You may pride yourself as being someone who regularly praises your employees, colleagues, and students for their achievements.
But really, an alarming amount of us are actually doing praise wrong. In fact, in some cases, our praise is having the exact opposite effect from what we intended.
In 1995, Gary Chapman published his first book about the five love languages. The book detailed how each of us has two preferred ways of communicating and receiving love and appreciation. In 2011, he released a second book in which took those principles and applied them to the workplace.
Those five languages are words of affirmation, tangible gifts, quality time, acts of service, and physical touch.
As student affairs professionals, giving praise to our students feels like second nature. Our whole job (especially for those of us who work directly with student leaders) is centered around the idea of encouraging, motivating, and supporting their personal growth. We may give our colleagues feedback and praise less regularly, but hey, we’re still doing it — right?
The trouble is, most of our mechanisms heavily rely on only one of the languages of appreciation: words of affirmation.
Before you continue reading, bring into your conscious mind some of the most recent praise you’ve given and received. Think about which language it utilized. Think about that person and whether you think it aligns with their own love or appreciation language.
And finally, think about whether there’s room to implement other languages into your methods of recognition.
To find out what your preferred languages are, you’ll need to take the MBA inventory. It does cost money, so If you are looking for a free option you could take the free love languages test instead.
And as a quick note, be aware that people often have different love language preferences for their workplace and their romantic relationships, because well… reasons.
This is probably the most commonly used appreciation languages, but it’s also the most misunderstood. Think about how many times you’ve heard someone use the phrase “great job” or “keep up the good work.” Do they make you feel particularly inspired? Probably not. These are both well-intentioned phrases but are simply overused and not personal enough.
For affirmations to work, they need to be both specific and sincere.
Now imagine you’re told this:
“Hey Dustin, I just wanted to let you know that I really admire your patience. I’ve seen how much time you dedicate to each student even when you’re really busy with other tasks. I can tell it really makes a difference to them.”
That’s a lot better, right?
For affirmations to work, we need to let people know exactly what it is they did that’s worthy of pointing out, what traits make them great, and how that makes them a valued member of the team.
Most of us will already be spending time with each other in group meetings or one-on-ones. But simply being in close proximity is not enough. If it were, you probably wouldn’t need to be reading this blog post.
For quality time to work, it needs to be authentic, purposeful, and non-judgmental.
The real key here is to perfect your active listening skills. If you struggle to get your students to open up during scheduled time, take a look at our blog post on open-ended questions. These will help the conversation dig below the surface.
When spending quality time with people, make sure to be clear about why you wanted to meet with them. Let them know that they have your undivided attention or that you wanted to find out how they’re really doing. For those who want to feel listened to, this will make a big difference.
Also, when scheduling quality time such as evening meals, retreats, or activities on the weekend, be mindful of people’s other time commitments. The students who often deserve a lot of praise and recognition are also the same students who stretch themselves thin with time.
If those students prefer quality time as their primary language of affirmation, try to keep the activities restricted to working hours.
Not all of the language affirmations have to be verbally communicated. In fact, acts of service is almost the exact opposite. Sometimes people feel the most appreciated when someone takes time to help out with a task on their to-do-list.
Just think about how happy you might have gotten when someone did the dishes or cooked you dinner. The key message here is actions speak louder than words, or more to the point: “Don’t tell me you care; show me.”
To really knock this affirmation language out of the park, you going to need to follow a few game rules. Firstly, you should always ask before you help. Even if someone’s primary language is acts of service, there may be only certain tasks they would appreciate having help with.
Second, your help must be voluntary. If it’s your job to help with post-event clean-up, don’t expect anyone to feel appreciated that you helped out. This is all about going above and beyond the call of duty. Finally, if you’re going to offer help, make sure to actually finish the job!
So long as you follow these steps, you’re all set to hit a home-run.
Gift-giving is a solid go-to when it comes to saying thanks. It’s a great motivator and helps build relationships. The language of gift-giving has to go beyond things to do with wages or bonuses, though. This language is for those things that are unexpected and personal to the individual.
Gift-giving doesn’t have to break the bank. There are plenty of ways student affairs professionals can provide affirmations using this language.
For any workplace — and especially when working with students — physical touch is obviously a tricky area. For most celebratory situations (and in true Presence style), we believe a high-five is one of the best motivators.
You could also switch it up and make your own top-secret handshake or good ol’ fashioned fist-bump. In fact, fist-bumps are scientifically healthier for you (they transmit 1/20th the amount of bacteria that a handshake does… you’re welcome!)
And if you’re still not sure, don’t forget that you can communicate in any of the top-two preferred affirmation languages. So just find out what their second option is and use that!
If there is one thing that you should take away from this blog post, it should be this: Each individual will want to share and receive appreciation in very different ways. In fact, two people who even have the same preferred language may respond completely differently to that method of appreciation.
An extroverted person who prefers affirmation may relish the opportunity to receive an award at a public ceremony, whilst that might be nightmarish for an introverted person even though they have the same language preference.
Instead, the introvert may prefer the same recognition but in a one-on-one setting. Take the time to understand which language your colleagues and students prefer and try and cater to those as much as possible.
I’m not expecting you to come away from this as an expert in affirmation (I certainly am not). Everyone has individual preferences which can change depending on the setting, the person, and over time.
The real moral of this story is that if we broaden our minds when it comes to acknowledging people’s hard work and make the effort to understand what makes them feel really appreciated, it’ll change how we engage in the workplace.
If you have any great stories where the 5 languages have really helped someone at your institution, let me know on Twitter at @LucasBurh or @themoderncampus.