As a business owner or manager, often times the best way to maximize employee performance is with a little tough love, according to the Harvard Business Review article “The Fine Art of Tough Love.” The article compares bosses to schoolteachers, explaining how putting these “tough love principles” to work will help create a culture of excellence in your business:

1. Banish empty praise. When your highest compliment is a rare “not bad,” employees will get more satisfaction from that than having compliments heaped on them regularly. Now, you might not have to take it to that extreme, but eliminating excessive praise will make it more impactful when you do show your gratitude.
2. Set expectations high. Once you’ve settled for less, there’s no going back. Set your standards and stick to them, even if it results in some difficulty with finding employees that will live up to those standards. You will find people willing to meet your expectations, and when you do, it will be worth the effort.
3. Articulate clear goals – and goal posts along the way. Tough love of course involved being tough but fair. Set clear goals for employees with intermediate goals to keep them on track, so they know it’s only fair if you’re hard on them when they don’t reach expectations.
4. Failure isn’t defeat. Just because you’re hard on workers doesn’t mean you should punish them for failure, but don’t bail them out either. Stress that failure is simply part of the process of improvement, and drive them to be self-motivated and figure out the solutions to their problems on their own.
5. Say thank you. None of this works without your employees knowing deep down that you care for them and are grateful for their effort. It’s all about finding the right times to show it and making it count when you do.

Click here to read the article from Harvard Business Review.