Communication at work can be vague. Emails and text messages can be especially confusing. Google's research shows that employees must have clear expectations for their work, and those expectations should be specific, challenging, and attainable. Sometimes project goals given by a client or senior leaders are unclear. We use terms that are not precise. Some is not a number, soon is not a deadline. Your credibility is based on meeting expectations, and as a manager, that means your credibility is based on your employees meeting expectations. Instead of asking someone to complete a task as soon as possible, set specific deadlines, dates, and times by when you need the task complete. Be prepared to negotiate. You might be giving your best employees more priorities than you realize. From now on, whenever you ask something of an employee, check yourself. Is the request concrete? Influence means that employees believe they are heard. The culture is inclusive and they have some autonomy at work. As Follett and Angeles showed, when employees have influence, they are more motivated and productive. If you let some employees dominate meetings, if you go out to lunch or coffee with specific employees and not others, or some direct reports are frequently in your office while others rarely are, it is likely that your employees perceive there to be bias in who can influence you. Moreover, some phrases we use at work kill influence. Like, this is the way it's always done, or you'll get it when you've been here longer. Influence builders are things like, how do you think we should resolve this? What do you suggest? These phrases involve employees in finding solutions. You're engaging them when you're listening to them, and you're giving them an opportunity to influence the organization or the team and its outcomes. Appreciation is last but not least. People want to know that what they do matters to somebody else. You might think the work someone does has an impact on the work as a whole, but if you don't say anything, the employee may not know. Appreciation can be simple and quick. Look for opportunities to say things like, "Hey, good job or thank you," but it also could be more specific and direct. Appreciation that is directed toward the person and is about the specifics of what the person did, not your characterization of the person, is far more powerful than appreciation that is vague and stated to a group. Just like when we're criticizing someone or we're trying to correct a performance short fall, we also want to be specific when we're saying what we appreciate. Otherwise, the person will not know what we need them to do again. Instead of, "Joe, here, it's so creative and awesome," say to a group at large, how about this, "Joe, you did an awesome job in the presentation. It was clear, each slide had only the information needed but enough for the audience to get what they needed to know. The slides were very engaging, I noticed the entire audience was paying attention. Well done." That is specific. It also is non-attributive. It did not characterize Joe. Joe, you're so creative, sounds like such a nice thing to say. If Joe wants to be perceived as creative, it will feel nice for him. The thing is maybe Joe wants to be seen as the technical guy, or the quantitative guy, and he keeps getting these creative labels. It's like you handed him a suit of clothes that don't fit. Moreover, it does not tell him what he did that you found creative so he won't know what you want them to do more of. Avoid attributive comments even when they're positive. Don't give false praise, people can see right through it. Focus on specific actions and outcomes, and state what made them meaningful, useful, or helpful. These represent the scaffolding. The supports for climate that enables employees to express their full potential and commitment. A psychologically safe work environment facilitates successful coaching, and using the coaching skills and process frequently supports the psychologically safe environment.