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Star psychologist Adam Grant explains why we need to do away with 'the compliment sandwich'

Plus, the one simple sentence to use instead.

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There's a new way to give tough love.

The “sandwich technique,” also known as a “compliment sandwich” or “feedback sandwich,” has been a tool for delivering criticism since the 1940s. But it really became something of a workplace staple after 1984, thanks to Mary Kay Ash’s book “People Management.”

The idea seems sound enough. The deliverer of the criticism would first offer a compliment to the recipient, followed by the actual feedback, then another bit of praise. This should theoretically allow the criticism to be received without bruising any ego or hurting any feelings. Everybody wins.

But according to organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant, the compliment sandwich “doesn’t taste as good as it looks.”

In various interviews, podcasts, social media posts and even a Substack article, Grant has chalked up the compliment sandwich ineffectiveness to two major shortcomings.

One being that people are simply too familiar with it. So whatever compliment is given, no matter how genuine it may be, people know what’s coming next and they begin “waiting for the other shoe drop.”

Knowing the compliments are obligatory can actually make someone take the criticism ever more personally.

Two: the opposite can happen. Because people tend to remember the first and last parts of a conversation, the criticism might be downplayed or outright buried underneath the positive feedback. This goes especially for narcissists, Grant notes.

Luckily there is a kind, yet efficient way to give some tough love. And it all boils down to one simple sentence:

“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.”

The phrase comes from a 2013 study conducted by researchers at Stanford,who were able to increase a student’s openness to criticism by at least 40% just by using those 19 words.

As Grant explains, this strategy works because it conveys an intention to help a person become the best version of themselves. “It’s surprisingly easy to hear a hard truth when it comes from someone who believes in your potential and cares about your success.”

Of course, using the exact words isn’t mandatory.


The point is focusing on helping someone improve, rather than attacking or patronizing them.

To that point, Grant also has a few other helpful pointers, like not assuming a position of superiority, asking if the person is open to feedback first (Grant attests they usually welcome it) and lastly, keeping the language transparent, not manipulative.

At the end of the day, most people want to grow, become better people, and live up to their potential. Remembering that one little truism can go a long way.

This article originally appeared on 4.11.24

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It's incredibly hard to get by as a contractor in America. It shouldn't have to be.

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The Rockefeller Foundation

Retirement, paid sick days, a steady schedule — in theory, these should be a given for all working people. In practice, not so much.

Right now, a little over 10% of the American workforce is part of the “gig economy,” according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, which means that most or all of their main income comes from work they do as independent contractors or through temp, on-call, and contract work.

They aren't guaranteed direct deposits, they don't get paid-time off, and they often have to grapple with stagnating wages and self-employment taxes. Plus, there is no employer contribution when it comes to saving for retirement and health care coverage.

This means that health care can also get expensive quickly. Full-time employment versus contract employment is the difference between putting an average of $89 a month toward the health care benefits provided by your company and paying an average of $396 a month for coverage on your own.

All photos via iStock.

Making matters worse, many low-earning contractors or gig economy workers are among the 55% of Americans that live paycheck to paycheck. This means that they don’t earn enough to build a safety net in case of an unexpected emergency. According to a report by the Federal Reserve, nearly half of Americans struggle to scrape together even $400 when something unexpected comes up — like car trouble.

The solutions available during these times of emergency, such as borrowing from friends and family or payday lending, can be inaccessible or predatory, which means that these workers are often forced to make an impossible choice between feeding their family or fixing the car.

There's a clear need for a safety net for these workers — that's why one organization, The Workers Lab, is working tirelessly to provide it.

Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, The Workers Lab funds experiments and innovations that build power for working people.

“What we learn is that working people are living the unjust reality of being poor while working harder and producing more than ever,” says Carmen Rojas, CEO of The Workers Lab.

One way to help these contractors is by providing them with access to portable benefits. These are benefits that would stay with contractors even as they move among jobs. Portable benefits could include paid sick leave, disability insurance, and an emergency fund, for starters.

“These workers deserve more than merely making ends meet. They deserve to live lives of opportunity, mobility, and dignity,” says Rojas.

The Workers Lab also believes we need to reimagine and rebuild the social safety net for all workers, regardless of where and how they work. All workers need the security of knowing that their immediate needs are being met and that they have health care, a steady paycheck, and a way to retire when it comes time for that.

“We owe it to all working people to ensure that they are not wasting the best years of their lives barely scraping by,” says Rojas.

61% of American workers struggle to come up with $1,000 in a financial emergency. To help them thrive instead of scrape by, The Workers Lab’s immediate goal is to get low-earning contractors and low wage workers the money they need when they are hit with an unexpected expense.

That's why they are working to establish a fund that would give contractors access to meaningful cash infusions for such situations — which can be a huge relief.

Failing to adapt to workers’ immediate needs could be detrimental to the future, which is why organizations like The Workers Lab are working so hard to find timely solutions.

Because of your support we had an incredibly successful 2017! Including TRIPLING our funding. Read more about all of our...

Posted by The Workers Lab on Saturday, December 30, 2017

Imagine a workforce where all you have to think about is your work. You wouldn't have to worry about whether or not you’ll be able to pay for your annual physical or your upcoming knee surgery. You can rest easy knowing that if an emergency hits, you won’t have to make an impossible choice or turn to a payday lender just to feed your family.

This might sound like an impossible dream now, but with increased awareness of the problems faced by contract workers and with organizations like The Workers Lab working tirelessly to find solutions to help workers without safety nets, it's closer to reality than ever before.

For more than 100 years, The Rockefeller Foundation’s mission has been to promote the well-being of humanity throughout the world. Together with partners and grantees, The Rockefeller Foundation strives to catalyze and scale transformative innovations, create unlikely partnerships that span sectors, and take risks others cannot — or will not.

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Working and breastfeeding is hard. Studies say support from coworkers is key to success.

Breastfeeding can be a challenge all on its own. What happens when you add working to the mix?

Compared with the rest of the industrialized world (and much of the rest of the world, actually), the U.S. makes working parenthood difficult. As the only developed nation with no guaranteed paid family leave, many new parents find themselves having to return to work within a handful of weeks after having a baby.

[rebelmouse-image 19346022 dam="1" original_size="1796x1478" caption="Image by The DataFace, LLC." expand=1]Image by The DataFace, LLC.

And when you're a breastfeeding parent, that also means having to figure out how to pump breastmilk while balancing job duties. Sounds simple enough — if you've never pumped before. At best, it's a lot of work and not the most fun way to spend a break. At worst, an employer who is exempt from the federal requirements to provide time and space to breastfeed can make it darn near impossible to pump at the office. Even with time and space, some are never are able to pump efficiently.

For many, breastfeeding and working is doable, but difficult. But there's one thing that is proven to make it easier.

When coworkers are supportive, people have greater success with breastfeeding while working.

According to researchers at Michigan State and Texas Christian University, support from colleagues is a major factor in parents feeling confident that they can continue breastfeeding. In fact, surprisingly, coworker support has an even stronger effect than the support of family and friends.

One of the researchers' studies found that around 25% of participants decided to breastfeed while working because their employers created a breastfeeding-friendly environment. And about 15% said that direct support and motivation from supervisors and coworkers inspired them to keep breastfeeding after going back to work.

The study data showed that simply going back to work was enough to make many folks decide to stop breastfeeding, but those who chose to continue cited colleague support as a primary factor.

"In order to empower women to reach their goals and to continue breastfeeding, it's critical to motivate all co-workers by offering verbal encouragement and practical help," said Joanne Goldbort, an assistant professor in the College of Nursing at MSU, who collaborated in the study. That means accepting that breastfeeders will need extra "breaks," encouraging and supporting them in taking those breaks, and providing a clean, quiet, private space for them to pump.

We've seen progress in the past decade, from laws supporting breastfeeders to better breast pumps.

Thanks to provisions of the Affordable Care Act, federal law mandates that employers provide time and a clean place to pump — a place that is not a bathroom. Not all employers are bound by that law, but it's a good start. And recently, the final two states passed laws protecting the right to breastfeed in public anywhere in the U.S.

In addition, technology keeps getting better and better. Those of us who breastfed a decade or two ago had no choice but to use pumps that were basically the human equivalent of a commercial milking machine. While they got the job done, they were cumbersome, uncomfortable, loud, and not particularly dignified.

Now there are pumps that you can wear inside a bra, with no tubes, no electrical hookups, and no bottles connected. I recently found out about this Willow breast pump and was blown away by how much better it is than what I had available when my kids were babies. While on the pricey side, it's whisper-quiet and can be totally hidden inside your clothing, so you could pump while working and no one would ever know. Mind. Blown.

Willow Testimonial Mashup

Chances are, you’ve heard the buzz about Willow. Now watch what women are saying about their personal experiences with it and how it’s a must-have and a game changer. www.willowpump.com

Posted by Willow Pump on Sunday, July 1, 2018

With more and more working parents in the picture, we have to be creative and flexible when it comes to balancing breastfeeding with work.

There is a lot more America could do to help make breastfeeding easier for working parents. But until we catch up with the rest of the world in providing guaranteed paid leave, we'll have to approach breastfeeding and working as individual employees, employers, and coworkers.

The more we can voice our support for breastfeeding and make it easier for folks who work to get the time, space, and support they need to pump, the happier and healthier our communities will be.

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These powerful sexual harassment PSAs by David Schwimmer are must-sees.

Actor David Schwimmer was so disturbed by a video series a friend sent him a few months ago, he knew he had to do something.

That friend was director Sigal Avin, and those videos were part of a series of sexual harassment PSAs she'd produced in Israel, Schwimmer explained to "The View" co-hosts on April 5, 2017.

Avin had sent the videos to get Schwimmer's feedback, but — after seeing the potential effects the PSAs could have in the U.S., where an estimated 1 in 3 American women have experienced sexual harassment at work — the pair decided to create a similar series stateside.

"The current climate right now in this country ... it feels like women and their advocates are fighting for basic human and civil rights," Schwimmer explained. "Sigal and I thought, we need to explicitly state that sexual harassment and sexual assault is not permissible and also give a face to it."

They produced the six-part series — starring Schwimmer, Cynthia Nixon, Emmy Rossum, and Bobby Cannavale — which you can watch here (the PSAs will play consecutively):

During his interview on "The View," Schwimmer touched on one particularly crucial point about sexual harassment as it exists in the workplace.

Most of us can recognize explicit sexual violence — "everyone's seen the guy jumping out of the bushes," Schwimmer noted — but predatory men often take advantage of power structures in the workplace, pressuring women into uncomfortable, and even dangerous, positions. It might not be as obvious, Schwimmer said, but subtlety doesn't matter.

It's vital that men understand this "gray area," as Schwimmer put it, still qualifies as sexual harassment. It's just as unacceptable.  

"I really hope that men see these films as well, so they can learn, 'Oh, that's not appropriate behavior,'" he said.

Watch Schwimmer's interview discussing his PSA series, "That's Harassment," on "The View" below:

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