The Price of Praise

Once the Don praised Anna, one of the pressers, in front of the whole shift. He said her collars were the straightest of anyone’s. He meant it, and it was true. A week later Anna was standing at her press alone. Nobody handed her a basket, nobody asked her for a coffee. The Don noticed before I did. From then on he praised like this: one person at the counter, in a low voice. The shift all at once.

I decided the Don had felt sorry for Anna. No. He’d understood that praise isn’t a present for one person. It’s news, and everybody hears it.

Three People in One Compliment

At the King’s Court club in Florida, Sonny Black took Donnie Brasco aside. Sonny was a capo, a step above Lefty, whom Donnie was working under. He’d made inquiries: everybody, he said, told him Donnie did his job right, kept his mouth shut and didn’t ask unnecessary questions. And he suggested they keep in touch directly.

Pistone answered that he was flattered. Then they talked business: bets, loan sharks, how much money it would take to get started. No oaths, no thank-yous. But inside, Pistone was already counting. A real mafioso would have jumped over Lefty’s head. A Lefty with his nose out of joint could wreck the whole operation.

The next morning Donnie went looking for Lefty himself and told him about the conversation. He said he was staying Lefty’s man. He spoke, he says, bearing in mind that his words might get back to Sonny. Lefty was pleased, and then immediately outraged: who did this Sonny think he was? Trying to poach Donnie? That wasn’t how things were done.

Count the people in that compliment. The one who praises. The one who is praised. And the one who finds out. Pistone answered all three. Sonny, briefly. Lefty, first. And in a way that Sonny would like too.

In 1998 the Dutch psychologist Roos Vonk gave people descriptions of other people’s behaviour. The one judged most harshly was the person who was nice to his superiors and rude to his subordinates. She called it the “slime effect.” The one you praise you may well buy. But there’s a witness standing next to him, and he keeps books of his own.

What For

Sonny, by the way, praised well. Not “you’re clever,” but what Donnie does: keeps quiet, doesn’t push. That can be seen, and it can be repeated.

In 1998 Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck tested this on fifth-graders. After easy problems some were praised for being clever, others for trying hard. The ones praised for brains then more often chose easier problems, just so as not to look foolish. After hard ones they gave up sooner. And when telling other children about their scores, they fibbed more often. Praise for a gift gives a person a title. A title has to be guarded. Sometimes with lies.

Now about flattery. You’d like to say it doesn’t work. It does. In 2010 Elaine Chan and Jaideep Sengupta showed that a person sees he’s being flattered and, out loud, doesn’t believe it. But the warm feeling towards the flatterer stays, and lasts longer than the distrust. Unpleasant, but there it is. The Don had one rule for this: if you have to lie to praise, keep quiet. Flattery doesn’t lie to the one being praised. It lies to you. You stop seeing what the man has actually done.

The Ring and the Envelope

Once over dinner Pistone told Sonny that some day he’d buy himself a ring just like his. Pistone remembers it as a white-gold horseshoe set with tiny diamonds, a gorgeous ring. Sonny took it off and put it down in front of him: take it. An agent couldn’t accept it; the ring would have had to be logged and handed in. Nor could he offend Sonny. Pistone told him he really appreciated the gift, but he knew Sonny loved that ring himself. Sonny shrugged and put the horseshoe back on.

You praise a strong man’s possession, and what he hears is “give it to me.” Pistone built his refusal on Sonny’s feelings, not on his own rules. Both of them saved face.

With Lefty it went the other way. For his birthday Donnie gave him seven diamonds, from himself and from his partner Tony Rossi. Lefty was moved and said so: Donnie had no idea how much he’d touched him. And straight away: wasn’t Tony going to give him anything? Rossi had to put another three hundred dollars in an envelope. Listen to what comes after “thank you.” That’s usually where the next request is sitting.

Praise Nobody Pays For

After his first case, against the hijackers, Pistone got a bonus of two hundred and fifty dollars and a commendation from the Director of the FBI. What touched him was something else. The defence lawyer who had lost the case wrote the Director a letter. The agent, he wrote, had impressed him with his good judgement, his decency and his dedication to the job.

The lawyer had nothing to gain by praising him. That’s why his words weighed more than the bonus. And he didn’t say them to the agent, but to the agent’s bosses.

The Don came to the same thing by his own road. After the business with Anna he praised people behind their backs, in front of whoever made the decisions. To the mill owner, he praised the man’s son, who loaded our tins. It came back to the person whole and with no witnesses.

The Bottom Line

When you praise, remember the ones you didn’t praise. Praise the work, not the gift. And carry your best word to the person the man depends on.

When you’re praised, count the people in the room. Praise that goes over your boss’s head is recruitment: answer briefly and tell your boss first. Raptures over your brains and your grip? Watch what they ask for next. And the warm feeling towards the flatterer will come anyway. Let it live. Just don’t sign any papers in front of it.