Praising the talent or intelligence of your employees can backfire. If their brilliance is continually reinforced they may put less effort into their work and take fewer risks. Or worse, when they fail they may attribute the failure to others. This goes the same with raising children. Children who were often praised for their “innate brilliance” tend to do less of what brought them the initial success and blame others for their failures.
Praise effort, not brilliance.
Encourage the behavior and processes that led to the brilliant results.
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