Vague praise is a shortcut that can validate the wrong behaviors and alienate your best talent. Here’s how to give feedback that actually sticks.

I cringe when I remember how I used to walk through the back of the house.

There is a specific moment I keep coming back to. A line cook on sauté during the rush. Head down. Fully in it. I would walk past, tap him on the shoulder, and say “good job” without breaking stride. Then I would keep moving.

At the time, I thought I was being a great leader. I was positive. I was showing I noticed him. I was making him feel good. And I was saving myself time so I could move on to whatever was next.

Looking back, I was doing none of those things. I was saying two of the emptiest words in leadership. And I was saying them so often that even I stopped meaning them.

The Two Words That Almost Feel Kind

Most leaders default to “good job” for reasons that sound noble.

We think it is positive instead of negative. We think it shows we care. We think it lets the person know they were noticed without having to stop what we are doing. On a busy shift or a full calendar, that feels like a win. Quick. Warm. Efficient.

But “good job” is not recognition. It is a filler phrase we use to feel like we are recognizing someone without doing the actual work of recognizing them.

And every time we say it without meaning, the value of it drops.

Why It Stops Working

The problem with “good job” is not that it is wrong. It is that it is vague. Vague praise creates three problems that leaders rarely see until it is too late.

The first is dilution. When you say the same two words to everyone, all day, every day, the phrase loses weight. The line cook you praised for perfect timing gets the same words as the server you praised for a clean apron. If everything is a good job, nothing is.

The second is confusion. The person you are praising does not know what you actually saw. Did you praise their speed? Their plating? The way they handled the ticket queue? Or did you just walk past and say something because you felt like you should? Without specifics, they cannot repeat what earned the recognition. They just know something was fine.

The third is the one that scares me most now. Sometimes “good job” accidentally validates the wrong thing.

The line cook you praised might have been rushing plates out with the wrong garnish. The server might have upsold a table by cutting corners on the greet. When you praise without specifics, the person fills in the blank on their own. And whatever they thought they were doing right in that moment, they will keep doing. Even if it is not what you actually meant to reinforce.

Two words. Said in passing. And you may have just taught them the opposite of the standard.

The Observer Effect

There is a second layer to this that most leaders miss. It is not just about the person you are praising. It is about everyone within earshot.

When a team member watches you drop “good job” onto three different people in five minutes, they learn something. They learn that recognition from you does not require anything specific. They learn that praise is a reflex, not a reward. And they stop trying to earn something that everyone gets for free.

The best performers on your team feel this most acutely. They know they gave something extra tonight. They see you notice. They wait for the acknowledgement that matches the effort. And then you walk past and say the same two words you said to someone who barely made it through their prep list.

That gap between what they gave and what they got back is where disengagement starts.

What Recognition Actually Sounds Like

The framework that changed how I give feedback is called SBI: Situation, Behavior, Impact. It is not new. But it is the sharpest tool I have found for turning empty praise into something that actually lands.

Situation. Name the exact moment. “During the 8 p.m. rush, when the line got backed up on the pass.”

Behavior. Name what you saw. “You called out to the wheel, reorganized the ticket order, and pulled the two long tickets forward so the shorter ones could clear.”

Impact. Name what it changed. “Ticket times dropped from 22 minutes to 14 minutes in the next half hour. The rest of the team followed your lead without you having to ask.”

Then one more piece I always add. “That is the exact behavior I want to see you keep doing.”

Compare that to “good job.”

The SBI version takes 30 seconds instead of two. But it does something the shortcut version can never do. It tells the person exactly what to repeat. It gives them the language to teach someone else. And it makes recognition mean something again for everyone else who heard it.

Flowers in the Moment

There is a phrase I have been carrying with me for a while. Let people smell their flowers while they are still holding them.

Recognition delivered six months later in an annual review is a signature on a piece of paper. Recognition delivered in the moment, tied to something real, is a memory. One barely registers. The other becomes the story that person tells themselves when the next hard shift shows up.

Most leaders wait too long to say the specific thing. They wait for the review cycle. They wait for the right moment. They wait until they have time to sit down and word it perfectly. And by then, the person has already stopped feeling what they felt when they earned it.

The moment is the point. Feedback loses power the further it travels from the action that earned it.

The Reframe

Here is the honest version of what I have learned. It is not that we need to stop saying “good job.” It is that we need to start meaning it.

If “good job” is the beginning of a sentence, keep going. Tell them why. Tell them what you saw. Tell them what it did.

If “good job” is the whole sentence, stop. Save the phrase for later, when you have time to say something real.

The alternative is a team full of people who hear you say it, nod politely, and then quietly wonder if you are actually paying attention.

Two words can either build a team or slowly hollow it out. The difference is not the words. It is what you put behind them.

Coaching Question for the Week

The last time you told someone they did a good job, could they have told you exactly what they did right? If not, what would you say differently now?

Jason E. Brooks is a hospitality coach, author, and consultant with more than 30 years of industry experience. He has worked with six of the top 100 restaurant brands in the United States, including multiple top-10 and top-50 chains, helping leaders and operators boost profitability and build high-performing teams through coaching-driven systems. He writes the Coaching Connection column for FSR magazine and is the author of Every Leader Needs Followers, Every Team Needs Coaching, Coaching Operating Standards, and The 48 Laws of Coaching.

Jason E. Brooks.
Author of “Every Leader Needs Followers” and founder of HospiVation, Jason E. Brooks shares his industry insights on operations, leadership, and more in his FSR column, The Coaching Connection.

Editor’s note: This article is part of The Coaching Connection, a column series from restaurant expert Jason E. Brooks. Check out the others below:

Expert Takes, Feature, Labor & Employees, Operations