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The Power of Praise

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Research evidence shows that employees consider personal, immediate recognition by their managers to be one of the most powerful workplace motivators.

However, close to 60% percent of employees report that their manager rarely, if ever, offers praise.

The techniques that have the greatest motivational impact (affirming feedback and praise) are practiced less than more expensive but less effective techniques such as performance bonus schemes.

Charles M. Schwab (1862-1939), founder of the Bethlehem Steel Company, said, “I have yet to find the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.”

You can read more here.

Making it Easy to Say Thanks

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thorntons.gif

Sometimes saying thanks can be just too much work. You know you should drop someone a thank you card – but it is just too much effort to get to the shops and somehow it never gets done. So you just fire off an impersonal e-mail.

Instead, make it really easy to say ‘Thanks’ by setting up an emergency ‘Thank You’ kit. It should include some beautiful cards or notepaper, some postage stamps, and a selection of small but interesting gifts (I tend to give books or toys!). If you have to regularly thank chocolate loves you might want to look at this new service from Thorntons. (Big Thanks to Jayne Pickard from Encompass Marketing for the idea!)

You might also want to think about recording just how often you say thanks – and who to!

‘Our People Are Our Greatest Asset’ – The Big Lie!

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Passion

It is rare to work in an organisation these days that does not claim that ‘Our people are our greatest asset’.

This is the BIG lie! If it were true then we could simply recruit our way to success.

The truth is that some people are assets while others are liabilities and many managers find it hard to tell the difference. And managers who can effectively work with both assets and liabilities are rare. Instead we just settle for a complacent acceptance of the status quo.

So if people are not our greatest asset – then what is?

Well how about one (or more) from the following list:

  • Ideas
  • Passion
  • Energy
  • Commitment
  • Skills
  • Time.

How would we manage people to harness every idea, every ounce of passion, energy and commitment, and every skill; to make sure that none is wasted?

Focusing on what we expect people to contribute to our organisation holds the key to significantly improving our effectiveness as a manager.

From Good to Great Manager – Part 4 – The Power of Delegation

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Good bosses delegate.

Great bosses set up sensible monitoring routines so that they know how that delegation is going.

Good bosses engage employees in helping them with major projects.

Great bosses give their team members the major projects and are available to support them as required. They give the team members room to operate – without cutting them off.

Good bosses walk around the office talking to people – what Tom Peters calls Managing by Wandering Around or MBWA.

Great ones do that too, but they are careful not to ‘intrude’. They use MBWA as a way of getting information that helps them to give accurate feedback, to coach effectively and to delegate.

From Good to Great Manager – Part 3 – The Power of Appreciation

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The third in our occasional series on making the transition from being a good manager to being a great one.

Great managers know who does what.

Good managers are able to get a team to pull together to produce the goods.

Great managers know exactly who contributed what to the team effort. They take time to acknowledge and appreciate each person’s contribution.

They also know who has piggy backed on the hard work of others.  They give feedback and praise based on their own analysis and understanding of the person’s contribution.  They make sure that the feedback is based on firm evidence.

They use feedback and praise lavishly and effectively.

They know that by increasing the amount of appreciation in the organisation they increase esteem, confidence and self belief – vital ingredients to building high performing teams.

What opportunities does the Power of Appreciation hold for helping you to make the transition from good to great?