There's a coaching philosophy that says to never praise unconditionally; rather every piece of praise should be followed with a criticism. I suppose this is th

There's a coaching philosophy that says to never praise unconditionally; rather every piece of praise should be followed with a criticism. I suppose this is theoretically a good practice, but only if you're already operating in a high-trust environment. If you're not, it starts to feel like you're never good enough, because absolutely every victory, no matter how big or small, is followed up with "but it could be better...". Which is, again technically accurate, but part of the finesse of being a good people-manager is understanding that humans are not robots who can simply process and accept criticism without any emotional hangups.