You Did a Great Job!

Come on...if you think about it, don't you just hate this phrase?  It's overused, and half the time it's not meant anyway.  I always grimace when a leader tells a crowd of 20 people, "you did a great job", when you know that that moron sitting in the corner didn't do a thing all year except surf the internet and call in sick.

So, my resolution is this.  If I ever say that phrase, I'm going to say it privately, to one person at a time, and be specific.  "You were able to make a really difficult concept easy to understand in that meeting - good job!", or "I really admire how you're able to grab the crowd's attention and get them on your side so quickly". 

Walking out today with my boss, as we reached the parking lot, he said, "oh by the way, great job today".  I said thank you very much (I had already given him specific feedback earlier on why I thought he did a good job) and continued the walk to my car.

"There's only one or two little things...well, we can talk about it some other time", he said.

Nice.  Now I'm going to spend every waking moment obsessing about why my boss hates my guts and thinks I'm worthless, and wants to take a shotgun and kill me...yeah okay, I'm a little sensitive. 

Or the time that I represented others at a customer meeting, when no one else could go, and sent detailed meeting notes to the people responsible, including suggestions on what needed to be done.  I heard lots of "good job" after that.

Months later, these same people I sent the notes to acted as if their heads were on fire because they found out from the customer that they needed to do the very same thing I had communicated previously.  I pulled out my written, detailed instructions, and reminded them that they knew about the deadlines since November, and wasn't that the reason I went in the meeting in the first place?  The feedback to me was that my e-mail was too long, and if it had been in an official document it would have been read. 
REALLY????

If you want to give negative feedback, feel free, but don't tell me I did a good job first.  Which is it - good or bad? 

Or, better yet, tell me why you thought I did a good job.  Then when you tell me what I did wrong I can know that 90% of what I did was really good and only 10% might be improved. 

Message to all bosses out there - hear me.  What had been a very positive, productive day was ruined for me because of insensitive comments.  "You did a good job" should not be a phrase that is thrown around like "have a good day".  It should mean something concrete, specific, and worthwhile.  Otherwise don't bother.

Thank you, and have a great day.