Four Habits to Maximize the Effects of Recognition

Hello everyone, this is Wayne Rivers at FBI, where We Build Better Contractors. This week, I want to talk about four habits
to maximize the effect of recognition. You hear Dennis and I talking about this all the time, appreciation and recognition
go so far. Two housekeeping things. We're hiring. Let us know if you know retiring construction executives that you think
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This comes from the CEO Network daily newsletter, and it's written by Mark Crowley, but he talked about how to properly
recognize your people. What do you do to make it effective? And he said that employees expect to get paid. They expect
to have a good medical plan. They expect to have a good 401(k) plan. That's a given. And once people have enough,
whatever that is for them, once they have enough, money matters much, much less. The marginal return on the next
dollar becomes less after some certain point in life. So, employees need to know that their contributions count for
something, that their work has significance, and that they're expressing care and taking care of other people in the
workplace.

So, four tips very quickly. First, give recognition only when it's deserved. When my kids were little, everybody got a trophy.
In fact, there's a book about this now called Not Everyone Gets A Trophy by Bruce Tulgan, and he talks about how that was
a flop. It was well-intentioned, the spirit was there. I mean, it was a warm, generous idea. It just was a big flop, and it
didn't help the development of millennials at all. And it's a bad idea to give adults participation trophies. Only give
recognition and appreciation when it's earned.

The second thing is never ration it. Suppose you feel like, in a meeting, you're taking too much time giving recognition or
appreciation. How does that hurt? I mean, that is probably a very, very good use of your time. You can't over-appreciate
people. And ignoring accomplishments because that's just people doing their job, ignoring extra effort, Crowley writes,
that's leadership malpractice. And I think that's a great term. Leadership malpractice, ah that's just what they're supposed
to do. The Vince Lombardi style of ignoring accomplishment, ignoring success, and only calling out the exceptions and bad
behavior, that doesn't work. That may have worked in my generation, it doesn't work in the current generation. Leadership
malpractice. That's a great term.

The third thing is, ensure the recognition is sincere and genuine. Don't fake it. There's plenty of things to appreciate among
your folks in your organization. You're not going to have to fake it. And then the fourth thing is institutionalize it. And this
is terrific. It doesn't have to just be the boss that's recognizing and appreciating people. Everyone can recognize and
appreciate each other. Neha does a great job on the blogs. I appreciate that. And golly, why wouldn't I say that? Why
wouldn't other people in the organization say, "That was a great blog this week, Neha." Institutionalize it. Broaden it. It
works.

I'd like to know, we've talked about appreciation so many times we actually make it an agenda item on all of our meetings.
The first thing is appreciations. It works. It makes a big difference. What do you do in your organization to recognize your
people? What do you do to show appreciation? What works for you? Please share with us in the comments. This is Wayne
Rivers at FBI, where We Build Better Contractors.