Concept
Encouragement over Praise
Encouragement over praise is the Adlerian practice of replacing evaluative compliments like "good job" with plain thanks and attention to effort, so the other person is treated as an equal who owns their choices rather than someone being graded from above.
Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, following Alfred Adler, make a claim that sounds almost rude: praising someone is a polite way of standing above them. When you say "good job" to a child, a junior colleague or a partner, you take the judge's seat and grade the performance. Rebuke sits on the same ladder, only pointed down. Both make the relationship vertical, with one person evaluating and the other being evaluated. Over time, people raised on praise learn to work for the verdict rather than the task, and they stall when nobody is grading. Encouragement keeps the relationship horizontal. "Thank you, that really helped me" reports how their contribution landed on you without ranking them. Noticing the effort or the choice ("You tried three approaches before this one") hands ownership back. The point is not to withhold warmth. It is to put down the scorecard. Thanks says we stand on the same level, while a grade says one of us is higher, however kindly it is meant.
A real-life example
Maya, a team lead, reviews a junior analyst's first client report. Her reflex is "Great work, I'm impressed." Instead she says: "Thanks, the summary on page one saved me twenty minutes before the call. How did you decide to cut the appendix?" The analyst walks her through the reasoning. The next month she restructures a report without asking for sign-off first, because from the start the choice was treated as hers.
How to use it
- 1Catch the verdict before it leaves your mouth. When "good job" or "so smart" is on your lips, pause and ask what actually happened for you.
- 2Swap the grade for thanks or a plain observation: "Thank you, this made my morning easier" or "You kept going after the first version failed."
- 3Hand the choice back with a question. "What made you go this way?" lets them own the decision instead of waiting for your approval.