2011 September Archive - RecognizeThis! Blog

Archive for September, 2011

Intertwine Company Culture & Strategy for Best Effect

Recognize This! – Culture and strategy cannot function as separate entities if the organization is to achieve its goals.

Organization culture is as important as organizational strategy. But the two are ineffective unless they are inextricably intertwined with each other.

A recent HR Review article on “Demystifying Corporate Culture” made this quite clear:

“Having a highly engaged workforce is not enough, however. It is equally important that organisational culture and strategy are aligned. A workforce that is pulling in the wrong direction—one that operates with enthusiasm but contrary to strategic intent—is detrimental to performance. A workforce that operates with enthusiasm and pulls in the right direction delivers improved performance and makes a significant impact on an organisation’s ability to achieve its strategic goals.

“Indeed, getting the right mix of strategy and culture creates a formula for business success. Pursuing a strategy of innovation in a dynamic market can only succeed within an inquisitive culture where the workforce pushes boundaries and management encourages new ideas and constructive risk-taking.”

Helping companies to proactively manage their company culture based on their core values and strategic objectives is what I do every day. It’s what my book Winning with a Culture of Recognition, co-authored with Globoforce CEO Eric Mosley, is all about.

Managing culture is only possible, however, if employees so deeply understand the values and objectives that it becomes possible for them to live them out in their daily work. How do you do that? As I discussed earlier this week, specific and detailed recognition of employees every time they demonstrate one of those values.

How does that make it possible to manage culture? A strategic recognition program encourages frequent and timely recognition by all employees of their peers and colleagues any time they demonstrate these behaviors and help achieve the strategic objectives. With each of these values-based recognition moments recorded and charted, company leaders can see at a glance where, perhaps, there may be less recognition on “innovation” than they would like. If this is happening in the R&D department, obviously immediate intervention is necessary. But if “innovation” recognition is low in the accounting department, that’s likely a good thing!

Is your culture intertwined with your strategy or do they stand alone? Which approach do you think is more effective?

Favoritism and Other Death Knells to Successful Employee Recognition

Recognize This! – Proper program design is critical to rapid adoption of employee recognition.

Earlier this week I wrote about a powerful culture of recognition built by the CEO of Proteus. He understood the importance of basing such a culture on core values and an ethos of inclusion of all employees through peer-to-peer recognition.

Creating and proactively managing a culture of recognition in which employees choose to engage is a critical point I discuss regularly. In response to a recent post on How to Treat Company Culture as Strategy, I received this question:

“Our company has an employee recognition programme to recognize people for their contributions beyond KRAs [Key Responsibility Areas].

“We have defined the criteria for recognition and employees can either nominate themselves or their supervisors can nominate them. The winners of the trophy are selected at the zonal level by zonal leadership based on certain criteria and their names are published pan India.

“We received many nominations when we launched the program but we hardly receive any nominations these days.

“Can anybody suggest ideas to drive it across an employee strength of 13,000 people and ensure there are more nominations? Should there be any change in the criteria for recognition?”

As I advised this person, there are several areas I would change:

“Winners” should never be limited. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to be recognized and acknowledged for their efforts and behaviors.
All employees should be encouraged to recognize each other (not themselves) any time they see a peer or colleague demonstrate a core value and achieve an objective.
Unless management has a major reason for disapproving such a nomination, there should be no “selection committee” for who gets that recognition. If someone is recognized by a colleague for their stellar efforts and behaviors, they should receive it. Full stop.
This program receives so few nominations now because employees likely perceive it as a program in which the same few people are recognized again and again. Leadership is playing their favorites.

In Globoforce’s latest Workforce Mood Tracker (released yesterday), this last point was a key message expressed by employees on what they would change in their recognition programs: “Many people who should be recognized go unnoticed due to favoritism among those who choose.”

Unfortunately, the program described in the question above is geared to generate favoritism. Be sure to check out the Workforce Mood Tracker to learn more ways in which recognition done right can increase retention.

How would you have answered the question?

Can You Praise Employees Too Much?

Recognize This! – Specific, detailed, sincere praise is never too much.

I’ve had people respond to my posts on frequent, timely recognition with a concern that recognition too frequently given makes the recognition irrelevant over time. Bnet recently published an article along this line, but with an important twist. An excerpt:

“This executive retreat reminded me of the failure of the self-esteem movement. This held that if you praise kids a lot and give them all prizes for everything (‘everyone’s a winner’), you will make them more capable. But while it is true that expectations influence outcomes, it is not true that saying everyone’s a winner makes it true. In fact – it may have just the opposite effect.

“As Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s landmark research showed, if kids believe that they are smart, then when the work gets hard, they give up. Not being able to do something instantly makes them feel stupid and hopeless, so they quit. On the other hand, if you praise qualities and actions – not self-image – kids will persist with difficult tasks and achieve more.”

That last line in bold is the twist. And it could not be more correct. Frequency itself isn’t the problem. It’s what’s being recognized.

Teresa Amabile’s recent research (published in The Progress Principle) proves the necessity of recognizing and praising progress, not just achievements of BHAGs. Recognizing progress, not just results, is also why we so strongly advocate recognizing employees based on their demonstration of what matters most to you – your core company values. Reinforcing these values (and their importance) in this way also makes the abstract come alive.

Specific recognition, as I discussed in yesterday’s post, is also critical to ensuring the power of recognition is sustained over the long term. A casual “thank you,” while noted, does lose efficacy if that’s all an employee ever hears. More important is pausing to take the time to notice, appreciate and very specifically thank a colleague for what they did that made a difference.

Can you ever give too much praise?

How to Make Your Core Values Come Alive

Recognize This! – How the work gets done is as important as it getting done.

Yesterday I wrote about how Proteus CEO Andrew Thompson changed the game at his company by changing the culture. Or rather, by establishing a culture based on peer-to-peer recognition of core values demonstrated in daily work.

It’s that critical element of recognizing how the work gets done that sets true leader organizations apart. Without a focus on the “how,” it’s easy to slip into “just get it done” – and that can lead to deviant behaviors (think Enron or the recent banking scandals).

That’s why Cris Beswick’s recent comment in HR Magazine struck so close to home for me:

“I think next generation competitive advantage is now being driven not by ‘what’ an organisation does but by ‘HOW’ it does it.”

Organizations seem to be able to define the “how” – the core values. It’s communicating those values in a way that makes to employees in their daily work where leaders stumble.

A Forbes article last week on “Motivating and Retaining the Best Employees” highlights this struggle in their advice to:

“Clearly state the company’s beliefs and values. Publish a company manifesto to ensure that every company action is in harmony with these stated goals.”

This doesn’t go nearly far enough. Publishing a manifesto of the company’s beliefs and values does no good if nobody reads it. Nobody reads even the simple plaque on the wall listing the values.

Instead, you must make those core values come alive in the daily work of every employee — such that they know beyond a doubt what “innovation” or “integrity” or “teamwork” looks like in what they do every day.

How do you make the abstract that intimately real? Simple – recognize and praise employees in a very specific and detailed way every time they demonstrate one of those values. Here’s an example:

“John, thanks for the great ‘teamwork’ on the MacGuffin project. You jumped in at the last moment to help us pull together the critical details and went out of your way to make sure we delivered more than the client could have hoped for. Your willingness to help in a crunch is what makes our team (and our company) a success.”

Such a detailed message with that level of specificity on what John did that demonstrated teamwork makes it real.

Do your employees know how to demonstrate your core values in their daily work? Do you?

The Brains behind Strategic Recognition

Recognize This! – Peer-to-peer recognition of your core values builds stronger horizontal relationships.

My fellow Compensation Café blogger, Laura Schroeder, recently posted a brilliant account of motivation through brains in glass jars.

Let me explain. In a New York Times “Corner Office” interview, Andrew M. Thompson, co-founder and C.E.O. of Proteus, explained a motivation technique in which he keeps his workers’ “brains” in glass jars in the office foyer. For every successful patent filed, the employee gets a small foam brain added to the jar under his or her name.

Brains in jars is certainly one of the oddest motivation techniques I’ve ever come across. Laura’s post goes on to explain, however, the powerful culture of recognition Mr. Thompson has built at Proteus.

In the New York Times article itself, Mr. Thompson says:

“Culture in our company is a really big deal, and we have a values system built around quality, teamwork and leadership. One of the activities around that cultural framework is the idea that employees can recognize each other — groups or teams can recognize or be recognized by other employees for doing things that specifically demonstrate those values. … It really promotes what I’m going to call mutuality.

“People spend a lot of time in organizations being focused on hierarchy. The best, strongest and most functional organizations are ones where the horizontal relationships are really powerful and where people trust each other, work with each other, support each other, help each other, hold each other’s hands and move forward together.”

In short order, Mr. Thompson has covered three critical points of Strategic Recognition:

Base recognition on your core values: If you want to proactively manage your company culture, reinforce regularly precisely what is most important to you – your core values. Doing so helps employees understand exactly what your values look like in their daily work. Strategic recognition lets you then chart recognition of those values by individual, team, department and organization-wide to keep your finger on the pulse of your culture.
Encourage peer-to-peer recognition: Like I’ve said before, nobody knows who’s doing the best job like the people doing the job. Giving all employees the responsibility for recognition encourages everyone to look up from their work and notice the exceptional efforts and behaviors happening around them every day.
Build stronger horizontal relationships:These relationships are how the work really gets done in an organization. People work harder for those they know and trust – and for those who appreciate them. Build those relationships and you also increase productivity.

What’s the most unusual motivational technique you’ve heard of? Did it work?

Are You Killing Your Employees with Your “Rewards?”

Recognize This! – Employees want to know they and their efforts are noticed, appreciated and valued. They don’t want “party swag.”

Last week I wrote about global employee rewards and the importance of understanding local needs and desires. A reader of my post on HR Toolbox where my blog is syndicated responded to my question if any readers had been insulted by well-intentioned rewards, saying:

“Yes, I have had more than a few of those. Getting a box of chocolates even though I’m diabetic and morbidly obese can send a bit of a mixed message. The other case is what I’d call the automatic, courteous reward. Getting a message at Christmastime that says, “Thanks for all your hard work this year,” tends to give me that feeling of being just a cog in the wheel. It is so impersonal other than putting my name on it that I wonder, “Do you know what I really like? Do you know what would make this work for me? Could you even wonder if this ticks me off?” I’m not wanting my manager to spend hours writing my card but it would be nice to see something in it that shows some care or individuality is recognized.”

That’s a common theme over and over again – and why the handwritten thank you note simply doesn’t scale in growing organizations. If you’re going to the trouble of acknowledging employee contributions, you’d better go the extra step of making it highly personal. Good managers take the extra few minutes to specifically thank the person being recognized for what the employee did, how they did it in a uniquely valuable manner, and why that effort or behavior was particularly desirable to the company. Exceptional managers go even farther and make sure such appreciation is expressed frequently and in-the-moment, not just at Christmas.

Rewards are also a critical point, as my commenter noted. That’s why it’s far more appropriate to let the employee choose the reward most meaningful for them – from endless options ranging from things to experiences – shopping, dining, entertainment, travel, adventure, even charity – anywhere in the world.

What’s not rewarding? Swag that looks like something you could have selected as the theme to your children’s birthday party. A favorite blogger of mine, Steve Boese of the excellent HR Technology blog, recently wrote about an “employee rewards” catalog he received, commenting:

“But in only a second of looking at the swag laid out before me, I immediately thought that these pages could have been torn from your favorite party supplies catalog, you know the section where the kid’s themed birthday party stuff is laid out. Where parents that really ought to know better end up selecting cups, plates, streamers, party hats, noisemakers, cake toppers, etc. – all with the same theme. Because we know every kid’s party has to have a theme, and heaven help you if you try and pair a Star Wars cup with a Spongebob plate.”

Too many employee recognition and rewards vendors put the rewards first. That’s why these programs become the “flavor of the month” in companies – and why employees think of them as jokes. A member of my team told me she once received an engraved acrylic item as a reward. She calls it a “tombstone.” That was a bit foreign to my Irish sensibilities (she’s American), but she told me that’s a common term in the US for them.

Too often well meaning managers (and the HR pros backing the “program”) give employees kids party favors and tombstones. Walk into any Salvation Army or Goodwill store and count the number of company logo merchandise items.

Rather, we should be focusing our attention where it belongs – on recognizing employees for their contributions and behaviours that demonstrate your company values – on telling them, frequently and specifically, how much they and their efforts are valued and how they’re contributing to making the company/organization successful.

Sure, there’s a place for meaningful rewards so employees can cement that goodwill in their memories for years to come – but you certainly won’t find those rewards in the pages of a catalog.

What’s the most bizarre “reward” you ever saw on offer in an employee rewards catalog?

It’s Time to Rethink Performance Management

Recognize This! – You need strategic employee recognition to balance the traditional review process.

Usually I read about performance management systems (failed and otherwise) once or twice a year – in the Fall and Spring when most companies seem to schedule the annual review cycle. This past 12-18 months, however, the topic has never really dropped out of the news or HR/Management blog discussion.

Why? Because the vast majority are now realizing the annual review process as currently deployed is failed – pure and simple. Bnet recently pointed out “10 Ways to Ruin an Employee Evaluation,” including these two:

“Focus primarily on the near-term. Almost all the evaluations I received focused on my performance over the previous couple of months, even if I had accomplished great things over the course of the entire year.”

“Ignore the previous review. Do you remember everything you said the last time you evaluated a particular employee? Of course you don’t — but the employee does. Use the same examples and the employee feels you’re just going through the motions.”

Annual reviews have their place as formal, process oriented systems that provide a forum for a deep-dive into an employee’s performance over a 12-month period. But this is only half the performance story and must be balanced by and complemented with strategic recognition. Recognition provides the key to social performance management by encouraging less formal, ad-hoc praise and acknowledgement of behaviors, contributions and achievements throughout the year.

My CEO, Eric Mosley, is joining Josh Bersin, the #1 ranked online influencer in talent management, in a webinar on how to marry the two together. Join them for “Measuring Employee Performance 365 Days a Year,” Wednesday, September 28, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. They will share with you:

How to build a world-class company culture driven by employee recognition
New social and mobile strategies that fuel team collaboration and productivity
Insider tips on getting unscripted feedback that will show the true leaders and influences with your organization

Register for the webinar now!

“Bursts of Joy” on the Path to Achieving Your BHAGs

Recognize This! – Focus on the big goals, but don’t forget to celebrate the smaller achievements along the way.

Do you have any BHAGs – you know, Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals? I do. My primary BHAG is to change the way the world recognizes and appreciates employees, changing company cultures for the better in the process.

That’s a daunting goal, indeed! And if that’s all I focused on, I might become overwhelmed by it. Instead, I always have that goal in mind while I work to shorter-term goals such as helping just one company, even just one HR pro at a time change their culture for the better. And I see success in this smaller goals nearly every day.

These shorter term achievements are critical to BHAG success, as recently described in the Financial Times article “Tiny Bursts of Joy Pave the Way to BHAGs.” Discussing Teresa Amabile’s research on the importance of honoring progress, the article points out:

“If companies hit big goals infrequently, and the incentives for reaching them have toxic side-effects, it would be better for them to find other ways to encourage worker engagement. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School and her husband Steven Kramer, a developmental psychologist, believe an obvious, but often overlooked, approach is for managers to remove barriers to day-to-day progress at work. …

“Even quite small steps forward at work generated a burst of joy (yes, it sounds hokey – but they maintain it’s the correct word for what they discovered) that inspired creative work over a period of days.”

I’m looking forward to many personal “bursts of joy” in my upcoming workshop series: Build YOUR Winning Culture of Recognition. The entire purpose of the workshop is to bring together HR pros from across industries and help them create the strategic business case for how to change their company cultures.

I hope you can join us in any of the cities below:

Atlanta, GA: Thursday, Oct 27, 2011
New York, NY: Friday, Oct 28, 2011
Chicago, IL: Monday, Nov 14, 2011
San Francisco, CA: Thursday, Nov 17, 2011

Find out more information and register here. Blog readers should enter discount code: RECOGNIZETHIS for half-off the registration fee.

Company Success Is Entirely Dependent on Your Culture

Recognize This! – Company culture is ignored to the peril of the organization as a whole.

Yesterday I wrote about my passion for employee recognition in the workplace. Another topic I’m passionate about is company culture. Too many leaders think company culture is something that “just happens” and is beyond their control. Or perhaps a new CEO inherited a decades-old culture he or she doesn’t like but feels powerless to change it now.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Culture can be proactively created and managed at any stage – from start-up, to mid-stream, through succession of new leadership. Even more importantly, companies that want to succeed must learn how to not only manage their culture, but brand it as well.

Forbes recently featured an article, “The Most Successful Companies Embrace the Promise of Their Culture,” which said in part:

“Their brands became symbolic after their cultural promise successfully endures through several business cycles. First, their logos represent symbols of reliability, trust and quality. Second, their consumers associate these brands as contributors to their lifestyles. Finally, these brands stand for something that is greater than themselves, beyond their core business, that symbolizes their relentless dedication for the advancement of society and the consumers the serve.

“As you reflect upon the cultural promise of your organization and yourself, there is one more thing that is embedded in the success of these brands: they seek to be significant. Your cultural promise defines your significance factor. The more your organization dedicates itself to the promise of the culture you are trying to create, the more your people and brand look to be not only successful, but also significant.”

And that’s important from your corporate brand, to your employment brand to your employee recognition program brand. Integrating these brands is critical as a unified brand carries your company culture, values and ethos across the entire talent management spectrum – from recruitment through succession.

Creating a culture of appreciation through strategic recognition also creates strong emotional connections for employees. And when you create strong emotional connections with your employees, you engage them, you inspire them and you keep them.

How seriously does your organization leaders address the company culture? Is it “just what it is” or do leaders and employees alike work to create a culture in which they truly want to engage?

Get More of What You Want with Employee Recognition

Recognize This! – Appreciative Inquiry is a powerful management practice. Strategic Recognition is an effective methodology for implementing it.

Why am I so passionate about strategic employee recognition? It’s simply this – I care very deeply about the work environment of employees. After all, I’m an employee myself. I just happen to be lucky enough to work in an organization that values me and my contributions and never fails to let me know that.

I also believe strategic recognition is the most effective way of communicating to employees what the company values most – achievement of strategic objectives in line with company values. The two cannot be separated or unintended consequences will result.

Strategic recognition is the most positive and effective approach for looking at what you want more of in your organization and getting it. Dina Medina, an internal communications manager at HP, recently addressed this topic from a different angle: Appreciative Inquiry (AI), explaining:

“Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an organizational development methodology that looks at finding what works well in an organization and how to make more of it. …

“The implications for employee communication are tremendous. First, it’s about recognizing that organizations are human systems and that communication sits at the center. How we talk to each other and about what does matter. … Communication becomes the enabling force and an energized, committed and engaged organization is the outcome.”

Dina’s description of AI mirrors quite well the principles of using strategic recognition in the workplace. In fact, the correlation is so strong, I venture that strategic recognition is one methodology for AI in the workplace by using the positive power of employee recognition to focus employees on demonstrating your company values in contribution to achieving strategic objectives.

Frequent recognition of every employee – by managers and peers alike – is the most effective way of making the values and objectives meaningful and real in the daily work of every employee. How better to encourage what you want to see more of than by saying “thank you?”

Do you use any AI approach in your workplace to look for what you want more of and encourage it, or do you simply seek to stop what you don’t want? Which approach do you think is more effective in both the short- and long-term?

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