How To Give a Great Compliment

I went to a funeral some weeks ago. I didn’t know the per­son who died, but from the sto­ries told about her, I would assume that she was a good per­son. Rel­a­tives and friends came to talk about her virtues and related tid­bits of sto­ries about her. It was a fes­tive, funny, dra­matic remem­ber­ing of some­body else’s life.

And then one of the rel­a­tives (I think) who hap­pened to sit beside me whis­pered quite conspiratorially—“I hope they told her all these when she was alive. It would have made a great dif­fer­ence in her life.”

I smiled, but thoughts and ques­tions came to me: Why do sto­ries pile up only after a per­son is dead? Why do we say good things only when a per­son can­not hear us any­more? Why is it so hard to give a compliment?

Here are some guide­lines on how to give effec­tive and pow­er­ful com­pli­ments; hope­fully given when a per­son can still feel good after hear­ing it.

By Val­o­rie Burton

1. Be spe­cific.

Mem­o­rable com­pli­ments are spe­cific. Don’t be vague when you give a com­pli­ment. Notice what it is that com­pelled you to want to give the com­pli­ment in the first place, and then artic­u­late it to the person.

Instead of sim­ply, “Good job on that project,” tell them how their con­tri­bu­tion to the project made it better–something like, “Your hard work really shined through. It’s obvi­ous you’ve been at this a long time.” Rather than, “That’s a nice shirt,” be spe­cific about what it is about the shirt that makes it nice on that per­son. For exam­ple, “The color of that shirt really com­pli­ments your brown eyes.”

2. Acknowl­edge their character.

A great com­pli­ment is about acknowl­edg­ing the pos­i­tives about another per­son. Acknowl­edg­ment is pow­er­ful because so often, good things go unac­knowl­edged. We can become experts at point­ing out what’s wrong with some­thing or some­one while tak­ing for granted what’s right.

When com­pli­ment­ing an accom­plish­ment, don’t just acknowl­edge what the per­son did. Acknowl­edge who they had to be in order to accom­plish it. In other words, what did it take for them to make it hap­pen? Point to a person’s char­ac­ter traits, such as per­se­ver­ance, kind­ness, thought­ful­ness, loy­alty, humor, calm­ness, cre­ativ­ity or courage. For exam­ple, “It took a lot of courage for you to speak up like that” or “You are so cre­ative. I love the way you put together your outfit.”

3. Be authen­tic.

If you don’t really mean the com­pli­ment, don’t give it. Every­one has some char­ac­ter strength or gift wor­thy of acknowl­edg­ment. Make a habit of find­ing the good in oth­ers. Some­times you may be the only per­son to point it out. And your authen­tic com­pli­ment will be an extra­or­di­nary gift for that per­son because they rarely hear some­thing pos­i­tive about them­selves from others.

4. Express your appreciation.

When com­pli­ment­ing some­one about some­thing they did that ben­e­fit­ted you, be direct in your praise. “It meant a lot to me that ..” or “I appre­ci­ate you for ..”, for exam­ple. You might assume that the peo­ple in your life know you appre­ci­ate them, but don’t leave them won­der­ing. Say so.