382. Good Job

Generic praise without specificity trains people to seek approval from outside themselves rather than developing internal confidence.
"Good job" costs you nothing to say and teaches them even less; it ends conversations instead of opening them.
When you withhold specific feedback and replace it with empty approval, you create a team that reads your face instead of reading their own work.
Praise builds external dependency (looking for validation), while curiosity builds internal confidence (understanding their own choices).
Your team will spend energy managing your perception instead of mastering their craft.

Stop saying "good job" and start asking specific questions: "Tell me about this part" or "How did you get here?" or "What did you learn?".
Make team members the authority on their own work by asking them to articulate their choices.
Specificity is proof of attention — asking "Tell me how you got there" proves you actually looked at the work.
Replace generic recognition with specific recognition that points to what worked and why.
The difference between acceptance ("good job") and acknowledgement (specific feedback) is everything.

Track how many times this week you say "good job" or similar generic praise.
Replace the next one with a specific observation and a question that makes them explain their choice.