Four Habits to Maximize the Effects of Recognition
Many of your employees, as much as we all wish this weren’t the case, take compensation and benefits for granted. After all, they can get competitive pay at any construction company, right? How then do you set yourself apart as a contractor that genuinely values employee efforts and contributions? How do you let people know that their work has significance and their contributions mean something?
Please tune in this week as Wayne talks about RECOGNITION as a competitive advantage and gives you four tips for how to use recognition correctly to inspire your people and maximize their engagement. What recognition ideas have worked well for you? Please share with us in the comments.
The Contractor Business Boot Camp starts up again on Feb. 9-10- 2023 in Raleigh. Don’t miss out! Enroll your high potential NextGen leaders now before the seats fill up. Contact Charlotte at ckopp@familybusinessinstitute.com for more information.
And FBI is hiring! If you know a seasoned construction executive who’d make a great facilitator and consultant, please let Wayne know at wrivers@familybusinessinstitute.com.
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
would make a good consultant. And the second thing is our next Boot Camp class comes up February 9-10, 2023 in Raleigh.
Sign your folks up early.
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.
