Victims of praise inflation

THE delusions of gen Y are traceable to the complete and utter corruption of birthday party games.

Igor

YOU do realise that it is old-fart baby boomers who are to blame and not their talented, technologically gifted, civic-minded, emotionally sensitive and, how could I forget, wonderfully creative progeny, generation Y.

You see if baby boomers hadn't continuously praised gen Y as children throughout the 1990s then we wouldn't be in the bizarre situation we are today where the workforce seems to be in a perpetual state of anxiety about whether they are getting enough praise.

Did you turn up to work today as well as yesterday? That's two whole days in a row. Oh, my, but what a committed worker you are. Your parents must be so proud of you.

In fact that is such a brilliant effort that I'm going to recommend you for our crew member of the month award. No, really, you deserve it.

Does it never occur to gen Y that the crew member of the month award magically rotates through all staff regardless of their abilities and/or contribution?

Psst gen Y, this award is rigged; everyone gets to be crew member of the month; you just have to turn up. It's like being class member of the week at primary school: everyone gets a turn to believe they are special.

When I was a kid growing up in the 60s we played a game at birthday parties called pass-the-parcel.

I loved this game, or at least I did until I realised it was rigged. The birthday boy's mother would deliberately, and I am sure with malice aforethought, stop the music when she knew that the final present had been passed into the hands of the birthday boy.

Despite my gleeful participation I was never really in with a shot. (And as you can see I am still scarred by the experience decades later.)

Pass-the-parcel is still played at birthday parties today. But the game has evolved. There is a prize under each wrapper. No kid has to sit there and watch someone else win, as did baby boomers. No kid today loses. They are all winners.

And business wonders why young employees are continually looking for validation. It's all traceable to the complete and utter corruption of birthday party games.

We will never rid ourselves of the scourge of praise inflation until we have launched an inquiry into and cleaned up the corruption within games like pass-the-parcel.

And the same goes for crew member of the month. No, you are not crew member of the month. No, you are not the best and most talented employee this business has ever employed.

Bosses are just saying that because they know workers have come to expect them to say exactly that.

You are being pandered to. Can't you see that, gen Y?

But the lying and the deception is not the worst of it. (I am sure that birthday boy's mother didn't think she was doing anything wrong in 1963 when she deliberately stopped the music when her son got the final parcel. But look at the psychological damage it has caused all these years later.)

No, the real problem with praise inflation is that it leads to bitter disappointment among the praised.

If you are constantly being told you are doing a great/fantastic/stupendous job then come salary review time, say at the end of the financial year, it is not unreasonable to expect a financial reward broadly commensurate with the words of praise heaped on you.

But where there is no meaningful connection between the words or praise and the worker's real contribution to the financial performance of the business then the business simply cannot deliver the expected rewards.

In other words praise inflation is nothing but a cruel tease: it promises a lot but it delivers nothing.

If you feel your salary review fails to match the sweet words of praise whispered to you throughout the year then you have been yet another victim of that modern-day scourge, praise inflation.

KPMG Partner Bernard Salt is the author of The Big Tilt.

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