Do You Give Good Recognition?

Posts, articles and books have been written on the proper way to give recognition (28 million results on google BTW.)  And in most cases it's good information. 

An example from the book "The Carrot Principle" summarized on the MIT Website (some good authority no?)

Use the SAIL method:

• Situation: the problem or opportunity
• Action: what was done in specific terms
• Impact:  the result of the action
• Link:  to department/organizational goals and objectives

On the surface this looks pretty good.  But let's play this out in practice:

Mary (or Bob) helped a customer navigate their company's ecommerce site that resulted in a purchase and high customer satisfaction.  The division/group manager recognizes Mary (or Bob) as follows:

"Mary (or Bob), you had a very distraught customer who wanted to buy something on our site and was having problems.  You spent the time and was patient and understanding, walking them through the site and you helped them complete their order.  Because of your efforts, we have a happy customer who will return and probably buy more as well as tell others about their great experience with our company.  That is in direct alignment with our company mission of profitability and customer service."

Wow.  Nicely done.  Only it doesn't really get to the real benefit of the process of recognizing people.  I'm not saying the above shouldn't be done - I'm saying it doesn't go far enough.

The easy flaw is - it isn't public. 

One-to-one recognition is nice - and it is great for building relationships with individuals and managers.  But it doesn't impact any other employees since they didn't see it and aren't aware of it.  Public is always better. 

Caveat:  Some employees don't like to be publicly recognized so make sure you know who you're dealing with.  Ask them first if they would be okay with it - either verbally in a group or as part of a recap of Kudos in an email.  It really is their call but in most cases the employee would be happy to let other know.

But the real flaw in the above scenario - it doesn't provide the rest of the group witnessing the recognition with actionable information they can apply and use to recreate the recognizable behavior. 

As an example let's take the above scenario and put in more specific, actionable information that all witnesses can use...

"Mary (or Bob), you had a very distraught customer who wanted to buy something on our site and was having problems. Because you've bought stuff on our site yourself you know how a real customer would navigate the site - it gave you insight into their thinking process and allowed you to feel their frustration for yourself.  I know you took our advanced training on "Handling Difficult Customers" which gave you additional skills that helped you remain patient and understanding.  Because of the time you took to learn our site from a customer point of view and taking extra training - you personally created a happy customer who will return and probably buy more as well as tell others about their great experience with you.  As a company we are happy you represent us and had impact on your company's goals of customer satisfaction and continued success."

Do you notice the highlighted parts of the quote?  Doesn't it change the entire thing?  The recognition event now gives specific information to the group they can all replicate.  Without the specific actionable behaviors the rest of the group may simply assume Mary (or Bob) is just "better" with difficult customers.  The reality is - they worked harder on specific things that make them better.  Things all the employees can do.

Second - notice the tone of the recognition - it's all about the person not the company.  Linking customer appreciation to the individual not the company increases the impact.  Additionally, the last line really brings it home.  That simple statement transforms the statement from "we're good, thanks for contributing" - to - "you're good - thanks for deciding to help us represent you better as a company."

Not Picking Nits

Some will say I'm picking nits with this post but too often we take the advice presented by the oracles and apply it verbatim without really thinking through what we're trying to accomplish.  The first recognition event hit all the "SAIL" elements - but it will be much less effective than focusing on behaviors all witnesses can accomplish and making sure the real focus is on the individual.

Read the two scenarios again and ask yourself - which one would make you feel better?  As a manager - which one will have more impact on ALL employees?