Archive for the ‘Employee Recognition’ Category
WHAT’S YOUR DAILY OFFERING?
Tuesday, December 27th, 2011I sip my lemongrass tea and watch with divine curiosity. Like hundreds of thousands of her fellow island people, the elderly Balinese woman places a series of daily morning offerings (known as Canang Sari) at strategic places around the home. The tropical scent of frangipani and incense wafts throughout the indoor/outdoor living room surrounded by verdant rice paddy fields. Even though no one other than me is watching, she bows with respect each time she places the palm leaf-based offering on the ground. These daily devotional gifts are a way of life in Bali and part of their Hindu/animist belief system dedicated to pleasing the gods and warding off demons with this ritual.
Whether we’re conscious of it or not, our work and personal lives are made up of daily rituals including when we eat our meals, how we shower or groom, or how we approach our daily descent into the digital world of email communication. Our habits comfort us much like the Balinese feel reassured by their morning offerings. But, have you ever taken an inventory of your daily rituals and how they’re serving you? And, have you ever imagined what daily rituals could make you a better leader or a happier person?
About a decade ago, I experimented with a daily offering at the worst of times for my company. As CEO, I could see that the dot-com bust was taking a huge toll on the psycho-hygiene of our hotel company. Knowing that creating a culture of recognition was one means of developing a ripple of positivity in an organization, I made it a practice of giving a minimum of two heartfelt expressions of recognition to two different people in the company each weekday. My rule was that it had to be unexpected by the recipient, it had to be specific in terms of what I was thanking them for, it needed to have a level of detail that was more like a paragraph than a sentence, and – if possible – it needed to be done in person. I tried this for a month and found that like a stone falling into a pond, the reverberating effect of people feeling significant by being caught doing something right helped change the mood and morale around the offices. My daily offering was the American workplace equivalent of a Balinese gift to the gods.
The Balinese could teach us a few things about how to create the conditions for a happy culture. One of my favorite Emotional Equations is the one about Happiness which is defined by Wanting What We Have divided by Having What We Want. The numerator of this equation is all about Practicing Gratitude, finding the time to really want we have rather than take it for granted. A daily offering is one means of doing that. The denominator – having what we want – is the act of Pursuing Gratification. When we jump on that never-ending treadmill of aspiring to have what we want in life, it can create a momentary adrenaline high but it also can distract us from all that we already have in our lives. Some dictionaries define “pursuit” as “to chase with hostility.” At work, do we chase happiness with an edge of hostility? I saw some of that at the mall this holiday season.
We can either be conscious or unconscious about our personal daily rituals as well as our organizational rituals. I just finished reading a groundbreaking book by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer called “The Progress Principle.” Based upon giving a large sampling of employees in seven diverse companies a daily journal along with precise instructions about how to review their work experiences of the day, the authors were able to create one of the most authoritative studies of the inner emotional life of American workers. And, they were able to show that the most fruitful means of managing or leading a work group is to give them a meaningful sense that they were making progress and had the resources and encouragement to feel like they were living up to their potential. It’s a very instructive read that I highly recommend. But, one of the most interesting lessons of their study was just how much the employees got out of their daily ritual of reflecting on their work day. Here’s a quote from one manager who was disappointed that the daily journal study was ending: “I am sorry this is coming to an end. It forced me to sit back and reflect on the day’s happenings. This daily ritual was very helpful in making me more aware of how I should be motivating and interacting with the team.”
Starting tomorrow, what offering, ritual, or habit are you going to start practicing that is going to serve you in your personal or work life?
Great or Grateful?
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010[Originally posted April 13, 2010 on the Huffington Post]
Has this Great Recession created a great depression in the collective psyche of the modern world? The Brits recently reported that in 2008 – in the early stages of the recession – their suicide rate statistically rose for the first time in two decades and there’s some growing evidence of that in the U.S. too. Many of us have woken to the grim news that a friend or colleague has chosen to take their life. In the past two years, I’ve experienced this news five different times – from my insurance agent of 15 years to a business school classmate who had a hedge fund – and each time it reminds me of that Henry David Thoreau quote: “The cost of something is measured by how much life you have to give for it.” In some cases, the cost of our jobs is killing us. Literally.
There’s no pie chart that defines the primary influences for why people commit suicide (because it’s obviously hard to get perfectly accurate data when the subjects are no longer living). But, there’s growing research that shows that a combination of financial woes and a sense that people felt professionally or emotionally worthless are more apparent as causes during this recession. Our aspirational treadmill in America is set on a pretty fast speed and with a stubborn 10% unemployment rate, it’s not surprising that many of us feel like we’re falling behind Donald Trump and the role models of personal manifest destiny we see paraded on TV.
When I was young, my greatest goal was to be great. Making my mark on the world was sort of my way of knowing I existed. I succeed, therefore I am. Even that master of mid-20th century humanistic psychology, Abraham Maslow, said that one of the favorite questions he’d ask his students at the start of the term was, “Which of you believe you will attain greatness?” He was always surprised how few people raised their hand, but at the end of the term when he asked the question again, the majority of his class would raise their hand.
Maybe it’s time for us to start asking a different question. As David Brooks pointed out in the New York Times last month (“The Sandra Bullock Trade”), the relationship between happiness and income is complicated, and, after some modest income level, tenuous. Maybe the question we should be asking is, “Are we happy?” And the question behind that question might be, “Are we grateful?”
There’s a growing body of research that shows it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but it’s gratefulness that makes us happy. Doing just a few hours of writing in a gratitude journal over three weeks can create a positive effect that last six months or more. And, psychologist Robert Emmons has shown that practicing proactive gratitude can increase happiness levels by 25%.
During the last downturn, one of the leadership practices we put in place at my company to ritualize gratitude and recognition was ten minutes at the end of our Executive Committee meetings when each of the 15 top leaders could mention some employee in the company who’d been caught doing something right. As we shared these stories during that recession, it reminded us that positive things were happening and then someone else at the table would volunteer to go say thanks to that employee. Over the past eight years, as the CEO, I’ve probably given an in-depth personal thank you to more than 100 individual employees based upon this weekly management exercise and I know that I got just as much out of offering the gratitude as the employee did in receiving the recognition.
When I was growing up, I thought gratitude was a form of passivity. By being grateful, I was sort of acknowledging some kind of lack of ambition or a low standard. What I’ve come to realize is that gratitude is a contagious fuel. Like a match that can light a thousand candles, gratitude has a multiplying effect and it doesn’t cost a thing to exercise.
Life and business is all about where you pay your attention. Maybe it’s time to shift our attention from lionizing business books like Good to Great to teaching people it’s good to be grateful. Ironically, being grateful to those around you will likely help make you great.
The Best $73 I Ever Spent
Thursday, June 4th, 2009[Originally posted June 4, 2009 on The Huffington Post]
Close your eyes for a moment and consider the collection of bosses you’ve had since you joined the workforce. I remember my first boss, Mac, when I suffered through six week at the fries and shake work station of McDonald’s. He helped me understand that “boss” was a four-letter word and spelled backward it’s what I felt like doing when I came home from work each day (SOB also defines how I described Mac to my friends). But, I also remember Larry Keating, who mentored me with great patience and wisdom in my summer internship between college and business school. Larry helped me realize I had more ability than I thought I did so I could accomplish more than I thought I would. He helped me realize I could jump much higher than I ever imagined.
My hotel company, Joie de Vivre, has a more than ten-year tradition of celebrating “Employee Recognition Week” just as we’re going into our busy summer season. We started this tradition as a means of helping our maids, bellmen, bartenders, and managers realize that we truly appreciated how much life they gave to our enterprise. While we initially were thrifty with our expenditures during this week by just having a companywide BBQ, with time our generosity grew such that we were offering employees the opportunity for their families to go to local theme parks or for cruises on the San Francisco Bay or tickets to see the SF Giants or Oakland A’s. More recently, we spent nearly $100,000 on these various recognition week activities which may sound lavish, but when you realize that this is only about $35 per employee (or about $1 per hour that each of our employees worked that week), you come to realize that the good feelings about our company culture that are generated from these activities are probably worth it. Heck, you could spend $100,000 in legal fees in California just settling one wrongful termination suit of an employee who didn’t feel properly recognized.
While employee recognition week may be a wise investment, this year we don’t have the cash to invest so we’ve had to make substantial cutbacks in some of the more expensive activities. Sound familiar? Does that mean we can’t recognize our people? Why don’t we go back to the roots of what recognition means? Compensation is a right, but recognition is a gift. What gift could I give my staff that would be as meaningful as what Larry Keating gave me that summer 27 years ago? Yesterday, I decided to write each of the 80 people who work in our headquarters a handwritten, heart-felt thank you card. For less than a dollar per card and about six hours of my time, I could give the ultimate gift that we all are looking for. Cancel your round of golf this weekend and plant your self in your favorite chair watching the NBA finals and pen some thankful prose to those who work for you. As William James once wrote, “The deepest hunger in humans is the desire to be appreciated.” I don’t know about you, but I’ve saved cards that old high school flames wrote me as well as those that employees have written me over the years. The power of genuine, customized appreciation will never lose its value, even in a gloomy economy….in fact, it’s probably what we’re all thirsty for in this desert of a depression.
The Gallup organization found that the single most important variable in employee productivity and loyalty is not the pay, the perks, or the benefits. It’s the quality of the relationship between employees and their supervisors. Isn’t it ironic that pay, perks, and benefits all cost your company at the bottom line, but authentic recognition, especially when it’s most unexpected, costs very little and gives the most impressive return on investment. I believe the $73 I spent on those cards was the best investment I’ll make in 2009!
Recessionary Recognition
Monday, July 14th, 2008I give about 8-10 speeches a month and, over the course of 2008, I have noticed – just based upon the questions I’m being asked at these speeches – a big shift in the “fear factor” out there in the American workplace. As I tell my historical tale of woe (that’s outlined in the book PEAK) of what it was like being the Bay Area’s largest independent hotelier in the dot-bomb, post-9/11 years when hotel revenues in the region were dropping 30-50%, the number one question I’m hearing these days is “How can I keep a positive company culture intact during really difficult times?” I have four suggestions: (1) Read the Recognition chapter of PEAK. The number one reason people leave their jobs is due to a poor relationship with their boss. We all feel under-appreciated and under-recognized. But, in a downturn when fear is rampant and everyone tends to be focusing on problems, that sense of under-recognition is amplified. Companies get very good at “catching someone doing something wrong.” As I talk about in chapter 5 of PEAK, great companies create a culture of recognition that’s based upon both formal and informal forms of recognition. In a downturn, informal recognition – just catching someone doing something right and letting them know how much you appreciate it – has the greatest impact as it’s personal and spontaneous. And, miraculously, it’s free – a word we all want to hear in these penny-pinching times. What if I told you that your company could create much happier employees who were more engaged in what they did such that your customers would become more loyal even in difficult times and you could do this without spending a dime? Would you take this happy pill? Of course you would. That happy pill is created by developing a culture of recognition. When we are fearful, we need even more recognition. This doesn’t mean that you accept or cheerlead bad performance, but it does mean that those who are most valuable to the company – some of whom are doing mundane tasks – are recognized and appreciated. (2) End your meetings with 10 minutes of Recognition. While chapter 5 gives you all kinds of suggestions on how to create a culture of recognition, the number one tactic that you should start tomorrow is to end all your meetings with a recognition moment. Four years ago – when the San Francisco hotel market was at its worst – we started this practice of ending our weekly Executive Committee meetings (the top 16 people in the company) with 10 minutes of recognition when any EC member could tell a one-minute story about someone out there in the field or in our home office who had done something wonderful – whether it was a bellman who made a child’s day by given her a birthday gift or a maintenance person who pulled an all-nighter when a plumbing pipe burst in a hotel. Once the recognition is mentioned, one of the other senior leaders at the meeting (but from a different department) volunteers to say thank you to this person who has done a great deed. Three great outcomes sprouted from this new practice: (a) We ended our meetings on a positive note which is a valuable ritual when you’re going through tough times; (b) Someone out there in the field got recognized for doing something right which probably made their day and made them a joy to work with (and I bet the customers they came into contact with that day also noticed the spring in this recognized employees step); and (c) Because the recognition came from someone from a different department (for example, the head of Accounting might have recognized the bellman), it creates a cross-departmental positive connection which is very important during a downturn when the silos between departments can lead to lots of finger pointing. (3) Support your superstars. Sit in a room with your other manager/colleagues. Each of you write three names and put them in a hat and then tally the results. The names you will write will be those who first come to mind when you ask yourself the following question, “If our biggest competitor were to come in and raid our company and steal three people, who would be the biggest losses for our organization?” Once you’ve tallied the results, have a discussion about what extra recognition you can do to make sure these superstars are feeling the love. The reality is the ideal time to steal a superstar is when a company is going through a challenging period. You are vulnerable and you get more vulnerable when you lose those folks who are difficult to replace. This is the death spiral. Avoid it like the plague. (4) Use the metaphor of a pond. Have you ever noticed a pond that was stagnant and maybe a little parched from a lack of rainfall or new water flowing into it? That’s what it feels like in a company when it’s going through a difficult time. There are thousands of companies across America that are like stagnant ponds given the economic climate we’re living through. So how do you make a pond healthy during tough times? First off, realize that ponds can be full of ripples. If you throw a stone into a pond, there is a ripple effect that helps to stir up the water. The question is whether the ripples you are creating are positive or negative ones. In fearful times, companies have lots of negative ripples and those ripples ricochet off of each other in ways that create a turbulent culture. Great companies create positive ripples. They create healthy habits that promote great “psycho-hygiene” in the workplace. What if you created a habit for yourself that you would give one positive piece of feedback to someone every day you’re at work? What kind of ripples would that create and how would those ripples come back in a positive way to you? I’m a big believer in “karmic capitalism”: what goes around comes around. As Gandhi said, “be the change you want to see in the world.” If you want to be in a positive workplace (a healthy pond), be a role model for it…you’ll be amazed by the ripples you create.