I hate the fact that in my current role, I am expected to give my colleagues
‘constructive feedback’.

It seems like a minefield , when I am trying to focus on my own role, that I
have to negotiate the feelings of a colleague as I leave feedback on them. I’d
prefer to leave only positive feedback, but what my boss wants is that I need
to find an improvement that my colleague has to make. I don’t like it.

~~~
parliament32
I've found PRP to be a godsend when you're expected to give "feedback". PRP is
praise-reprimand-praise: so construct your comment where your negative
feedback is sandwiched between two positive feedback items. People respond
well to it.

~~~
gfody
ah the shit sandwich, I trust you're joking ;)

~~~
parliament32
If you're having a bad time with PRP you're just trash at implementing it. PRP
doesn't mean you should literally "Good job on X. You fucked up on Y. Also
good job on Z." \-- you still need to have some human interaction skills. But
in general, your feedback (whether it's a conversation or an email or a
comment on a PR) should follow the general guidelines for what order to
present things in.

~~~
gowld
You raise an interesting point.

Your comment failed at PRP.

You showed how difficult giving criticism is.

~~~
oblio
Kudos to you, my kind interlocutor.

At first I found your haiku hard to parse.

But in the end I was enlightened by it.

------
ravenstine
While I really like the sentiment, I think there's a reason why people
naturally don't provide much positive feedback about individuals at
workplaces.

What do you really get by pointing out the good work of a coworker? A warm
fuzzy feeling, to be sure. Maybe greater comradeship. But wait, who's the next
person to get a promotion? Maybe it'll be the person you keep praising to
management. So you'll probably have to work smarter/harder to get that same
praise, hence the same chances at promotion. But you don't want to work that
much harder; you're already working hard enough as it is. But that 5% raise
and that "senior" title look pretty shiny. <one year later> Hey, how come
nobody has been recognizing you for your good work? Meanwhile that coworker
you've been praising is now _your boss_!

~~~
booleandilemma
This is why I believe the best path to promotion is simply to quit and find a
company that will give you the title you want.

I'm not the kind of person that gets promoted, for whatever reasons, so I've
been moving up by moving sideways. It sucks, but it is what it is.

------
benlumen
While we're at it - when someone you manage does great work - tell _your_
manager.

I do this out of professional decency, not social justice (angle of the
article).

~~~
KitDuncan
Just in general say thank you more often. It helps a lot with team morale.

~~~
freehunter
This is something I’ve struggled with over the years, ever since I started as
an engineer. I want the problem solved and when it’s solved we move on to the
next one. No chit chat, no feelings, just get the work done. It really helped
that at the beginning of my career I was on a brand new team and we were
defining how to solve these problems. There was no one more senior or more
knowledgeable to ask.

As I became more senior and had junior employees working alongside me, I could
see how quickly they would get frustrated when they couldn’t perform at my
level. They’d be stuck for days until they ask me for help, and I’d solve the
problem in 5 minutes and for a couple of our new guys, that crushed them.
Absolutely destroyed their morale.

So I read a few books on emotional intelligence and social interactions and
started explicitly saying when someone was doing something right, or calling
out where they did their job well while fixing the place where they made a
mistake. When someone helps me, I now say “thank you, I appreciate your help”.

It’s night and day. Junior employees wanted to work with me before I did that
because they want to learn from me, but now they actually _like_ working with
me. I don’t heap on praise and I don’t give praise when it’s not deserved, but
when someone legitimately does something right or helps me (no matter how
small), I actively tell them with words that I appreciate their help and that
they did good work.

It’s the absolute least I can do but it makes a world of difference for people
just starting out when a senior staff member compliments their work.

------
awillen
I've always been a big believer that during review time, people should be able
to choose others they've worked with to review. It need not be a full on
performance review, but at least provide the opportunity to provide documented
feedback to their boss.

I've worked with people from other departments who were both awful and
wonderful, and if their bosses didn't include me in their set of peer
reviewers, I couldn't highlight that. I think my cross-departmental peer
review would've been much more valuable than some of my reviews of some of my
teammates, since my boss already had a pretty good idea of how we work
together.

~~~
eythian
That is how it works at my workplace, you choose who you get feedback from
that is presented to your manager. Usually you choose your team and a couple
of people you've worked closely with outside the team.

~~~
giantg2
We have that choice too. It might make an impact, but I see the politics and
the manager's opinion to be way more important.

------
booleandilemma
I can relate. I've received many slack DMs from my peers telling me how great
I'm doing on such-and-such project, and I'm grateful for their compliments,
but at the end of the day, it does nothing for me, they're just empty words.
My manager is left in the dark about what I'm doing.

~~~
cosmie
> My manager is left in the dark about what I'm doing.

Then loop your manager in. I work for a marketing agency primarily doing
consulting work, and operate semi-autonomously from my manager. For the
clients and accounts I support, I am the face of my group. A client may not
even know my manager's name, unless there's been cause for someone with a
fancier title than mine to make an appearance. And account teams may have
found their way to me directly rather than routing through my boss, so have no
working relationship with him.

If I get a kudos via email, I either BCC him on my reply, or forward it to him
as an fyi. If it's given verbally, I thank the person giving it, and let them
know how much I'd appreciate if they could jot that down in writing and send
it over. If it came through something like a Slack DM, I'd either screenshot
it for something minor and pass that along or again express my appreciation
and call out how much it'd mean if they could throw that into an email.

I've never had anyone balk at or refuse to do the above. If someone has taken
the time to give you kudos for your work, they're usually appreciative enough
with what you're doing that they are perfectly happy to put it in an email for
you if prompted. And more often than not, the writeup that comes through talks
you up far more than the informal shout out they originally made, as they're
well aware of why you're asking for it.

------
wittyreference
In my medical training, I had precisely one patient reach out to hospital
leadership to commend my care of them. It was really appreciated - I like to
think that patients appreciate when they're treated kindly and well taken care
of, but it seems that's taken for granted. I didn't so much care for the
official recognition as just knowing that the patient was actually touched by
the trouble and feeling I put into looking after them.

~~~
tomca32
Makes sense it's taken for granted since health care is expensive as hell so
people expect the service to be good if they pay for it.

~~~
wittyreference
Thing is, two points:

1) You can pay for plenty of shit, but you can't pay for human feeling.

2) A tiny fraction of that money ends up in the pockets of people actually
providing care - most of it ends up with pharma, device manufacturers, PBMs,
and other middle-men. You can expect whatever great service you want for your
money, but it doesn't work when that money isn't going to the people providing
the service.

------
splatcollision
You should do this in general public situations where possible too: Got great
service at a restaurant or store? Ask to talk to their manager. When their
manager comes over, complement the person who was awesome!

My wife does this regularly and it's always amazing to see people's faces drop
at the first manager request, then shine when they realize what's going on :)

------
bpyne
She brought up an interesting point: asking your colleague if (s)he wants
recognition.

Sending recognition is usually a decision made in the moment. Asking
permission makes a process out of it. Having a process reduces your motivation
to send recognition.

Her five reasons are spot on. But I'd like to add that people should
understand their work environments and the politics involved. It's easier with
small to small-medium sized organizations where you know all or most of the
managers and their quirks and know the politics at work.

My environment is small-medium. Part of what we're judged on is helping
colleagues. The managers are all onboard with it. When a colleague from the
Unix admin team went out of his way to help my team I didn't hesitate to send
his manager a message in praise of the effort. Getting a colleague in trouble
for taking time out of assigned work is not an issue.

------
lkrubner
This should be a monthly census: it needs to be automatic. If you're the
manager of a company and you are relying on people to say something about
their co-workers, then you will miss most of the information that you could be
capturing, and you will get highly biased impression of your workforce,
because only a certain type of person will come forward to praise their co-
worker.

There are various voting systems that work well, but the easiest is something
like "Every month, list 3 of your co-workers who did something impressive."

This avoids the many problems with something like the stack-rank system that
Microsoft was committed to, for too many years. In that system, workers were
forced to list their co-workers, not just as "good", but also a certain
percentage had to belong to the "bad" group, the lowest 30%. Most workers do
not want to attack their fellow workers this way.

You can get all the information you need by simply letting your workers upvote
each other. You should ration the upvotes so that they are meaningful. On a
small team, perhaps people get 1 or 2 votes, in a big company, perhaps they
got 5 or 6 votes. If you make the votes a scarce resource, you get better
accuracy: people think carefully about who they should upvote.

There will be some workers who never get upvoted by anyone. These are bad
workers. There will also be some workers who get very few votes, or who only
get votes from "rings" they've formed with other workers, where they vote for
each other. These are suspect workers.

In all cases you'll want to apply something like the Google PageRank algorithm
to the upvotes. That is, an upvote from someone who is themself highly upvoted
should matter more than an upvote from someone who rarely gets upvoted.

I would not ban people from the article's main idea "When your coworker does
great work, tell their manager" however, keep in mind, if you are the manager
or CTO or CEO, you need to ensure there is also a system in place that is more
automatic than simply waiting for people to talk about their co-workers.

~~~
T-hawk
Wouldn't co-worker upvotes lead to workers prioritizing their output for what
attracts upvotes rather than what the company needs to get done?

You'd get a team constantly making tools for each other and no sellable
product.

~~~
csharptwdec19
Yes.

It's almost a reflection of 'Golden Parachute CEO' behavior: There's an
implicit benefit to making decisions that have 'good optics' at the moment
even if it takes you down a road you'll regret.

Seen this a LOT with 'buy/build' decisions almost everywhere I've worked. The
cost savings look great up front, but by the time you've added all your custom
bits, you're hitting things like API limits (either in surface or billing) and
having to shell out, or building so much boilerplate to get around the limits
you may as well have built it yourself.

But hey, it saved X$ the first year, who cares if it costs more the next 5 to
maintain?

------
mementomori
I am torn between the zero-sum and "abundance" concepts. It seems like some
people like to promote the "abundance" concept (where one person's gain adds
to everyone else) as an ideal but in reality I have only ever seen zero-sum
results in terms of job acquisition and career advancement. There is a fixed
number of slots and you need to eliminate others in order to obtain it.

------
grogenaut
Whenever I help someone out and they say "how can I thank you" I just say "let
my manager know I was helpful".

------
m0zg
And as a (former) manager: when your reports are doing great work, make sure
to publicly praise them, as well as give people opportunity to beat their own
chest and roar. Shipped a cool feature? Present a few slides at the weekly
team meeting, explain why it's cool. This won't happen unless you encourage it
and set aside the time. I don't see nearly enough of this, and I think it's a
shame - it makes people feel good about what they do, feel that their work not
a waste of time. It also engenders pride in good work and implicitly shines a
light on poor performers.

As far as telling people's managers about good work, that is helpful of
course. But I feel like there's this misconception among non-managers that
managers don't already know who's great and who's not. As a manager who pays
any attention at all this is clear as a day most of the time.

------
OliverJones
This article's top line is really good advice. But, with respect, the author
is overthinking it just a little.

When somebody helps me out, I say to their manager, "when you get a chance
please tell them I'm grateful for their good work."

Was it their distinguished expertise that made it possible for them to help
me? Was it a spirit of collegiality? From my perspective, I don't care when I
thank them. They did me a favor, I'm happy, I'm grateful.

Give and Take is a book by Adam Grant on this part of the workplace.
[https://www.worldcat.org/title/give-and-take-the-
revolutiona...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/give-and-take-the-
revolutionary-worldview-that-drives-success/oclc/859568885)

------
luckydata
Whenever someone says something nice about my work I ask them “can I have that
in writing?”. Then I go onto explaining that if they liked what I’ve done, by
supporting me they can get more. It’s annoying that we have to do that in the
workplace but it works.

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welcome_dragon
We use TINYPulse ([https://www.tinypulse.com/](https://www.tinypulse.com/))
for this very reason at my work; it takes about 10 seconds to send someone a
shout out, and not only does their manager see it, but everyone in the company
does (we're a small startup).

If I notice that someone has really killed it in something but has no
recognition at all for it, I will also/instead point out to that person's
manager, especially if it is a junior engineer

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modernerd
The company I work at uses [https://www.15five.com/](https://www.15five.com/)
for reviews and 1-on-1s. It has a “High Five” feature to recognise big or
small things anyone in the company has done to help.

It's low friction and it works well. They hook it up to a Slack channel for a
steady stream of positivity, and its read by senior execs and mentioned during
reviews.

More companies should make this part of their company culture via tools that
make it easy and common.

------
akavel
At a company I joined recently (WPEngine), there's an app called 15five
deployed internally, where every 2 weeks we're encouraged to single out some
coworkers with "high fives", thanking them for whatever we want. Those are
then visible to us and our managers (and by default are also shared publicly
in a special purpose chatroom). I am really impressed that this is
systematically implemented and encouraged throughout the whole company!

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xivzgrev
This is the biggest benefit of 15five. You can give a high five to anyone for
exactly this - work that usually would go unrecognized but furthers the
company’s goals

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pgnas
I completely agree with the idea of paying a compliment to someones supervisor
or manager, I find it rare when people recognize great work. While I agree
also with why you may want to ask the manager and the issues makes some sense
, I think it goes a long way! Just to call them out on the great work!

I genuinely believe that this attitude promotes positive environments. Great
work _always_ deserves to be recognized. Good article

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skapadia
There should be a systematic way to collect and periodically highlight
accomplishments and those who contributed to those (quarterly, monthly). A
lead should be able to produce that information (with input from the team, all
in one room face to face), and it should be published in a common place (where
everyone else has read-only rights, or changes can be tracked) for managers
and higher-ups to see.

~~~
twodave
I think I'm going to disagree with this. I've seen lots of these systems
foisted upon employees and the general result is people either try to game the
system or else people feel forced into participating when they don't wish to.
Praise ought to be both spontaneous and merited or else it loses a bit of its
appeal in my opinion.

Thanks to this article (which I didn't even read), I was inspired to write
something heartfelt to my own manager about another person on my team. No
system would have pried that from me. I just needed a subtle reminder.

------
kjgkjhfkjf
You may think you're communicating friendly appreciation when you send a
complementary message about someone to their manager with them cc-ed, but the
message that you're also sending is that you're the sort of person who thinks
it's okay to talk to people's managers about them, and you run a very real
risk of losing your peers' trust.

------
tehlike
I have made a good habit of sending a person's manager "xyz did a great job,
in such such such way, and this had the impact of abc". I try not to do it
often, mostly if i think someone has gone above and beyond. Also mention it to
my manager if it's appropriate as people should be recognized - they also make
good allys for future work.

------
tylergetsay
I worked at a retail store when I was a tiny 16 year old, I got a ton of NPS
surveys by telling people I got a pizza party if I got enough of them. It
worked crazy well, I quickly became top in the company for NPS. It was
hilarious watching my older coworkers attempt to pull it off and fail.

------
mwfunk
Since this is like an inverse Karen move, perhaps anti-Karens should formally
be known as Julies.

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vernie
Julia Evans is a font of good vibes.

~~~
ape4
Tell her manager (after checking first)

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yomly
I think showing awareness of your peers is a positive signal to a good manager
in any case so it positively impacts you beyond just good karma

Anyone who really buys into "team" will value someone who is actually looking
out for their team.

------
known
And protect yourself from Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and
deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of
remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others)

------
6510
Also, don't do this unless you have some idea how others compare to him. There
is nothing as silly as an uninformed person praising the least productive
member of a group.

------
tannerbrockwell
I have refused to perform 360's in the past.

They are usually semi-anonymous though and no one really noticed. I think that
we should be careful of inculcating such a culture. It can support and enforce
clique's at work. It also as a deliverable, leans fairly hard on your co-
workers. Why should we build a system that essentially delivers pre-digested
content for management?

tl;dr: "Overall: a lot of people (for very good reasons!) want to have control
over the kind of feedback their manager hears about them." exactly!

It also could become a Vanity Metric, and this doesn't help anyone. [1]

[1]: [https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/vanity-
metrics/](https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/vanity-metrics/)

------
fblp
I feel like the main point should be "if your coworker does great work, tell
them". Be curious, see if they have feedback through you, see how they'd like
to be recognized.

That step is often missed. People are often resistant to providing direct
feedback - yet that is also how the strongest bonds are made.

The more a manager acts as an intermediary, the less direct emotional (and
consequently professional) relationships are.

~~~
price
You may not have read the article. It says to tell the coworker first. There
is no question of a manager acting as an intermediary.

The point of telling the manager is to help the coworker get their next raise
or promotion, not for the manager to be the one to tell them.

~~~
fblp
Hey thank you I could have been more clear, intermediary is the wrong word and
thank you for showing me that. I did read the article, and I can't see where
it says "tell them". I do see the bold heading "ask if it’s ok first".

"Hey is it ok if I tell your manager you're doing a great job?" Is a lot more
indirect than "Hey, I think you're doing a great job" and pausing for a
response and having a conversation about it.

------
artur_makly
speaking of employee analytics i just came across this:
[https://www.myleon.co/](https://www.myleon.co/) is it just me.. or once we
start adding "Ai" to human relations/performance.. i get nervous

------
kentbrew
Pay special attention to the reasons the author gives under "ask if it's okay
first."

------
holidayacct
I would be careful abour this one, some managers do everything they can to get
rid of exemplary employees. If you're going to this make it as public as
possible and make sure you have sound reasoning for why you are singing the
praises of your co-worker. Include managers as close to the top of the
organization as possible as well.

------
da39a3ee
It's a good thing to do. I don't agree with the first point about asking
first. Ask if you like; if not don't ask. It's up to you. I'm afraid that yet
again I put this down to the modern cultural schism among people who would
describe themselves as liberals, with those on the progressive left adopting
extremes of sensitivity that I find over the top. Specifically, I disagree
with her points as follows:

 _1\. Giving someone a compliment that’s not in line with their current
goals._

Try to judge that yourself. But your coworker has no control over what others
say; one of the risks in life, somewhere fairly low down in a list with many
elements, is the risk that a coworker will compliment you for something that's
not in line with your goals. Deal with it.

 _2\. Giving someone the wrong “level” of compliment. For example, if they’re
a very senior engineer and you say something like “PERSON did
SIMPLE_ROUTINE_TASK really well!”_

That will make you look silly, not them.

 _3\. If your coworker was supposed to be focusing on a specific project, and
you’re complimenting them for helping with something totally unrelated, their
manager might think that they’re not focusing on their “real” work._

Make it one of your aims to have the sense to get that right.

 _4.Some people have terrible managers (for example, maybe the manager will
feel threatened by your coworker excelling)_

Make it one of your aims to have the sense to get that right.

 _5\. Some people just don’t like being called out in that way, and are happy
with the level of recognition they’re getting!_

Bad luck; they don't control what others do.

------
Apofis
Don't let them get the best of you!

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chris_wot
Bugger. I think I messed up at least once by not asking. This is good advise!

------
ranman
What about when they don’t do great work?

------
sabujp
geeethanks

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paulie_a
This sort of thing when genuine don't makes you a good person. A person with
character.

The type of person you want and should be around.

