- Only correct for things where the benefit of the correction outweighs the reduction in motivation that often comes with being corrected (e.g. if it's a critical correction, do it! but if it's a non-important benefit, consider skipping it)

This is a great point actually. As a manager I had to "let go" of the small stuff and let the person learn on their own. Happy to share my own opinion, but left the decision up to them.

Nothing worse than getting "correction" about trivial things.

Ha. My personality tends towards letting small stuff go, but I work in management consulting, and so I end up having to be horrifically pedantic about spelling, formatting, etc. with my reports...

Luckily the entire organization is like this, but it definitely extracts a moral cost.

> a non-important benefit

E.g. "this will make me look so much smarter"

Ugh, I have to deal with someone who is bad at this. He regularly sends out emails that include all the devs pointing out that someone broke the build (worth pointing out if they didn't already see the automated email - not worth humiliating them in front of the whole team), and then also tries to show the fix that will be needed.

On the one hand, when he's right (which is often) it can save some work, but on the other hand, he's not always right, and he always sounds like an ass.

I've repeatedly asked management to have a word with him about it, but they haven't because he's a valued team member and they don't want to rock the boat. I ended up blowing up at him over email about it and he's definitely been less of a dick to me about these things, but he continues to be a dick to everyone else about it because it makes him look smarter. It's pretty irritating and I never want to have to work with him again because of it.

Don't you have a code review tool? That's a more productive way to channel corrections to other people's code.

Anonymously gift him the book The Asshole Survival Guide.

There is always a balance. One thing to keep in mind though, is that small corrections early on can prevent big problems later. I've seen multiple times where a person was not corrected for what at the time seemed like minor annoyances, but they led to big issues and terminations later.

The old adage comes to mind, "it's not what you say, but what you tolerate". If you communicate a reasonably good standard early on, it is helpful for the entire team.

I don't think correction has to be demotivating. Focus not on what they did wrong, but on the right way to do it. Give them something they can immediately apply. I think that can be more motivating, rather than less.

In theory sounds good, but is it not a little bit difficult, to know, how much motivation another person loses? I mean, can you look inside or something?

- Ask yourself whether you really need to take action, especially if you're not the person's manager. There's a lot to be said for keeping your mouth shut.

That's a good list. I would add

- Listen, because maybe they are right after all

Of course. Being a good manager/teammate/human is listening and admitting when you're wrong.

Add to that that praise is often more effective than correction, particularly for more junior folks.

If I can praise and lift up 95% of what someone is doing, they will do more of that, and less of the 5% that I'd otherwise like to see be done better — unless that 5% has a disproportionate amount of damage to the organization.

> - Correct in private, praise in public.

This is very good manners and also the default in some cultures, a huge humiliation to do otherwise.

On the other hand you might have people, who will always argue against anY correction you have and correcting in private makes it seem for them, that the discussion is 50-50, that it is only you telling them something is wrong and their opinion is as good as yours. It might not be worth correcting, unless critical, in such cases though.

Also, I can praise in email or in person.

If I'm admonishing, it will be privately face-to-face unless I absolutely can't otherwise. Quite often I'm trying to be gentle, but email just loses too much context and it comes across as me being genuinely upset.

Great list.

+ When stating the issue, avoid using "You are/were", prefer "You did/didn't do".

EDIT: and especially, absolutely avoid saying "You will never"

All very good advice, just pull them aside, not out of sight just out of ear shot

Really good list, thanks for sharing.

Nice list.