Charles Schwab was the first person in America to be paid a million dollars a year. Andrew Carnegie — who had hundreds of men who knew more about steel than Schwab did — paid him that salary for one reason: he knew how to handle people.
Carnegie asked Schwab his secret. Schwab said: "I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise."
And then he said the line that stayed with Carnegie forever — that he had never found a person, no matter how powerful or humble, who didn't do better work under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.
Not some people. Every person he had ever met.
Schwab wasn't naive. He wasn't saying ignore problems or pretend failure is success. He was saying: the method matters. If you want a person to change, you build them up first. You find what's real to praise. And you make them feel capable before you ask them to do the difficult thing.
Criticism tells someone what they did wrong. Approval shows them who they could be.
One is information. The other is fuel.
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