Your position is a symptom of something else being wrong: You do not want to impress your management. This means that they do not inspire you, which is, frankly, a bad sign.

Top performing teams have great leaders. Great leaders inspire. Inspired workers value the praise.

I'm my own boss nowadays, but back when I was working for someone else, the teams I enjoyed the most had great leaders. Looking back, whenever I ended up being led by someone uninspired I jumped ship within months.

Where exactly did you learn that?

It's not about the money, it's about the respect. If you are doing a good job and make the company money you deserve a cut, not a pat on the shoulder. When the company is paying you your salary they are putting value on your work.

Leadership and inspiration are nothing without respect.

Money is not a great incentive lever, somewhat contrary to popular opinion. It has two unexpected characteristics:

1) It becomes expected by the employee. A raise has an effect the moment it is awarded. A couple of months later, the productivity effect wanes and the new salary is part of the steady state.

2) For most people, beyond an hygienic level, it's not really what they want. Of course nobody will tell you they wouldn't like a raise, but in practice they prefer a better work environment: flexible schedules, remote working, simple hierarchies, a trove of other factors that make working fun or at least enjoyable.

The popular belief is that money is not a great incentive lever, not the other way around. And like I said, it's not about the money, this is true. It's the respect - i.e. being paid fairly, in proportion of the contributions. If that condition was met, working remotely, at night or not at all doesn't matter. Optimizing flexible schedules, remote working, number of bosses is treating the symptoms, not the root of the disease. Respect is the name of the game. It's the name of almost any game :)

It depends on the person, and that's what makes management (and life!) tricky. For one employee, a nice raise is all that really counts. For another, they'll certainly welcome a nice raise, but really public praise is going to be very meaningful. For a third, that public recognition might be mortifying, but a well-written 'thank you' letter will go far. Et cetera, et cetera. You can't say, "It's not about X, it's about..." without overgeneralizing.

Completely agreed. Praise from the company is basically worthless to me; I don't need to be told that I'm good, if I'm doing well I'll know it. If you truly value my services then the only meaningful way to show that is through increased salary. Anything less is simply an attempt at manipulation.

Recognition in front of peers is good for other reasons, but its not a replacement for financial reward.

>I don't need to be told that I'm good, if I'm doing well I'll know it.

This might sound strange to you, but some subset of the population won't know it. Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger_effect[1]? Actual competence may weaken self-confidence and the unskilled might have illusory superiority.

There are also many cultural and social environments where an individual person comes from which gives them a negative self image no matter how well they are performing. It might not even occur to them they are doing a good job. Victims of abuse, for example.

Taking a second or two to say "good job" gives the person actual feedback. I'm not saying you should make a show, but job feedback is important.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

My point didn't quite come off how I intended. I do agree that a "good job" here and there are essential. Praise for a job well done should be an integral part of being a competent manager or tech lead. But this can't be seen as a replacement for communicating worth to the employee by financial rewards. When the company itself tries to set up some process for praising good work as an alternative for financial rewards, that's where it becomes manipulation.

Absolutely.

There are a lot of people who, even if they are highly technically competent, are not as comfortable taking independent action outside of what they've been directly told to do. Or worse, don't consider it to be part of their job at all.

If you want to promote any kind of sense of ownership or pride, find something they did that you didn't ask them to do and tell them that you think it's awesome. (Assuming you actually think it's awesome.) That's it.

I'm completely against patronizing, but to not signal to your employees that you value their judgement, independence and skill is... just foolish.

You certainly can't use praise as an excuse for not paying well. But it's cool to have a quick one-off "hey, great job hunting down that bug" from somebody.

Is positive feedback (other than possibly yearly appraisals) not useful?

I don't think the point is to replace compensation with pats-on-the-back, but rather, get in the habit of personally recognizing the positives. Too often it's only the negatives that are recognized, and though most of it is probably on the technical side of things ("hey, we found a bug you wrote that crashed prod"), there's still very little in the way of positive encouragement or reinforcement coming from a human.

Of course, some will respond better to it than others, but I think it's a worthy practice. Too often, especially in stressful atmospheres, only the negatives are spotlighted, and this can hurt morale over time.

Well, I think the article either assumes the paying decently is implied or they made a huge mistake. :)

It's not about getting a pat on the back, that kind of praise is meaningless and awkward. What is good to hear is that you're still providing value to the company and that what you're working on aligns with their goals. Knowing that can be the difference between getting promoted or getting laid off.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the praise (in fact I would love if employers did this more), but when there is discontinuity between the verbal praise and the financial compensation - then you have a problem.

I used to think like you. But it is not that simple. Of course, financial compensation is the best way to reward someone for being good. But you are missing the point made by GP. The idea that people acknowledge your value to a team is important. It encourages you to do a good job and be even better.

I get paid a lot more as a consultant right now that I made as a fulltime employee but there is something missing in my current gig. It is the appreciation (not patronizing) that me being there makes a difference.

The lack of appreciation between people is probably a sympton of a deeper problem. Perhaps the environment is toxically competitive and forces people to play down other people's contributions. Maybe there's a lack of leadership which means that the different parts of the team aren't working together positively or maybe the people there just aren't very good. It's not about a pat on the back either, people that respect the people around them don't need to engage in empty gestures of gratitude, it comes through very naturally.

>I never understood this advice. Not to sound arrogant, but I know I'm good.

How many people have been led out the door protesting, "How can you fire me? Don't you know how much work I do around here?" Those people didn't have anyone in management saying, "Hey, you're doing a great job."

    I never understood this advice. Not to sound arrogant, but I know I'm good.

And everyone is exactly like you so this piece of advice is worth absolutely nothing :)

That said I agree with the rest: telling someone they're great but not worth paying a decent salary sounds insulting.

It's not so much to let you know that you're good, but more to let you know that you're recognised as being good. Feeling unappreciated can and often does destroy morale and motivation.