Say good things about people who aren’t in the room. It travels too.

Whatever you say about absent people gets repeated, and both kinds travel at the same speed. Praise handed out when the person cannot hear it carries weight precisely because you had nothing to gain by saying it, and it almost always finds its way back. It also tells everyone present what you are like when they are the ones not in the room.

Say one specific good thing about somebody absent this week, in front of other people, with no qualifier attached. Keep it accurate rather than generous. You will not be there when it lands, which is the point.