Erase “Great” from Your Vocabulary

If I had a dollar for every time I told an employee, “great job,” I’d probably have enough to go out and start a second business. But I’ve never stopped to think about what the words “great job” actually communicate. . . until Daria, our managing editor, called me out on it. She learned a lot from the recent EO event, “Communication to be Heard and Remembered,” featuring Christina Harbridge, CEO of Allegory, a San Francisco based communications company. Her new found communications skills put me in check on this occasion. In reality, telling someone they did a “great job” is pretty vague and impersonal. Christine suggested taking the phrase out of our vocabularies. To motivate our teams, we should use more descriptive language so that it is more meaningful to them and encourages the team to repeat or exceed the “job well done.”