Why “Good Job” Isn’t Feedback (And What to Say Instead)
- Alex Khachaturian
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Promise: Replace vague praise with short, specific coaching that turns one person’s win into the team’s standard.
TL;DR
“Good job” labels the past; effective feedback teaches the behavior to repeat.
Use a 20–30s script: Situation → Behavior → Impact → Next.
Make wins travel: say it, save proof, slot it into a template, share it, and spot-check it.
Key Takeaways
Praise without behaviors feels like a brush-off after hard work.
Coaching must be observable, teachable, and encoded, or it dies in your DMs.
Public praise teaches; private correction protects.
Leaders create standards, not moments: every win should change the system.
Quick Links
Next Read:
The One Skill Every Leader Fakes… Until They Don’t
Plan Your Day the Night Before
You’re Not Burnt Out, You’re Bored
Story: Ten hours in, why “Good Job” stung
Ten hours into a messy job, I finally turned chaos into clarity. I didn’t leave a mess worse than I found it, a personal rule I wrote about in leave it better than you found it. It took calm, patience, and a methodical approach: map the problem, isolate, test, document, reset.
At 6:00 PM, someone walked by, glanced at the result, and said, “Good job. See you tomorrow.”
What I heard:
“We’re done here.”
What I didn't know I needed to hear instead:
“Here are the behaviors to repeat, and here’s where we’re saving them so the team can run the same play.”
It felt like the same thing my kids hear when I say “good job” from across the room without noticing their effort. Praise landed, but the lesson didn’t travel. Wins stay fragile when people don’t teach what created them or where that learning now lives.
Quick Win: 20-second script that actually teaches
Say it out loud. Then write it once and save it where work lives.
Situation: “On today’s client escalation…”
Behavior: “…you paused the call, aligned on one-line problem statements, and captured owners with deadlines.”
Impact: “…we avoided scope creep and got a same-day decision.”
Next: “Add that ‘one-line + owner + due date’ step to our meeting template.”
That’s not praise, it’s a standard being born.
Recommended Book
Why “Good Job” Isn’t Feedback
“Good job” is a label on an outcome. Feedback is coaching on a behavior. After hard, requested work, generic praise accidentally:
Erases the craft (no one knows what to repeat).
Blurs the standard (teammates can’t see what earned it).
Bleeds motivation (effort feels unseen).
Swap labels for observables: name the move, tie the impact, and change the system so the move becomes the default.
Feedback That Travels (simple 5-step loop)
If someone who wasn’t there can run the same move tomorrow without you, your feedback traveled.
Say it (clearly): Name the behavior, tie one impact, give one Next.
Save it (proof): Attach a screenshot, doc excerpt, before/after metrics, artifact or it didn’t happen.
Slot it (encode): Put it into the template/checklist/default your team actually uses.
Share it (broadcast): Post 3–5 lines: Behavior → Impact → Link to where it lives.
Spot-check it (audit): Within 7 days, verify it showed up in two real jobs.
Clarity beats charisma. Artifacts beat opinions. Encoding beats memory. Audits turn nice ideas into standards.
Field Examples
Meetings that meander → decisions that land
Say it: “You ended with Owner–Due–Next and parked off-topic items, do that every meeting.”
Save it: Screenshot of the action table.
Slot it: Add Owner–Due–Next to the team’s meeting notes template.
Share it: “Behavior → Impact (clarity; fewer follow-ups) → template link.”
Spot-check: Two meetings this week include the action table.
Customer emails that win trust
Say it: “You opened with a one-line plain-English summary, then details, keep that as our default opener.”
Save it: Before/after email example.
Slot it: Add a ‘One-line summary first’ macro/snippet.
Share it: Post snippet link.
Spot-check: Two customer threads use the opener this week.
Hand-offs that don’t drop balls
Say it: “You attached before/after evidence and listed known unknowns, that’s our new hand-off minimum.”
Save it: Handoff doc with the two sections highlighted.
Slot it: Update the handoff checklist with ‘Evidence + Known Unknowns’.
Share it: Link to the checklist.
Spot-check: Two projects show those sections at hand-off.
30-Second Crash Test
Before you hit send on praise or correction, check:
Observable?
Could a camera see it or a reader quote it?
Impact?
Tie it to uptime, safety, clarity, time, or money.
Encode?
Where does it live, template, checklist, default, macro?
Proof?
Artifact attached (image, metric, snippet)?
Portable?
Can someone else run it tomorrow?
If any box is unchecked, your feedback isn’t finished.
Manager Loop: Spread a standard in 7 days
Day 1: Deliver the 20-second feedback; request the artifact.
Day 2: Convert the win to a one-pager; update the template/default.
Day 3: Post a 90-second Loom walking the artifact and one-pager.
Day 4: Run a 10-minute huddle: demo the behavior live.
Day 5: Add a checklist item + macro; tag an owner to pilot.
Day 6: Audit two real jobs for the behavior + artifact.
Day 7: Publish a five-line recap: what changed, where it lives, who cloned it.
Repeat weekly. One standard at a time.
Troubleshooting (Symptom → Cause → Fix)
Symptom: Morale dips even though I praise a lot.
Cause: Generic praise; effort feels unseen.
Fix: Behavior-anchored praise + artifact + encode in the system.
Symptom: Corrections trigger defensiveness.
Cause: You judged intent, corrected late, or in public.
Fix: Describe behavior/impact, do it privately within 24h, end with a single specific Next.
Symptom: Wins don’t scale.
Cause: No encoding or audits.
Fix: Mandate Done packages (artifact + one-pager + template change) and spot-check twice.
Symptom: Feedback takes too long.
Cause: Lectures in the moment.
Fix: 20-second micro-loops; schedule deeper debriefs.
FAQ
How often should I give feedback?
Daily micro-loops, weekly debriefs, monthly themes. Cadence beats intensity.
Public or private?
Public praise teaches standards; private correction protects people.
What if I didn’t witness the work?
Coach the artifact (screenshot, metric, document). Stick to observables.
How do I coach my boss or peers?
Use feed-forward: “Next time we do X, can we start with Y? It’ll cut rework by ~30%.”
Remote teams?
Short Looms + first two sentences in SBI format. Link the template.
Field Checklist
One behavior • one impact • one Next (+ where it lives)
Artifact attached (image/metric/snippet)
Public teaching post (short)
Private corrective loop (if needed)
Template/default updated
Two-job audit within 7 days
Results & ROI
Shifting from “good job” to evidence-backed, encoded feedback reliably drives:
Higher first-pass success (clear next reps).
Faster mean time to clarity (less rework, fewer clarifications).
Cleaner knowledge base (standards live in templates, not people).
Track it: Add two fields to debriefs, Behavior Praised and Where It Now Lives.
Wrap-Up
“Good job” closes a moment. Real feedback builds tomorrow.
Name the move, tie the impact, change the system, attach proof, and audit it.
Do it fast and often, and your culture will start teaching itself.
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