Last night I was in a Dale Carnegie training session where participants had to provide a report on how they\u2019d used one of the Leadership principles over the past week. One participant took a different approach to this assignment and provided a report on how someone used the Leadership Principle on him and on how its effect was amazing.<\/p>\n
He described how he had recently completed a difficult job that took 14 hours in one day and that a co-worker had taken the time to write an email to his manager commenting on how hard he had worked and had made that day a very enjoyable one. The participant also described how another colleague had provided similar praise verbally just a few days later. If only you could have seen the \u201cglow\u201d on this participant\u2019s face as he told this story. He was so taken aback by the feedback he actually commented \u201cit made his year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Leadership Principle this participant illustrated is Begin with Praise and Honest Appreciation<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/p>\n
I spoke with the participant after the session and asked him: \u201cWhat was it about the comments that made you feel so good?\u201d He described to me that he had never had someone take the time to send positive feedback to his manager, but that there was more to it than that. It was simply the fact that the feedback was positive, specific and meaningful. He said it was just good to know that the hard work he was putting in was being recognized. He commented similarly about the in-person feedback that he had received.<\/p>\n
This is just one example of the impact recognition can have on employees, and while you may think this is an isolated experience, I can assure you it is not. So why is it that so many employees still go without it and feel under-valued and under-appreciated?<\/b><\/p>\n
While what follows is not a formal study, I sure have asked the question above enough times throughout my career to feel I\u2019m qualified to comment. Here are some of the reasons I\u2019ve heard why recognition isn\u2019t so common:<\/p>\n
How many times have I heard Leaders describe to me the following: \u201cIf I had a problem with them they would know it.\u201d Or \u201cThey know how I feel about them so there\u2019s no need for me to tell them.\u201d This is exactly the problem. How self-absorbed are we as Leaders to think that we know how people feel as opposed to actually considering how they take in the experience?<\/p>\n
Seriously? Even if that were true, wouldn\u2019t you<\/i> want to receive some recognition for doing a good job every now and then? And, if you truly listened to your employees, couldn\u2019t it go beyond just doing their job? Couldn\u2019t it go towards something you\u2019ve noticed about them that you want to comment on: \u201cSally, I\u2019ve noticed recently that you seem to be really excited about this project you\u2019re working on\u201d? I\u2019ve said nothing about her performance and yet, the appreciation is equally as<\/span> impactful.<\/p>\n A colleague of mine has a great quote about not having enough time. He says: \u201cYou have all the time there is!\u201d<\/i><\/b> What you\u2019re really saying here isn\u2019t that you don\u2019t have enough time, what you\u2019re saying is that this is not a priority for you. I encourage you to think about the message that this sends to your employees.<\/p>\n If your appreciation is sincere and genuine, it should come across that way. If it comes across as rehearsed or contrived it won\u2019t be received the way you want \u2013 which likely leads to your discomfort. If you show appreciation because you want to as opposed to some sort of due, people will feel the difference.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t make you change your approach to providing, or not providing, praise and appreciation. What I can do is share with you the success I have had and witnessed with other Leaders who make praise and appreciation a priority. Showing genuine praise and honest appreciation to your employees is self-reinforcing. When you do a better job at providing praise and appreciation, your employees will tend to step up to the plate and want to do more for you. Spend less time looking for what people do wrong and more time praising and appreciating what they do right and you\u2019ll get the results you want from your team.<\/p>\n Oh, and one last thought. In an age where we all focus on budgets, cost containment, and expense management, why wouldn\u2019t you want to put a practice in place that can positively impact your bottom line and costs you nothing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last night I was in a Dale Carnegie training session where participants had to provide a report on how they\u2019d used one of the Leadership principles over the past week. One participant took a different approach to this assignment and […]","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346,482,4958],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carriere","category-comment-trouver-un-emploi-facilement","category-vie-au-travail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7838"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7844,"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838\/revisions\/7844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jobillico.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}3. <\/b>Don\u2019t have time<\/b><\/h2>\n
4. <\/b>It comes across as insincere, which really means I\u2019m uncomfortable with it<\/b><\/h2>\n