Latest / The Burnout Podcast with Fexingo: Workplace Exhaustion, Recovery, and Sustainable Careers / The Burnout of Overpraising Everyone All the Time
Transcript
- Lucas: So I was reading a study recently — this was from a mid-sized software company, about 800 employees — and they'd instituted a policy where managers were required to give at least five pieces of positive feedback for every one piece of constructive feedback. Luna: The five-to-one ratio. I've seen that in a bunch of management books. It's supposed to be the magic number for team morale. Lucas: Right. And on paper it sounds great. But after about eighteen months, the company's engagement scores actually dropped. People were reporting higher levels of exhaustion, and they specifically said the feedback felt 'meaningless.' So you've got a policy designed to make people feel good, and it's backfiring. Luna: That is fascinating. So what happened — did the praise just become white noise? Lucas: Exactly. Psychologists call it 'praise inflation.' It's the same dynamic as grade inflation — if everyone gets an A, then an A doesn't signal anything anymore. And in the workplace, when every email gets a 'great job' or every routine task gets a 'you're amazing,' your brain stops registering the praise as a reward. Lucas: There's actually a neurological mechanism here. Dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with reward and motivation, fires most strongly when you receive a reward that's unexpected or earned. If praise becomes predictable and constant, the dopamine response attenuates. You literally become desensitized. Luna: And that desensitization — that's exhausting in itself. You're constantly being told something, but you stop believing it, and you have to spend energy pretending it matters. Lucas: Yeah. And speaking of the fact that this show exists without any ad breaks — we deliberately keep it that way. If you find these conversations useful, and you want to support the fact that we don't run commercials, you can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep this space independent. Luna: Yeah, totally. And it lets us dig into these topics without interruption. Lucas: Exactly. So back to praise inflation — I think the key insight is that the problem isn't praise itself. It's the lack of discrimination. When you praise everything, you actually make it harder for people to know what they're doing well. Luna: It's like if a GPS told you 'perfect turn' at every intersection. After a while, you'd stop trusting it when you actually needed guidance. Lucas: That's a great analogy. And there's a cost to that confusion. When people can't distinguish between strong work and average work, they either stop trying — because why bother? — or they burn out trying to decode the signals. Either way, you lose motivation. Luna: So what's the alternative? I mean, we know from decades of research that feedback is critical for growth. But how do you give praise without it becoming noise? Lucas: I think the most useful framework comes from someone like Daniel Coyle, who writes about 'high-granularity praise.' Instead of saying 'good job,' you say something specific: 'The way you structured that presentation made the data easy to follow, especially the chart on slide seven.' Lucas: That kind of praise is harder to fake. It requires the manager to actually pay attention. And because it's specific, it's tied to a real observation — so the dopamine hit is legitimate. Luna: So the solution isn't less praise, it's better praise. More precise, more earned. Lucas: Yes. And I'd add that you also need to calibrate the frequency. If you're praising someone three times in a single one-on-one, that's probably too much. One genuinely specific recognition per interaction is plenty. Luna: What about the employee's perspective? If you're on the receiving end of praise inflation, is there anything you can do? Lucas: I think the most powerful move is to ask for specificity. When a manager says 'great work on that report,' you can say 'Thanks — I'd love to know what specifically worked well, so I can do more of that.' That shifts the conversation from empty praise to useful feedback. Lucas: And it also signals to the manager that you value substance over flattery. Over time, that can actually change the culture. Luna: It's almost like you're training the praiser to be better. Which is a kind of upward management. Lucas: Exactly. And I think this is especially relevant in remote or hybrid settings, where managers often default to praise as a way to connect. But the data from that company I mentioned — they were fully remote — shows that well-intentioned praise can backfire even more when you don't have the nonverbal cues to make it feel genuine. Luna: Because in person, a smile or a nod carries meaning. Over Slack, 'nice job' is just two words. Lucas: Right. And there's another layer: praise inflation can actually increase burnout for the person giving it. Managers feel pressure to constantly find things to praise, and that adds to their cognitive load. It becomes another box to check. Luna: So it's a double-edged sword. The giver and the receiver both get worn down. Lucas: Exactly. And the irony is that the original intent — to boost morale — gets lost. So I think the takeaway is: if you're a manager, audit your own praise. For one week, keep track of every time you give positive feedback. Then ask yourself: is this specific? Is it earned? Is it helping this person know what to repeat? Luna: I love that. And if you're an individual contributor, you can do the same thing with the feedback you give peers. Because praise inflation doesn't just come from managers. Lucas: No, it's a whole-system thing. And it's worth fixing, because the antidote — real, specific recognition — is one of the most powerful tools we have for preventing burnout. Luna: Alright, I think we've given everyone plenty to chew on. Thanks for joining us. Lucas: Yeah, and if you want to keep this conversation going, you know where to find us.