My Social Media Savvy CEO

I think I just took for granted his example and so followed the lead of my CEO, Peter Hart, when it came to blogging and getting on to the social media scene. Peter has a great recognition perspective blog that you can read about here.

However, recent research from UberCEO.com indicates that CEO’s from the 2009 Fortune’s top 100 CEO’s list found they were mostly absent from the growing social media community.

The study found only two CEOs had Twitter accounts and 81 percent of CEOs did not have a personal Facebook page.

Only 13 CEOs had profiles on the professional networking site LinkedIn. Three CEOs stood out with more than 80 connections but they were all from technology companies — Michael Dell from computer maker Dell, Gregory Spierkel from technology products distributor Ingram Micro, and John Chambers from Cisco Systems Ltd.

Three quarters of the CEOs did have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those had limited or outdated information such as incorrect titles, or lacked sources.

Not one Fortune 100 CEO had a blog.

As I mentioned, Rideau’s CEO, Peter Hart has a blog, has Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as being connected on LinkedIn. So I guess I have a pretty social media savvy CEO.

How well connected with the social media is your CEO?

We've Got Barbara!

Don’t mind me if I break into singing a number from the musical movie “Annie” but changing it to “We’ve got Barbara!”

I am so happy to share with you that Barbara Ruddy, CRP, has joined the Recognition Management Institute as Senior Consultant and Trainer.

Those of you who are members of the Recognition Professionals International (RPI) should be very familiar with Barbara Ruddy, CRP. Barbara teaches all of RPI’s Certified Recognition Professional certification courses and has done a remarkable job of chairing the Recognition Champion Award program in honor of her friend and colleague, the late Pamela Sabin.

Barbara's wealth of recognition experience will greatly benefit our RMI clients as we expand our services to reach a wider audience and show leaders how to give strategic employee recognition with our focus on Real Recognition TM for Real Results.

If there is one thing Barbara and I have in common – it is our passion for employees receiving the positive and meaningful recognition they deserve.

We’re thrilled Barbara has joined our team. Welcome aboard, Barbara!

Connecting the Dots, Connecting People

Remember those join-the-dot picture or coloring books? Once you had drawn the lines between all the consecutive numbered dots...voila! There appeared the picture that was otherwise hidden from view.

Recognition can do exactly the same thing.

When you acknowledge people the right way you help connect the dots. That’s why it is critical to not just tell people specifically what they did. It is almost more important that you tell the person how and why what they did actually made a difference. This is the Two-Part Specificity Rule in action – the what and the why.

Whether an employee’s actions helped you get some performance numbers in on time for your report to look good for a meeting presentation; or a hotel registration clerk sent up some water and cookies to your room because they heard you had a headache; or perhaps an employee got a shipment out that night for a special order request for a customer - TELL them how this benefited you, the customer, and/or the company.

Connect the dots!

Recognition also allows us to connect better with people.

By giving sincere, positive and timely feedback to people and by using the Two-Part Specificity Rule – the feedback and praise given will come across as being genuine, authentic and thereby REAL!

And it will be “felt”.

Giving meaningful recognition allows you to connect with people because it is all about relationships. Check out the positive friendships you have with those at work, your neighbourhood, and other networks, how did you form those connections?

Simply, you were consistent in your greetings and giving of time to that person and they reciprocated in kind. Your consistency in actions led to credibility you could be counted on as a friend to do anything they might need. And this credibility led to a high balance of trust. Relationships are built upon this trust.

So there you have it. Recognition not only helps you see the big picture of what your company’s really doing – the connecting the dots – it also helps you reinforce wonderful relationships – connecting people.

What is recognition?

One of the dilemmas we have in the recognition industry is our use of the word “recognition”. It is no wonder our clients are confused if we the educators, consultants and providers of recognition services and products don’t even agree on what we mean by the term.

A case in point became very evident to me when I assessed a particular company wanting to improve their recognition specific engagement scores. After looking at the formal quantifiable data I requested to interview a sampling of both managers and employees to gain an insight on the human perceptions.

Like many companies this one had focused on delivery of cash based awards through an on-line approval based system. Recognition practices, however, were inconsistent in occurrence and were typically associated with stronger interpersonal skilled leaders versus technical skilled managers.

So I asked a simple question of each manager and employee I met with, “Does your company give and focus more on “rewards” or on “recognition”?” Besides coming out with an overwhelming consensus that their company followed a rewards paradigm, there was one employee I could not even shift in his thinking that “recognition” and “rewards” were two separate things. Scary isn’t it?

This is my take on defining the two terms:

Recognition: is a tangible or intangible expression of acknowledging an individual’s contribution, achievements or observed behaviours.

• You’ll find recognition works on the intrinsic motivation of a person
• Because recognition affects the self-esteem of an individual it positively influences future performance
• Recognition impacts long-term focus of a person and retains them and keeps them engaged

Rewards: are something given or done in return for meeting pre-determined goals, or as merits for some service or achievement and can often be financial in nature.

• Rewards are an extrinsic motivation tool so are externally focused
• Rewards are contractual in nature – you do this and you get that. It has little or no effect on self-esteem
• They are always short-term focused so they don’t last long in their effect and have far less retention or engagement value.

So before you begin to give recognition, make sure you know what it is you’re really giving.

What is “recognition” to you?

In-Room Breakfast – On Time or the Best Banana?

While attending the Society for Human Resource Management conference where I am presenting on “Recognition ROI 3: Measuring Employee Recognition for Maximum Results”, I have been staying at the Marriott New Orleans at the Convention Center just across the road from the Morial Convention Center.

To speed things along each morning I have done the door hanger ordering of breakfast for the last two days.

Ashley has been my server each day and yesterday arrived bang on the initial time of the 15 minute range you tick off for arrival time. She even suggested I use the same door hanger again if I was ordering the same option. No one has ever suggested that before but for us creatures of habit it was a Green idea that I liked.

Today she arrived right in the middle at 7:07 a.m.

Ashley apologized for not being there on time – which for her the standard was the first time on the tick off box. Then she explained she had waited till they had some better bananas in the kitchen (I had ordered one) because what they had were small and not as nice.

I enjoyed that banana very much this morning. It was not picked fresh of the tree today. Instead, it was picked by a very caring server who thought more about the end result in the eyes of the customer that being absolutely on time.

After all she still had 7 minutes to go before it would have been considered late! Thank you, Ashley!!

Are we instilling similar initiative into our employees for them to think what would the customer really want? This can be the same for either internal or external customers. And when they take that extra special caring action why not share with the customer exactly what they did. Ashley’s actions made me thank her a little more enthusiastically than I normally do. She also made me think about what I do to give my clients “a better banana” with the service I provide.

Imagine starting your day with this experience as I did. It has left an impact and made a blog entry. Now go check the quality of your bananas before you give them to a customer.