Yesterday I wrote about the distinction between true appreciation and real compliments to people’s hard work versus empty flattery. Today’s post continues on that theme. In his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie continues his thoughts on flattery writing, “That’s all flattery is – cheap praise. I once read a definition of flattery that may be worth repeating: Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself.”
I like thinking about this second quote from Carnegie on flattery. As someone who was a successful business person and leader, Carnegie was subject to plenty of flattery. As you achieve more and become more successful people have more of an incentive to be on your good side. This means that flattery can have a bigger payoff for those individuals who want to gain something by being your friend or ally. You can become a target of flattery that makes you feel good, but potentially leaves you vulnerable to those who simply want something from you.
If we are someone who is vulnerable to flattery, we must remember Carnegie’s quote. Flattery is not honest feedback about who we are, about the quality of our decisions, or about our value to the organizations we are a part of. Flattery is about someone else who wants to gain something by allying themselves with us. That individual might want a promotion, might want more money, or might want more status by getting to tell others that they are part of our inner circle. The worst part is that since their flattery is insincere, it might make us overconfident about the decisions we have made, about our perspective on the future, and about our own self worth. Ultimately, this could lead us to make worse future decisions and to be overconfident and arrogant. Flattery in the end hurts the individual being flattered and the organizations they are a part of.
If we find ourselves to be the one dishing out the flattery, we should really reconsider what we are doing. Are we flattering another person because we feel that we can’t give them honest feedback and must flatter them? If so, we might want to find anther organization to be a part of, or we might want to band together with others to have a flattery intervention and agree to all quit flattering the person who does not deserve it. When we flatter someone else for our own gain, we are trading off long-term success and stability of something bigger than ourselves for our own personal short-term gain. This strategy might work well initially, but in the long run it will spell doom for ourselves and the organizations we are a part of.
Think deeply about honest feedback, and avoid flattery, because it will hurt us regardless of whether we are the giver or receiver.
Novel Learning 