The Compliment Sandwich 馃オ aka: How to criticize a normie without making them upset.

post by keltan 路 2025-03-03T23:15:44.495Z 路 LW 路 GW 路 4 comments

Contents

  Recipe:
      You'll need:
      Instructions:
    Final Thoughts
None
4 comments

This valuable nugget was given to me by an individual working in advertising. At the time, I was 16, posting on my local subreddit, hoping to find someone who could advise me on a film making career path. This individual kindly took the time to sit me down at a bar鈥攁s I wore my school uniform鈥攁nd detail everything I would need to do to be able to make films professionally. Among many insights I am truly grateful for was the Sandwich. As with many metaphorical sandwiches, the compliment sandwich is named incorrectly. It should really be called the criticism sandwich.

Recipe:

You'll need:

Instructions:

  1. Start with a compliment. Even the worst of things have a silver lining; you'll need to find it and comment on it.
  2. Now provide the critique. It can be more brutal than a lone critique because the blow was softened by your first compliment.
  3. Finish off with your second compliment. Make it flow naturally from the critique if you can, something like "Oh, but I almost forgot to mention, I love how you..."

Final Thoughts

This isn't a technique to be used with rationalists. This is a normie communication protocol. It also works well with kids, teens, and people in a bad state of mind.

I hope the compliment sandwich is a valuable piece in your lunch box 馃О going forward. Bon app茅tit.

4 comments

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comment by jbash 路 2025-03-03T23:53:12.587Z 路 LW(p) 路 GW(p)

The problem with that technique is that it comes off as unbearably patronizing to a pretty large fraction of the people who actually notice that you're doing it. It's a thing that every first-line corporate manager learns, and it gets really obnoxious after a while. So you have to judge your audience well.

I think you're in peril of misjudging the audience if you routinely divide the world into "normies" and "rationalists".

comment by lsusr 路 2025-03-04T02:48:15.228Z 路 LW(p) 路 GW(p)

Once I had several positive things to say to a very good CEO. When I was done, he just waited. He was so used to receiving compliment sandwiches that he just assumed my compliment would be followed by a criticism.

comment by NoSignalNoNoise (AspiringRationalist) 路 2025-03-04T04:18:27.866Z 路 LW(p) 路 GW(p)

Does this still work? I've often heard it referred to as the "shit sandwich method" (by STEMish non-rationalists), so I wonder if people are sufficiently inoculated to it for it to no longer work

comment by Amarko 路 2025-03-04T00:52:55.926Z 路 LW(p) 路 GW(p)

I think the complement sandwich can be useful as a stepping stone to good communication. That said, I think of it as a narrow formulation of a more general (and less precisely defined) approach to conversation that I might point to with phrases like "work with people where they are at" and "be aware of the emotions that your words induce in other people". There was an article on LessWrong that I can't find, arguing that clear communication is worded to pre-emptively avoid likely misunderstandings and misconceptions. The idea I'm pointing to is like that, but concerning the emotional interpretation of your words rather than the literal meaning. I think this can apply just as much to the rationalist community as to any other community (although I haven't had any conversations with rationalists so I don't know for sure).

Like literary and conversational techniques in general, if they are followed as a hard rule then they risk coming across as formulaic and hence inauthentic. However I can imagine that it might be useful to adopt the complement sandwich as a rule until you gain a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanics.