Make Their Day Blog

An article in the Wall Street Journal online offers three ways to motivate recession-weary staff: ask for input, offer cross-training, and assist with family matters. These are all good ways to communicate staff value, but when you are talking about motivating the weary, there is an important ingredient missing, and that is FUN.

People need to laugh, or at least smile, at work. It reduces stress and increases cooperation. It is good for business.

How can you lighten up?

1) Give out a silly award. Get something cheap: an eight-ball, a wrench, a jar of peanut butter. Endow it with meaning: looking ahead, mistake of the week, smooth handling of a sticky situation. Keep it light-hearted. If you go with something like the mistake of the week, give yourself the first award.

2) Have a crazy contest: office miniature golf tournament, who can build the biggest house of cards in 5 minutes, or the ugliest pet contest.

3) Have a competition that relates to work and make the prizes fun: customer service contest between departments or branches with toy giraffes for the winners (sticking your neck out for great service), or a competition with previous results (production rate, error rate, safety record, increase in sales) and celebrate any win with a pizza party.

4) Add a touch of fun to your meetings: put a bit of humor in your PowerPoint, take a moment to play “something no one here knows about me is,” put toys on the table for people to fiddle with throughout the meeting.

When your routine is beginning to wear on your team, break with routine. Do something out of the ordinary. If your are afraid that people won’t like it, remember, even groans build energy.  Put some squishy stress balls on the table. Tell people that if they don’t like your humor, they can throw the ball at you. You will be surprised by the number of smiles you can generate in just a few minutes.

Now it is your turn. Tell us how you lighten up at work!

Copyright 2010 Cindy Ventrice

I returned late last week from a long trip. The last leg of my journey was from Chicago to San Francisco. As I was boarding the plane, I noticed that Jerry Rice was sitting in first class talking on his cell phone. Now, I am not a football fan, but back when Jerry Rice and Joe Montana played in San Francisco I rarely missed a game. Seeing the two of them in action was like watching an intricate dance. It seemed more like art than sport.

In case you haven’t gathered, I am a Jerry Rice fan. So what did I do when I saw him seated on the aisle where I would need pass?

I ignored him.

I took my seat (much further back) and called my husband. When I got off the phone, a woman seated near me said, “Isn’t it great how no one acts as if they recognize him?”

Her question made me think - When is not recognizing someone as a good thing?

Clearly we all knew that gushing all over Mr. Rice would not be welcome. The man probably gets way more attention than he wants.

But how much recognition is too much? This is a question I get quite a lot. I used to tell supervisors that chances are pretty good that they haven’t exceeded anyone’s limit. Now I can say that if Jerry Rice isn’t on your team, you probably haven’t overdone it.

Seriously, there is a big difference between the recognition given by fans and that given by managers and coworkers. Fans recognize celebrities because they want to feel special themselves, to be able to say “I met Jerry Rice.” At work, it isn’t about us. We recognize to make the recipients feel valued. Can we really overdo that?

I was recently quoted in Inc. Magazine for a story about College Hunks Hauling Junk. The company holds regular, successful competitions (contests) between both franchises and employees. Since I have been quoted previously on the potential damage that competitions can cause, I was asked to comment.

Read the article and the comments that follow. Tell me what you think. What has been your experience with competitions or contests at work?

I recently spoke with a manager whose team wasn’t getting much validation from the rest of the company.  The situation was hurting team morale.

As this manager realized, he could recognize his employees, but if the rest of the organization treated them as unecessary, or even a hinderance, it would be difficult to really motivate his team.

He has a team branding problem, and it is hurting the inherent recognition that comes from pride of work. Companies work to manage their image with the outside world (at least the smart ones do). This manager needs to manage his team’s image to the rest of the company.

To help him plan his branding strategy, I asked this manager a few questions:

1) Who are your team’s customers? In other words, who in your organization benefits from the work you do? If you are a manager, it is critical that you be able to answer this question. You need to find out what your customers think of you. If there are perception problems, fix them. When you hear great stories, leverage them: get testimonials, ask them to speak to your team, tell their story.

2) What are your team goals and how do those goals support company goals? The only way to judge your success is to know what, in terms of the big picture, you are supposed to be doing. Establish metrics if you can. Communicate success to team stakeholders.

3) Is your manager supportive? With even lukewarm support you can get decent team (and individual) recognition from management. You need to provide information and encouragement. Keep management updated on successes. Make suggestions on what you would like them to do to recognize employees. Do all the legwork for management. Make it easy for them to offer praise and congratulations. Most will be happy to do it.

Work on your team brand and you will build inherent recognition!

Copyright 2009 Cindy Ventrice

I keep seeing the term Survival Mode . Today it was in an ad. Before that, in news reports from several sectors. I think  that it is fair to say that most companies are in survival mode right now.  Companies, managers, and staff at all levels feel like they are facing down an economic freight train . They are running as fast as they can, and they can’t get off the tracks. That is survival mode.

Survival Mode. We are all feeling it. So, what skills do we need to survive? I am going to start you off with one idea, then I want to hear your thoughts.

The ability to prioritize. 

Never before have we been asked to do more with less. There are probably a thousand demands on your time . You can’t do it all, no matter how much you want to. Knowing the difference between urgent and important has never been so critical.

The urgent stuff is hard to miss. It is in your face, sirens blaring, baby screaming, you can’t possibly ignore me stuff.

Important is a little more elusive. When it comes to tasks, I can’t tell you which qualify as important. But you are responsible for more than tasks. Whether you are a manager, supervisor, team lead, or staff, I can tell you that there is nothing more important than the people on your team. They are your biggest priority. I know that sound cliche, and I don’t recommend you go around saying it. Just make sure you are showing it.

Bring your head up out of the trenches and look around. How is your team doing? Is there anything you can do to give them a boost? Sometimes all it takes is a smile or a thank you.

Every week I send out around 3000 weekly tips on employee recognition and related topics.

Every week dozens of people respond with their comments and ideas. Often I incorporate these ideas into my programs and articles. Sometimes I add them to the reader’s stories section of the web site. Other times, like this, the ideas seem best suited for this blog.

Before we get to the idea, let me share with you the weekly tip that inspired Dave Densley of Media Perfection:

Weekly Tip - Global Team Building

As many of our organizations go global it gets more difficult to build cohesive, responsive teams. Difficult, but not impossible. Here are a few strategies that others have used:

• Schedule regular conference calls (audio is fine, video is better) for strategy sessions, best practices, brainstorming and even fun and games. Schedule them at different times of the day to share the inconvenience of disparate time zones.
• Set up a closed Intranet for your team. Include a place to post kudos, requests, and notes of appreciation. Think of it as a virtual bulletin board. Also include profiles of each member. You can post a brief bio, areas of expertise, hobbies, current projects, etc.
• Create an Instant Messenger group for your team. This way you will know when your colleagues around the world are online and available for a quick chat.There is no replacement for face time, but virtual time helps break down barriers.

Now onto Dave’s idea! He writes:

Hi Cindy,
My team has been working for several years trying to find the best technologies to help us connect regularly for conferencing.  Here are some of the best tools we’ve found.

BaseCamp
http://www.basecamphq.com/index
Project Management Collaboration Tool.  Simplicity.  It is a clean, simple easy to use product that is useful for all involved.

Ichat
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ichat.html
Mac Video chat. Ease of use.  I’ve been involved in online conferencing over the last 5 years. Most have been a huge pain for both parties trying to use it.  Ichat just works and is not difficult to use or install.

Thanks Dave!

Hear something good about someone on your team? Be sure to let them know. 

Receive a complimentary email regarding an employee? Forward it to your manager. 

Did a customer send a note complimenting your team? Read it at your next meeting. Better yet, invite the customer to join you and your team for lunch and let them tell your team why they are so valuable. 

When you hear good news the one thing you never want to do is hoard it. It it engages and energizes your team. So the next time you hear good news… Psst… pass it on

Copyright Cindy Ventrice 2007