How to take compliments

Like any other cross-region corporate office, my team, SolutionsEngineering@FB also holds weekly calls for SEs from various APAC offices. We have a cult to thank team members in that call for whatever little but important we have contributed to other SE’s work. Last month in one of our weekly team calls, few folks thanked me. It was not a surprise but I felt very uneasy. I did not know how to react to any person thanking me. I have always been thanking people not the other way around and I also deployed thanking others as a tool to get others to hear what I am about to say. I just have never been on the other side of the game. This was probably the first few times when others are thanking me and I am thinking how to react! LOL. So, this blog is about me exploring how to receive thanks and not react weird.

Again teacher Google, gave me a ton of resources to learn from and following points I was able to imbibe in myself:

Things to do:

1. Expressing gratitude
   • We should express gratitude towards others for thanking us. If we do not get a chance to thank publicly then and there, then a private message also works!
2. Be appreciative
   • We should include others whom we know have contributed but are missed in the original mention.
3. Wear a smile
   • We should have a smile (given we would be attracting attention then) and own the compliment rather than having no expression or making a weird face.

Things to NOT do:

1. Doubt the intent
   • Having two thoughts will do no justice to that moment. A compliment is rarely wronged!
2. Deflect on others including luck
   • Luck is as much a factor in success as it is in failures. Deflecting on neutral factors undermines the person who thanked us.
3. Start boasting
   • The last thing we want to do is to boast about our greatness and born to be thanked! It puts the person thanking in a fix and they may have two thoughts about invoking that high pride publicly.

Since last month, I have had the privilege to hear the thanks again but this time I felt I was slightly better. I was able to nod my head as if I am behaving in-line with the consequence of events and the smile on my face made me comfortable as well. At the end of writing this blog, I felt maybe this is an overkill for many folks to even be bothered about taking thanking compliments, but it was a big deal for me! Those who know me would be able to connect with how weird I am at accepting compliments!