I Just Want To Praise You!

How good does it feel when someone notices you've done a good job on something? When you hear those words "Well done for...!" and you know all the effort was worthwhile?

Hey, most people don't mind getting a bit of praise now and then. Consider how praise gives us energy to persevere. To succeed. To excel.

(Well done for reading this far by the way).

Being praised is one of those profoundly normal human needs, along with chocolate and sleep. Not necessarily in that order. Praise is - according to psychologist and author Stephen Biddulph - especially vital for boys. And I think it's necessary for girls too - with a tweek.

But. (There's that word). But...sometimes praise doesn't do it's job. Sometimes it ricochets off the edge of the target, like aiming waste paper at the bin and it hits the rim and, oh, you get the idea.

So - here are THREE HANDY THINGS to understand about praise. How to get it "in".

1. Praise specifically

General praise is a nuisance - like a plastic bag twitching in the air on a blustery day. For praise to be effective you have to get a hold of it and put some content in it. Notice the difference between a teacher saying "You did really well today" and "You did really well at sitting still and asking questions today". Get rid of the ambiguity. Make it so that next time the person knows what to do - precisely.

But don't list too many things. Praising 47 specific things might send them to sleep.

2. Praise process, not just result

Put aside the skewiff obsession with grades and results. Process matters. 'How' not just 'What'. Understanding 'how' builds capacity and resilience for the future. Prof. Carol Dweck from Stanford University has written some fab stuff about 'Fixed' vs. 'Growth' mindset in a book called - wait for it - "Mindset".

A quick story:

I watched my 5 year old daughter swimming the other day. When it came to her doing front crawl I thought she had turned into an octopus. Arms and legs were all over the place. Olympic-material for 2028 she certainly wasn't. And yet I could see the sheer almost-tear-filled determination in her eyes as she looked over at me.

As if to say "Daddy - how did I do?"

My 'bigtime thumbs up' from the parents' viewing gallery was for her awesome effort. Not for looking like a sea creature from the deep. Truth is, we can only steer something that's moving and praise keeps people moving. Even if they look like an octopus for a while.

(Hey, well done for picturing an octopus just then).

Praising the process - "I can see you're working hard" helps people nurture a mindset of 'I can get better at this' and avoid the binary mindset of 'Am I good at this or not?' Thinking in terms of 'Success/Failure' is at the brink of many problems.

3. Praise the person in front of you

Back to the boy/girl thing. Let me suggest a generalisation that's often (not-always-but-often) true. Boys usually prefer 'Deadpan Praise' and girls usually prefer 'Energetic praise'.
More true is that quieter personalities - introverts let's say - receive praise easier if it's delivered quieter, with care. More gregarious folks - extroverts - receive praise more readily if it's got some oomph, emotion and high five-ness about it.

Put it to the test. Notice what happens. Adjust.

One thing is for sure. We all live in the same room, the 'room for improvement' and it's the biggest room in the world. Life is far more fun - and easier - when we fill that room with the sound of praise.

Imagine that.

Mind The Gap

Was This Slave Labour?

Cast your mind back. Do you remember ‘Bob A Job’?

If you were a Boy Cub or Scout then you may recall that special week in the year when you were given permission to go and make your ‘million dollars’ in the community. You could knock on doors down your street and offer to cut lawns, shine shoes, clean toilets… in your scouting uniform, and then when the job was done just put your hand out… and happily receive a bit of cash.

I remember potting up plants with my older brother, for 3-4 hours on a baking afternoon out the back of a huge house. For a quid. A whole one pound. Slave labour? No, I loved it. The look and feel of that hard-earned pound was awesome.

Something For Nothing

Wind the clock forward a few years and I vividly recall the first house I went to as a volunteer helper with a charity called ACET (Aids Care Education and Training).

I had successfully navigated the buses of North London, knocked on the door of the given address and waited. And…waited. I checked the scrap of paper with the address. When the door eventually opened, the stick thin man – who I had already been told was HIV+, looked at me and clearly his idea of a cleaner was something very very different to me.

I clocked the look of Disappointment.

But I vacuumed. Boy, did I vacuum clean that house. I ironed shirts (badly, but not badly-on-purpose which is a different matter), I disinfected his bathroom and I generally kept myself busy for hours. The reason was that I was a bit scared. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of ‘paraphernalia’ someone this unwell would have in the house. He didn’t talk to me, but that didn’t matter. I was there to serve. Simple.

The man is dead now but the memory of that house lives on. For one profound reason – the joy of doing something for somebody for nothing. Call it volunteering, call it giving, call it learning how to clean. There was sheer joy in the process.

Mind The Gap

My point in mentioning these experiences?

Well, a member of staff said to me in a school this week, quite seriously:

‘School’s the last place you want to come if you want to learn something’.

While it’s not entirely true, we could all have a good poke at the national curriculum for irrelevancy. I agree it needs a bit of a shake. A really good firm shake to be fair. My criticism is not at teachers, of whom I know many and they are some of the most generous, dedicated, striving-for-excellence people I know. Some of them I count amongst my heroes.

Yes of course it is a farce that the government are seeking to scrap work related learning, against the vast backdrop of evidence of Young Enterprise and the Institute for Education and Business Excellence (IEBE) amongst others.

Where in the curriculum for every child between the ages of 11-16 are those Bob-A-Job experiences where they are given permission and support (not just for two weeks) to create, invent and make money?

A National Gift


Our nation’s gift is entrepreneurialism. The world needs us to take that gift seriously and make our contribution. Until we do, the economy will stumble and poverty and disease will accelerate.

Yes, I DO mind the gap between academia and real life issues. I really mind it.

Schools should be a greenhouse for finding solutions for the world’s problems, a platform for learning how to cope and thrive, a safe place to experiment, a chance to learn about money and business and stewardship and contribution. Given the amount of hours spent in adult life engaged in business of some kind, how come the word business is so little talked about?

A New Curricular Proposal

So here’s my tongue-in-cheek proposal for the new national curriculum for 2013 or whenever it gets hit with the ‘Refresh’ button.

1.    Less Science. Oh come on, there's far too much of it.

2.    Everyone in Key Stage 4 gets a Business Mentor from the local community with chances to go and visit different businesses (not just a week of work experience).

3.    Less written work and controlled assessments. About 50% less would be a good start.

4.    Time to write your business plan and present it to Business folk.

5.    Grades/rewards given for effort and attitude... not just outcome.

6.    A chance to volunteer with a local group for an hour or more a week. D of E style.

7.    Every child sets up their own website to trade through with a % of profits going to support local charity groups of their choice.

8.    Opportunities and workshops on public speaking and story telling.

9.    You get the idea.

This enterprise-stuff shouldn’t be reserved for Business Studies A-level, it’s Life Studies.

It shouldn’t be kept at bay until students are 16, 17, 18… Young people who are 11 aren’t just Younger than us, they are also Newer than us.

Mind the gap… without a radical shake up young people will keep drifting into all the things we are already worried about for them.