People often worry about how to offer constructive criticism. Interestingly, I rarely hear people worrying about not giving enough praise. You may be surprised to hear that the two come hand in hand!

If you focus on keeping your staff and colleagues motivated, you will never need to worry about them becoming de- motivated.

The concept is simple, and comes back to this idea of us all having an emotional bank account. If your deposits into someone's account are low, there will be nothing left to take out when you offer constructive feedback. This will result in your poor colleague going into deficit and we all know what happens then: low self esteem, slumps in confidence and de- motivation.

So, keep your team pumped up with plenty of praise!

Beware, though; false, empty praise won't go very far. Your praise MUST be genuine!