Make Their Day Blog

Recently I saw a blatant example of kissing up and it made me wonder:

How do we know the difference between workplace recognition and just plain kissing up?

I knew I was seeing kissing up. My Kiss Up Detector’s (KUD) red lights were flashing and sirens were going off. Like most of us, I may not be able to tell you why I know someone is kissing up, but I just know I know!

But just knowing isn’t good enough. As a recognition advocate I am expected to figure out what is setting off my KUD. In this particular instance, I had been copied on an email from Manager 1 to Manager 2. Manager 1 was trumpeting the praises of Manager 2. The praise was plentiful and many people were copied, amplifying the exposure for Manager 2.

Praise is a good thing, so why did I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end?

After a bit of introspection I decided my KUD was going off for two reasons:

KUD Alert 1) The praise was effusive and grand. At the same time it was vague. There wasn’t a single specific detail in the entire lengthy email. Manager 2 may have been pleased, I don’t know. To me, the lack of information made the email seem insincere.

KUD Alert 2) One hundred or so of us  were copied (100 - really). Why were so many copied? It certainly wasn’t to bring us up to speed on what Manager 2 had done. That would have required at least a few details. Did Manager 1 assume we already had the information we needed? Was I  the only one who had no idea what was so grand about Manager 2? Why was I copied? I found myself looking for a motive beyond giving deserved praise.

Vague and overexposed. Combined, these two factors had my KUD flashing big time. I was curious. Was the recognition real or was I really sensing a Kiss Up? I did a little sleuthing. With very little effort I learned that Manager 2 is being promoted soon and Manager 1 wants her job!

Now that is a juicy bit of gossip that explains everything. But is it true? I don’t know. It may be, or maybe the suspect email sparked the fertile  imagination of an employee who thought it was the only reasonable justification for such effusive praise. From there, other puzzled employees could have helped to spread the rumor. So the question remains, does my Kiss Up Detector work? I really don’t know. There is always the possibility that Manager 1 simply gives sloppy praise.

How about you? What sets off your Kiss Up Detector?

Greetings, Make Their Day readers. My name is Alex Lamb. When my good friend Cindy invited me to contribute a guest post to her blog, I was both honored and delighted, but it took me a moment to figure out what message I wanted to share. My expertise is not in employee recognition, per se, but in improv theater and its implications in economics, psychology, and the study of leadership. After some thought, I decided that the idea I’d like to share is this: the employee recognition in your company can be revolutionized by understanding the role of cleaner fish in marine ecosystems.

Fish, Altruism, and Vampire Bats
At first glance, this might seem like a rather bold claim. After all, what do cleaner fish have to do with employees, let alone the recognizing of them? You might have seen cleaner fish on science documentaries from time to time. They’re the little fish that spend their lives swimming around in the mouths of larger fish, picking away the bits between their teeth, and miraculously not been gulped up. Am I implying that employees are little fish and that the secret of recognition is choosing not to swallow them? Not exactly.

Cleaner fish stay alive because of an evolutionary principle called reciprocal altruism. The large fish benefit from having their teeth cleaned. The cleaner fish benefit from getting a free meal and some measure of protection. Everyone wins and so the relationship is stable enough to persist for generations. The same patterns of cooperation can be seen in alligators and clover birds, between squirrels and songbirds, and even among vampire bats. However, nowhere in nature is reciprocal altruism, or reciprocity for short, so complex or nuanced as among human beings.

Influence and Christmas
In his book Influence, Robert Cialdini shares the story of a scientific study that reveals the power of reciprocity clearly. In this experiment, student volunteers carried out simple tests working in a pair with another student selected to be their partner. What the volunteers didn’t know was that in every case, that partner was an actor. Somewhere during the course of each session, the actor would briefly leave the room. In about half of those cases, he’d return with a can of coke for himself, and another for the volunteer. Then the test would proceed as normal. At the end of the session, the actor would ask the volunteer if he wanted to pledge a contribution for a charity event that the actor claimed to be taking part in that weekend. The rate of contribution in those cases where the coke was offered hugely exceeded that of the cases where it was not. In other words, when I do something for you, you feel gently compelled to do something for me, whether you like it or not.

The effects of reciprocity go way deeper than this, though. Human beings don’t just pay attention to the gifts they receive. They pay attention to all the subtle stuff that comes with them. Consider Christmas, or any other gift giving holiday. What makes these occasions both powerful and occasionally awkward isn’t what we get so much as what we see on each other’s faces when those transactions take place. This idea is magnificently captured in the song ‘Present Face’ by Garfunkel and Oates. In a nutshell, the first part of reciprocating to a gift isn’t the gift you give back, it’s how you receive the one you were just handed.

Gifts in the Workplace
Recognizing others brilliantly depends on realizing that every statement that one of your employees makes is a gift. By this I mean every remark in a meeting, every question, no matter how difficult, and even every email. Sometimes it’s hard to see things that way, but keeping this idea in mind will help you far more than you might expect.

Why? Because the reaction you give someone when you receive a gift is a message, and that message says ‘I’m responding in the way that you expected’. The brain loves getting messages like this. This is because your brain works by constantly trying to guess what will happen next. It’s a predicting machine.

Every time you talk to someone, your brain is automatically trying to anticipate their next word, or what expression they’ll pull. When the brain is able to get more guesses right than wrong, it rewards itself. It starts to automatically trust that other person. So when we make sure that each statement that one of our team members makes is getting reflected in our expression and choice of words, they feel like their actions had a predictable, measurable outcome. In other words, they feel noticed.

The Clegg Effect
This isn’t to say that reciprocity means automatically accepting everything everyone tells you as if it’s a new pair of skis on Christmas day. However, what it does mean is that making sure that your team members feel heard before you contribute information of your own makes a huge difference. For a great example of this principle in action, I recommend the first ever British Prime Ministerial debate, which happened earlier this year. You can find it here.

In the course of ninety minutes, this debate temporarily turned the politics of an entire nation on its head. A big part of what made that possible was the delivery style of one party’s leader, Nick Clegg, and his grasp of the reciprocity principle. Of course, there’s plenty more going on here besides, but as the video reveals, Nick Clegg has a powerful grasp of how to respond to audience questions, make them feel included, and incorporate their material into his own vision.

Lead like a Cleaner Fish, Not Like a Shark
In conclusion, then, by treating each employee effort we encounter like a piece of food glued to teeth of a much larger fish–a fish that deserves our respect–we guarantee our survival and our effectiveness as leaders. As leaders, we need to aspire to listen and react with intuitive grace and confidence, and to make our responses naturally reflect the expectations of others. This might sound like a tall order, but fortunately there’s a highly developed toolkit for developing such responses that’s easy and fun to use. That toolkit, in case you hadn’t guessed, is improv theater.

The best of experiential learning for leadership development, Leadership Skills for the Analytical Mind, is a joint venture between Cindy Ventrice and Alex Lamb. To learn more visit www.techeq.com.

A few months ago, I wondered,”Is the economy affecting employees’ sense of being valued?”
For the past two years employees have coped with a lack of raises, reduction in benefits, and increased workload. I wondered, was this having an effect?

People who don’t feel valued aren’t usually engaged or motivated, so knowing the affect of economic changes on sense of value is important information for companies struggling to stay productive.

So I conducted a survey that asked:

“Do you feel more or less valued than a year ago?”

The largest percentage (42%) of respondents said they feel less valued than they did one year ago. In contrast 31 percent reported no change and 28 percent said they feel more valued. Given the circumstances in most organizations: cutbacks, downsizing, extreme budgeting, it doesn’t seem surprising that people might feel less valued than they did a year ago.

What you might find surprising is why they feel less valued.

The most sited cause of significant change in the way they feel was not pay, benefits, or work overload. It was the behavior of the manager or supervisor (49%)!

It always seems to come down to the relationship of the individual to the manager. People can tolerate just about anything but a manager who doesn’t seem to care.

To see the results of this survey click here.

A new article was posted on the Inc Magazine website on the subject of How to Reward Employees on a Budget. Read it and then let me know what you would add to the list!

In the last post I looked at two books on the subject of influence. One is focused heavily on how we are manipulated into doing what someone else wants. Not the most positive subject, but Influence still manages to offer a lesson on positive motivation. The other book, Sway, looks at what causes us to behave irrationally. It too offers good lessons for managers. If you missed the last post, check it out here.

The third book I want to discuss is Influencer by the authors of Crucial Conversations, Influencer comes at the subject of motivation from a much more positive perspective, that of creating positive change by changing behaviors.

To achieve the results we want, the authors suggest we start by identifying the very specific behaviors that we want changed. Once we know what behaviors we want to change we can provide motivation.

Influencer provides examples where the behavior of entire communities was changed in order to improve health (eradication of Guinea Worm), keep convicts from returning to jail (Delancy Street), and reduce avoidable deaths in hospitals. The authors look at firmly entrenched behaviors and what motivators will get us to change those behaviors.

This book, like the previous two, holds some lessons for those of us that want to be a positive source of workplace motivation. (for the first three extrinsic motivators see the previous post).

Extrinsic motivator #4:  Peer Pressure. We all remember peer pressure from our school days, but we tend to forget that it is an influence in the workplace as well. It is the reason why you don’t have to turn everyone to your way of thinking. To achieve change you need to influence those whose opinions are most respected, the opinion leaders. Part two of peer pressure is to design a workplace with social support for the right behavior. This might be the pizza party for everyone when 51 percent of the department achieves a goal, with the promise of a bigger event when 75 percent achieve. The stakes aren’t high but there should be a little friendly pressure (and support) from those already achieving on those who have yet to get there.

Extrinsic motivator #5:  Change the Environment The old Western Electric experiments proved that if you change the environment people are more productive (Hawthorne Effect). Change things back the way they were and people are once again more productive. They showed that it was the attention itself that was motivating, not the environmental changes. When the attention was gone, the change itself made no difference.

When the authors of Influencer talk about changing the environment, they aren’t referring to the short term bump in productivity of the Hawthorne Effect. They want us to look at our environment to see how it influences behaviors we want to change, and ask ourselves if modifications to tools, aesthetics, or any other physical factor, would induce behavioral change without additional effort. For a manager, it might be a staff member’s uncomfortable chair that keeps them looking for excuses to get up and wander. Or maybe the first come first serve vacation sign-up chart  is causing animosity among coworkers and reducing cooperation.

Extrinsic motivator #6:  Design Rewards Obviously I think this one is right on target. Rewards help people to move in the desired direction by providing something to work towards. Rewards don’t have to be money or even anything costly. Recognition is as effective a reward as you have at your disposal. If you still have doubts, see this story of one manager’s experience.

Extrinsic motivator #7:  Demand Accountability The mirror of rewards is accountability. Rewarding good behavior just doesn’t have the same impact if you ignore bad behavior. Years ago I taught a Coping with Burnout course. We discussed what had led participants to feel burned out. I quickly realized that most of the participants had once been top performers. What really “burned them up” was  seeing how little others could get away with accomplishing, without recourse. Lack of accountability undermined their sense of value.

External motivators - I have covered three books that demonstrate that we can affect the behavior of those who work with us. I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic of influence and motivating others.

Copyright Cindy Ventrice

The past few weeks I’ve read three books: Influence The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Caldini, Influencer The Power to Change Anything by the authors of Crucial Conversations, and Sway The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Braeman.

Why these three books? First, I wanted to learn more about what outside influences affect our behavior. What exactly are the extrinsic motivators that cause people to do what they do? Second, I wanted to see how we can apply this information to what managers can do to create a more motivating work environment.

Sway and Influence both come at the topic from the perspective of unwanted external motivators. Influencer looks at intentional use of external  motivators to affect positive change. Today I will explore Sway and Influence. Next post, Influencer.

Sway looks at what motivates us to behave in an irrational manner, doing things that, when we stand back and observe, just don’t seem to make sense. The authors build a strong case for a and is very interesting in helping us to avoid the triggers that produce irrational behavior. You could tie each motivator they discuss back  to the workplace. It would be worthwhile to explore the impact of each. For the purpose of this article, I want to focus on two triggers that really resonated.

Extrinsic motivator #1:  Labels. One of the most powerful concepts for managers to understand is how labels affect our perception.

Do we see an individuals current performance or do we see what we expect to see?

One example the authors provide is from sports. It seems draft pick number, the order in which players are selected to join a professional team, affects players playing time even years later. The primary factor in determining how much playing time an individual receives was not how well they play now, but how valuable they were rated before joining the league.

Think about how this plays out in the workplace. Once  a manager labels an employee a poor performer that manager is much less likely to see good performance. He looks for the behavior and results that confirm his perception and ignores conflicting evidence. Couple this phenomena together with employees who tend to live up or down to expectations and you have a recipe that makes improvement pretty tough.

Extrinsic motivator #2:  Compensation. Remember, this book is about irrational behavior, so the focus is on when compensation reduces performance. Weird huh?

The authors point out that when people are already motivated intrinsically, maybe they are doing something for the good of the community, compensation can actually decrease motivation. The authors provide examples from a number of experiments that show incentives can motivate someone not to act or to perform poorly. It seems that extrinsic motivators can squelch intrinsic motivators. To put it another way our mercenary tendencies can override the altruistic ones.

I don’t bring this up because I think we need to stop paying people, but because we need to look at what motivators are in play in any given situation and take care not to override the intrinsic with the extrinsic. This idea of conflicting motivators has very interesting implications for incentive programs and might explain why some incentive programs backfire.

The second book, Influence covers some of the same ground as Sway, dives deeper into the research, and takes a significantly more negative approach to the topic. In reading this book it sometimes  was hard to get past the feeling that the book should have been called Manipulation. I had to keep reminding myself that influence is, in and of itself, neutral and can be used for either good or evil.

Here is the extrinsic motivator from Influence that I found particularly relevant to my work in  employee recognition.

Extrinsic motivator #3:  Gifts. The desire to reciprocate is a strong intrinsic motivator triggered by the act of giving a gift (an extrinsic motivator). Caldini points out that reciprocation is used  to compel us to buy or donate. Companies give free samples and, at some level, we feel an obligation to make a purchase. Charities give an unwanted gift and the statistics show we feel obligated to donate.

The need to reciprocate when we are given a gift is  a powerful motivator. The need to reciprocate may partially explain why recognition improves performance. Recognition, whether in the form of praise or award, is a gift. When we receive the gift we want to give something back. I know there is far more to why recognition improves performance than simply wanting to give back, but it is part of why praise motivates us to work even harder.

Labels, compensation, and reciprocation, three motivators that the authors explore for the negative repercussions. Managers need to understand how these triggers work to avoid unintended consequences and reinforce good performance.

Next post, we’ll look at Influencer and explore a different perspective on extrinsic motivators.

When you don’t get any recognition for your work it can be difficult to give it. Think of recognition like food. You are starving (for recognition) and, if you are a manager, you are still  expected to “feed” others. When this happens you are likely to say something along the lines of what I recently heard come out of the mouth of a supervisor:

“Your design is really excellent! In fact, it looks a lot like one I sketched up over the weekend.”

I could almost see this “starving” supervisor reaching out, ready to hand a chunk of warm, crusty, butter-slathered bread to the employee. Then, at the last minute, she snatches it back  and shoves it into her own mouth.

While I understand the desire to feed yourself first, there are a couple of problems with this:

1) A stolen recognition “meal” isn’t all that satisfying. While recognizing yourself in front of others has a place, this isn’t it, and this supervisor isn’t going to feel any more valued.

2) The employee who was recognized by his supervisor for excellent work heard only that he wasn’t original. To top it off, his respect for his supervisor just went down a couple (more) notches.

So, what is the answer? That depends on who you are.

Managers & Supervisors

For managers and supervisors the answer is:

Give recognition freely. Give staff credit for great work, ignoring the part you played. Thank people for doing their jobs (no, a paycheck is not enough). Don’t expect an instant return.

Expect a long-term return on your efforts. Give credit and people will respect you more, cooperate more, take more initiative, and yes - occasionally recognize you as well.

Maintain the appropriate supervisor mindset. Know that, as a supervisor, your job is to supervise your people. Inherent in that fact is that when your employees’ work is good, you are doing good work. For you to acknowledge the part you played is redundant. Remember, the more they shine, the better it reflects on you.

Everyone Else

Do you know that middle managers and supervisors are the most under-recognized group out there? Give them a little praise and appreciation. You will be amazed at how much more likely they are to give provide you with more recognition when they aren’t starved themselves. Recognize your supervisor and  managers in other departments or groups. Privately give them the praise and appreciation they deserve. Everyone will be the beneficiary.

Copyright 2010 Cindy Ventrice

I am often asked, “How do you get managers to use employee recognition programs?” Here is an excerpt from The Secret to Recognition Programs That Work that answers that question:

You need managers to own your recognition programs. They should participate in peer programs, celebrate organizational awards, and actively participate in any manager programs. This requires commitment.

Let’s look at ways you can encourage manager commitment:

• Show the benefits of creating an environment where people feel valued (What’s in it for the organization - improved productivity, safety, customer service, etc and what the manager will gain - staff with better attitudes, more self-directed, looking out for the best interests of the team)
• Provide statistics on how your organization is doing (think scorecard - - it’s motivating to track improvement!)
• Get executives to demonstrate commitment by providing resources and being the face of the program (think of it as trickle down enthusiasm)
• Have senior management set measurable goals for managers (it’s great to see the organization’s scorecard, even better to see your own - staff satisfaction scores are a good choice).
• Get senior management to recognize based on these identified metrics (managers tend to be under-recognized and respond well to positive reinforcement).
• Solicit manager ideas. Address their concerns about design and implementation - but don’t let them make excuses for not participating.
• Have managers share their success stories (these are really energizing and demonstrate viability in your organization).
• Provide training. Managers who develop good habits are more likely to remain committed to ongoing recognition.
• Make it easy to do. (this doesn’t mean do it for them, but don’t create obstacles either!)

One last thought: Send them the weekly tips you receive from your subscription* or encourage them to subscribe. Let me encourage them to take action!

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Let me hear from you. What works best in your organization for developing and maintaining manager commitment?

Copyright 2010 Cindy Ventrice

An article in HR Magazine (January) looks at taking a recognition program online.  Discovery Communications (Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet) had a recognition program that was introduced in 2006.  For this program managers nominated staff and then were responsible for gathering up to five levels of approval. Each nomination then went to a recognition program administrator who reviewed the nominations to ensure that award sizes were consistent with achievement. Expected turnaround: 30 days.

A program  guaranteed to frustrate managers

Put yourself in the  shoes of a manager who wants to recognize an employee and give them an award under this program.  You complete a nomination. Now you need to walk the nomination form around for six approvals. What goes through your mind? Here are a few of my thoughts:

• I don’t have time for this!
• Is this person exceptional enough to justify the hassle?
• Does HR think I’m incompetent?

Not surprisingly, according to HR Director Leah Coyne,  under this program “Very few awards were granted each year.”

Goals for the new system

Globoforce worked with Discovery to create a new system that

• encouraged rather than discouraged use,
• provided faster turnaround, and
• resulted in more awards to more employees.

These strike me as important goals for improvement.

What they implemented and the results

The new system handles the nominations online, but still requires that 3-4 people review/approve a nomination for award. With less approvals and online administration, they are handled faster than before. The result is a significant increase in the number of employees awarded, from 2 to 20 percent of the workforce. The article doesn’t mention the new turnaround time.

I still wonder about the number of levels of review required. The article never mentions the dollar value of the awards, so I don’t know if this amount  of control seems reasonable. I certainly hope they aren’t putting managers through this in order to give out $25 gift cards.

The results do seem to speak for themselves, in addition to increased usage: “a 2009 survey of award recipients and managers reported having more connection to the company, being more engaged in their work, and feeling more satisfied and appreciated as a result of receiving awards.”

Copyright 2010 Cindy Ventrice

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