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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.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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?
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
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!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
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.
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.
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