求求你表扬我:戒掉爱听表扬的瘾How do you know if you‘re doing a good job at work? Do you rely on praise and constant feedback from your manager as a barometer of your performance?
你怎么知道自己工作做得好不好? 你是不是依赖老板的表扬和频繁的反馈来衡量自己的工作表现?
If so, you might be one of your boss’ pet peeves. Supervisors are already stretched thin, often working two or three people‘s jobs when a few years ago they were just doing one.
如果真是这样,你可能就成了老板的烦心事了。 管理者非常忙,遥的工作量常常是过去两、三个人的量。
“It’s exhausting for your boss,” says Peggy Klaus, an executive coach and author of The Hard Truth About Soft Skills. “They don‘t have the time . . . to have to constantly reassure you. ” 《软技能的硬道理》一书作者兼高管教练佩吉-克劳斯说:“这种事让老板非常劳神,他们没时间. . . . . . 不断地来安慰你。 ” Millennial generation workers, those born in the last two decades of the last millennium, are notorious for having been raised in a praise-heavy environment where every soccer player gets a medal and every child is special. Indeed, a 2010 research paper by psychology professors Jean M. Twenge and Joshua D. Foster found that 30% of today’s college students scored as narcissistic on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory vs. just 19% in the early 1980s.
But young workers are hardly the only guilty parties when it comes to craving kind words. “Everyone likes to get praised,” Klaus says. “Eventually, you need to feel good from the inside. You have to build up your own reserves of self-esteem. ” 但是爱听好话的人群并不只有年轻员工这一个群体。 “每个人都喜欢得表扬,”克劳斯说。 “归根结底,要从内心感觉良好,你必须建立起自尊。 ” Casey Cowden, 22, describes herself as a puppy asking to have her head rubbed when she brings her latest accomplishment to the assistant manager in her department at the Charleston County (S. C. ) Parks and Recreation Commission. “I really love hearing when I‘m doing a good job,” says Cowden, who doesn’t feel that school prepared her for how to behave in the workplace. “It‘s affirmation that I’m actually a decent person and I‘m doing okay. ” 22岁的凯西-考登讲述她向查尔斯顿公园与休闲委员会的部门副经理汇报工作成就的情形时,她觉得自己就像一条小狗,渴望主人来轻轻拍她的头。 “我真的很喜欢听别人说,我做得很棒,”考登说,她并不认为,学校教授了她在工作场合应该怎么做。 “这些表扬证明我是一个很不错的人,工作也合格。 ” For praise junkies like Cowden, career experts suggest a few steps to break the habit.
对于像考登这样要表扬上瘾的人, 职业遥建议采取以下步骤改掉这个坏习惯。
Praise yourself, privately. Instead of waiting for another person to pat you on the back, keep your own file of accomplishments and kudos, says Kathryn Ullrich, a Silicon Valley-based recruiter and author of Getting to the Top. That may be an email from a satisfied customer or a colleague’s recommendation on LinkedIn, but even better is your own record of meeting specific goals you set for yourself. You may want to set up a time log, calendar, or checklist to keep track of your accomplishments. When you need a boost, look over your file to refresh your memory.
“Like an infant learning how to pacify himself, you should learn to give yourself credit instead of looking to others to give you the confidence, the self-esteem, the self-respect,” Klaus says.
克劳斯说:“就像婴儿学习如何让自己平静下来,人们应当学会如何相信自己,而不是等他人给你信心和自尊。 ” Learn to bite your tongue. The first step is admitting you have a problem. The second is setting up behavioral cues and reminders to stop you from seeking praise. Maybe that‘s a post-it note on your desk or a stop sign drawn on the margin of your notebook before you go into your weekly one-on-one with your boss. Do whatever it takes to make you think twice.
Replace praise with regular contact. Perhaps you don’t have a regular meeting with your supervisor. Now is a good time to request one. If you have a consistent opportunity to report your progress on projects, you may have less of a hankering for praise, says Bruce Tulgan, a New Haven, Conn. -based consultant and author of Not Everyone Gets a Trophy.
“We call it self-reporting rather than bragging,” says Tulgan, who tested a number of solutions to the praise problem and found that regular meetings -- along with clear goals and benchmarks -- can work wonders. “You‘d be amazed at how self-sufficient the young praise junkies become. ” “我们将这称为主动汇报,而不是自夸,”塔尔干表示,他测试过很多解决表扬问题的方案,发现定期会面、同时结合明确的目标与标准,可以取得很好的遥。 “你肯定吃惊,这些年轻的表扬迷们可以变得多么自立。 ” Celebrate someone else’s success. Another surprising remedy: giving praise to a colleague or group of peers. “It has a lot of positive effect,” Tulgan says. Not only does sharing your appreciation improve your coworkers‘ mood and self-esteem, it may encourage them to pay more close attention to your performance and return the favor in the future.
If you’re still unconvinced that praise addiction is a problem you need to solve, consider the effect that your neediness has on the people around you at work.
“Instead of making people like you and ingratiating yourself, you‘re doing the exact opposite,” Klaus says. “No one wants to manage you. No one wants to be on a team with you because you’re such an energy suck . . . It makes you seem very young and very immature. ” “这样做不会让人们喜欢你,迎合你,结果正好相反,”克劳斯说。 “没人想管你。 没人想和你在一个团队里,因为你是负能量. . . 这种行为让你看起来很幼稚,很不成熟。 ” (实习编辑:于晓伟)