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PART SIX
How to Differentiate
the Power of P raise
from the Folly of
Flat tery
Kids are experts at getting what they want. Perched on Papa’s knee,
“Oh Daddy, you’re so wunnerful. I know you’ll buy me that new
doll.” The next morning, with Mama in the supermarket, “Oh
Mommy, I love you. You’re the most bestest mommy in the world.
I know you’ll buy me that chocolate munchie.”
From the hungry infant’s instinctive cooing as Mommy
approaches the crib to the car salesman’s calculated praise as the
prospect walks into the showroom, compliments come naturally
to people when they want something from somebody. In fact,
compliments are the most widely used and thoroughly endorsed
of all getting-what-you-want techniques. When Dale Carnegie
wrote “Begin with praise,” fifteen million readers took it to heart.
Most of us still think praise is the path to extracting what we want
from someone.
And yes, if it’s as simple as dolls from daddy and munchies
from mommy, it may be. But the business world has changed
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Copyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.
dramatically since Dale Carnegie’s day. In today’s world, not every
smiling flatterer has the power to procure through praise.
The Malaise of Unskilled Praise
You give someone a compliment. You smile, waiting to see the
warm feelings engulf the recipient. You may have to wait a long
time.
If he or she has a speck of suspicion your praise is self-serving,
it has the opposite effect. If your compliment is insincere or
unskilled, it can wreck your chances of ever being trusted by that
person again. It can abort a potential relationship before it ever gets
off the runway.
However, skilled praise is a different story. When done well,
it gives the relationship immediate liftoff. It can make a sale, win
a new friend, or rejuvenate a marriage on a golden anniversary.
What is the difference between praise that lifts and flattery
that flattens? Many factors enter the equation. They include your
sincerity, timing, motivation, and wording. They also involve the
recipient’s self-image, professional position, experience with com-
pliments, and judgment of your powers of perception. Of course
it entails the relationship between the two of you and how long
you have known each other. If you’re complimenting someone
by phone, E-mail, or snail mail, it even involves subtleties such
as whether you’ve ever seen his or face, either in person or a
photograph.
Mind boggling, isn’t it? Sociologists’ research shows: 1) a com-
pliment from a new person is more potent than from someone you
already know, 2) your compliment has more credibility when given
to an unattractive person or an attractive person whose face you’ve
never seen, 3) you are taken more seriously if you preface your
comments by some self-effacing remark—but only if your listener
perceives you as higher on the totem pole. If you’re lower, your
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How to Talk to Anyone
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self-effacing remark reduces your credibility. Complicated, this
complimenting stuff.
Rather than dizzying ourselves with the surfeit of specific
studies, let’s just put some terrific techniques in our little bag of
tricks. Each of the following meets all the criteria of social scien-
tists’ findings. Here are nine effective ways to praise in the new
millennium.
How to Differentiate the Power of Praise from the Folly of Flattery
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The risk in giving a compliment face-to-face is, of course, that the
distrustful recipient will assume you are indulging in shameless,
obsequious pandering to achieve your own greedy goals.
It’s a sad reality about compliments. If you lay a big one out
of the blue on your boss, your prospect, or your sweetie, the recip-
ient will probably think you’re brownnosing. Your main squeeze
will assume you’re suffering guilt over something you’ve done. So
what’s the solution? Hold back your sincere esteem?
No, simply deliver it through the grapevine. The grapevine
has long been a trusted means of communication. From the days
when Catskills comics insisted the best ways to spread news were
“telephone, telegraph, and tell-a-woman,” we have known it works.
Unfortunately the grapevine is most often associated with bad
news, the kind that goes in one ear and over the back fence. But
the grapevine need not be laden only with scuttlebutt and sour
grapes. Good news can travel through the same filament. And
when it arrives in the recipient’s ear, it is all the more delectable.
This is not a new discovery. Back in 1732, Thomas Fuller wrote,
“He’s my friend that speaks well of me behind my back.” We’re
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How to Compliment
Someone (Without
Sounding Like You’re
Brownnosing)
✰
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Copyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.
more apt to trust someone who says nice things about us when we
aren’t listening than someone who flatters us to our face.
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