r/technology • u/Choobeen • 9h ago

Society Research shows the 'compliment sandwich' is no longer effective - University of Western Ontario

https://phys.org/news/2025-08-compliment-sandwich-longer-effective.html
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u/Berova 9h ago

How about treating people like adults and maybe with some openness and honesty as well as a measure of consideration and respect for a change? Just come from a constructive place. Empty platitudes ring pretty hollow.

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u/seramasumi 4h ago

You'd be surprised how many adults really hate being treat like adults. Not Disagreeing with you but I manage a good amount of staff and often I'm told performance reviews are too cold and discouraging, so I gotta make some sandwiches to keep morale up.

Idk how this study was conducted but like many things that aren't generally useful in broad applications, somethings have a time and a place for best use. This principles time and place is usually tied to individuals.

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u/True_Window_9389 34m ago

Cold and discouraging could be real problems though. It’s not a binary option of being cold or doing a compliment sandwich. The article notes that “candor” and honesty is a good way to deliver feedback. I’ve also seen that being specific and not talking in generalizations is a good approach. Saying things like “you always do this” or “never do that,” is bad. But something like “I noticed that the last file you turned in had a bunch of errors, what’s going on?” or “these few deadlines have slipped over the last month, tell me what happened” is closer to constructive feedback and having an adult conversation. And there is still room to note positive feedback, it doesn’t all have to be negative, you just don’t need to deliver negative feedback in some silly scheme of sandwiching it.

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u/braiam 52m ago

That feedback is worthless. Read the article dude. It's literally 5 steps.