Posts
Besides my love for reading business and psychological based non-fiction books , I also love reading books about developing oneself and improving one's marriage.
Some of you are probably familiar with Gary Chapman's acclaimed work and book The Five Love Languages which is just an excellent marriage book.
The premise of his book is that each of us has a primary "love language" and that we may be speaking the wrong language to our spouse. The five types of languages he has discovered are:
* Words of Affirmation
* Quality Time
* Receiving Gifts
* Acts of Service
* Physical Touch
I believe similar principles cross over into the field of employee recognition in that an act of recognition for one person is not meaningful to another.
My findings speak to four aspects of recognition versus actual languages, namely:
* "Appreciative Listening" - listening with intent and care
* "Recognition Talking" - speaking meaningful and specific words of acknowledgement
* "Praiseworthy Actions" - demonstrating kind actions and caring concern
* "Rewarding Giving" - taking time to give people the right things
While research continues to show people's differing recognition preferences, I wonder if we actually speak a different recognition language?
What do you think? Do we speak different recognition languages?
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Prospect Theory and Recognition
Listened to Dr. John Oesch, from the Rotman School of Management, speak on Five Unusual Ideas About Change at the Strategic Capabilities Network in Toronto today. His observations were a stimulating introduction on how to improve the management of change in our organizations.
Part of his presentation showed the classic Prospect Theory developed by Dr. Daniel Kahneman from Princeton University. Oesch related this theory to change and how we can apply it. But my mind saw the theory’s impact upon employee recognition and better understanding people’s evaluative processes.
Originally built on from empirical findings, the Prospect Theory describes how individuals evaluate potential losses and gains with the original experiments having the prospect as a lottery.
In principle the Prospect Theory suggests an interesting relationship between objective (quantifiable) value and subjective (qualitative) value. Accordingly, losses have a more emotional impact than an equivalent amount of gains.
Perhaps this explains the reason why people leave organizations where there is a lack of or no recognition because they will do more to avoid the pain or loss. At the same time in organizations where recognition appears to be well delivered, after receiving multiple and ongoing recognition actions, the degree of benefit perceived, the subjective value, actually lessens over time. In fact, it would take a lot more recognition to fill the equivalent amount of perceived loss or lack of recognition.
Prospect Theory could imply that losses or lack of recognition are weighted greater or more heavily than an equivalent amount of recognition.
I haven’t found any equivalent studies on rewards and recognition, but that’s where my mind was heading after Dr. Oesch’s presentation.
Part of his presentation showed the classic Prospect Theory developed by Dr. Daniel Kahneman from Princeton University. Oesch related this theory to change and how we can apply it. But my mind saw the theory’s impact upon employee recognition and better understanding people’s evaluative processes.
Originally built on from empirical findings, the Prospect Theory describes how individuals evaluate potential losses and gains with the original experiments having the prospect as a lottery.
In principle the Prospect Theory suggests an interesting relationship between objective (quantifiable) value and subjective (qualitative) value. Accordingly, losses have a more emotional impact than an equivalent amount of gains.
Perhaps this explains the reason why people leave organizations where there is a lack of or no recognition because they will do more to avoid the pain or loss. At the same time in organizations where recognition appears to be well delivered, after receiving multiple and ongoing recognition actions, the degree of benefit perceived, the subjective value, actually lessens over time. In fact, it would take a lot more recognition to fill the equivalent amount of perceived loss or lack of recognition.
Prospect Theory could imply that losses or lack of recognition are weighted greater or more heavily than an equivalent amount of recognition.
I haven’t found any equivalent studies on rewards and recognition, but that’s where my mind was heading after Dr. Oesch’s presentation.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Stop Thinking and Find Out
Many companies use surveys to find out the latest status on their service topic and also create some media buzz.
Earlier this year Salary.com released their 2008 Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey results. What I picked up on were the top reasons given for leaving a job remained the same from the previous year's survey results, namely:
* Inadequate Compensation
* Inadequate Development Opportunities
* and, Insufficient Recognition
Now when you dig deeper into the survey results you discover employers were not in synch with employee perceptions. For example, employers had a good sense of overall satisfaction levels they just tended to overestimate the degree of extremely satisfied by nearly 2 to 1.
Let’s take a look at our area of interest – employee recognition.
When asked to rank the reasons why employees leave, insufficient recognition was the third highest behind compensation and career development. What’s more interesting is only 29 percent of employers thought a lack of recognition was a factor. Employees told a different story with 39 percent of them saying insufficient recognition was a key reason. Not knowing what 10 percent of your workforce is feeling about being under recognized is significant.
Managers and business owners must never assume they know the perceptions and degree of impact their employees perceive of retention factors. In other words stop thinking and find out directly. If you want to know the most valuable solution on how employees want to be recognized...ask!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Don't Recognize
A friend of mine, David Zinger, introduced me to Improvisational Theatre and drama teacher, Keith Johnstone’s work. I hadn’t heard of him before but became intrigued.
In the late 1950s, as a play-reader, director and drama teacher at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England, Johnstone reversed many of the things his teachers had taught him in order to develop more spontaneity in acting. Instruction could include making faces at each other and being playfully nasty to each other. He would tell his students, "Don't concentrate," "Don't think," "Be obvious," and "Don't be clever!" This unorthodox approach and his unique techniques opened his students' minds up to being more imaginative and spontaneous.
In my work with coaching and educating people on being more “real” and effective with their verbal expression of recognition to others, I often find myself providing structure on thinking through various steps of what to say and how to give recognition.
For those of us who have used more structured approaches of being specific, timely, etc., maybe we can begin to learn to be more spontaneous with our recognition giving.
So let’s apply some of Johnstone’s techniques towards positive verbal recognition:
“Don’t be structured”
“Be natural”
“Be yourself”
“Don’t recognize”
What if this turned into a conversation instead of an acknowledgement? Choose to get excited in doing a genuine kind act instead of giving something. Allow yourself to think what you should do next rather than planning everything out. Don’t single someone out just honor them.
Taking recognition to a more spontaneous level will stretch even those of us more comfortable and proficient in giving appreciation. It will allow us to be ourselves and make recognition giving more authentic.
In the late 1950s, as a play-reader, director and drama teacher at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England, Johnstone reversed many of the things his teachers had taught him in order to develop more spontaneity in acting. Instruction could include making faces at each other and being playfully nasty to each other. He would tell his students, "Don't concentrate," "Don't think," "Be obvious," and "Don't be clever!" This unorthodox approach and his unique techniques opened his students' minds up to being more imaginative and spontaneous.
In my work with coaching and educating people on being more “real” and effective with their verbal expression of recognition to others, I often find myself providing structure on thinking through various steps of what to say and how to give recognition.
For those of us who have used more structured approaches of being specific, timely, etc., maybe we can begin to learn to be more spontaneous with our recognition giving.
So let’s apply some of Johnstone’s techniques towards positive verbal recognition:
“Don’t be structured”
“Be natural”
“Be yourself”
“Don’t recognize”
What if this turned into a conversation instead of an acknowledgement? Choose to get excited in doing a genuine kind act instead of giving something. Allow yourself to think what you should do next rather than planning everything out. Don’t single someone out just honor them.
Taking recognition to a more spontaneous level will stretch even those of us more comfortable and proficient in giving appreciation. It will allow us to be ourselves and make recognition giving more authentic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
