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“How do I keep my recognition program alive?” 4 Easy Tips

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I had a call from a client recently who had a really successful launch of a recognition program. One of the most successful corporate launches to date! However, just a year later, participation and engagement had drastically fallen. She was disheartened and wondered what she had done wrong.

She’s not alone.

So many of my clients work incredibly hard to bring a new recognition initiative to the workplace but are surprised to see how easy it is to lose momentum. But think about it. Most of us get excited about starting something, especially when it gets resources, attention, and support. But like many corporate initiatives, once the launch happens, attention and focus move elsewhere; there are just so many competing priorities. There are so many distractions in our work life and those the program is designed to support. So expecting this, and not judging yourself (or your culture) if the momentum wanes allows you to question: What has worked and what could be tweaked to revitalize our recognition efforts?

Like any corporate or team initiative, your program needs to stay fresh, consistent and meaningful. Here are some simple, easy tools and strategies to keep recognition momentum going in your workplace!

1.Going Beyond Passive Kudos Boards

You may have a board for people to write kudos cards to each other.

Some ways to keep it fresh and know it’s current is to have folks date them. Make them visible (for example, BestBuy has them in a public area). And mix it up (take a leaf out of Home Depot’s book) by having people turn the kudos card over with the person’s name on the back; it allows anyone to see if new kudos have been added lately and it also creates a buzz, “Hey Larry, on your way to break check out the board…someone left you a note!”

2.Putting Recognition Into Teams’ Hands

Another tradition some Home Depot stores do is to have a team-based award. At the weekly stand-up meeting, a department that was recognized the week before passes the team trophy to the next department. It allows your high performing teams to be looking for examples of great teamwork, collaboration, and service (anything you want to see more of) to choose which department is most deserving of recognition. It also motivates teams to earn recognition.

3.Pop-Up Recognition Campaigns

Some inspired leaders at North York General Hospital, after doing some training on recognition, realized that they had the perfect way to make Patient Safety Week real, not just for the staff and physicians at NYGH, but also for the patients and families they served. They posted a sign about it being Patient Safety Week and requested everyone write down someone or a team who practiced safe patient care. They provided little frog cut-outs and markers to write down these comments as well as tape to attach them to the windows in the front lobby. Not only were staff and physicians using that opportunity to celebrate their colleagues, but they were touched when they read, or someone told them to go read, about a comment posted about them. The windows were covered by the end of the week. People and teams were allowed to keep their frogs at the end of the week if they wanted to (how nice to look at it later) and it created a ripple effect of folks recognizing other things that were working in their teams and in others well after the week was over.

4.Fuel Positivity & Productivity in Meetings

Meetings usually make people roll their eyes and scour their brains for an excuse to not go. But what if it wasn’t something to dread? Whether it’s a daily huddle, monthly team meeting, annual planning event, or awards ceremony, imagine if the first thing was to ask people to reflect on what was working, who deserves acknowledgment and successes? It begins your meeting with positivity, but clients who have adopted this have also found there is a higher attendance rate, less complaining and more creative solution-finding. A perfect example is St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto. At a quarterly staff breakfast, everyone received cards with the organization’s core values. Individuals were asked to write a person or team that demonstrates it and specifically how. These were posted and then distributed to the recipient of the recognition. It brought energy and commitment to more recognition throughout the organization as well as helped people connect to how they live the values of the organization.

What strategy do you think you would like to try in your team or organization to freshen up recognition? And do you have some other ideas of what has worked? Will you share it with us in the comments below?

For more recognition ideas and tools for your workplace, why not check out this link on my website or tune in daily for a tip here.

Sarah Interviews Piyush Patel, Entrepreneur, Best Selling Author, Speaker, and Angel Investor.

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Sarah:

Hey, everyone. Very excited about interviewing Piyush Patel. He is a rockstar entrepreneur and has released this book that I cannot put down, “Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work“. And Piyush, first of all, I was just sharing with you how much I absolutely love your book, both from a culture standpoint but also your message around valuing your talent. It’s so powerful. I’m just wondering if I can just throw back to you, did you always feel this way or what’s your journey to have gotten to the point where you’re writing this book?

Piyush:

No. Recognition and culture was not where I started. I started as a sixth-grade science teacher and got thrown into the entrepreneurial world. Really, it boils down to how do you want to be treated, how do you want to treat other people.

Sarah:

I couldn’t agree more. And of course, I’m sure you’re treating your students very well like that. So how come that just didn’t beautifully translate into the business world?

Piyush:

Well, there’s this idea that because I own a business and you work for me, that by me paying you should be enough, right? And now it’s your duty to do your part. And we don’t do that in a classroom environment, right? In a classroom environment, we do a lot of nurturing, a lot of caring because we ultimately have the same goals. I think a classroom and a business ultimately have the same goals. They have things to achieve. Why change it up?

Sarah:

What happened to make you want to change it up?

Piyush:

I got to the point where I hated going into the office. It’s one of those things. You ask a lot of entrepreneurs, “Hey, would you go back and do it again?” And a lot of them will say, “No, knowing what I know now, I just realized I was too dumb back then to know what I didn’t know.” And so, I got into this process and suddenly I wake up one morning and it’s, “I don’t want to go to the office. I’ve lost the joy of running the company. I’ve lost the joy of connecting with my customers and people,” and it really boiled down to my core values were not passed on into the business. For me, I thought there were some aspirational values that I needed to have to make a lot of money and that was the only purpose of the business. And really it turned out the purpose of my business was to help people. And as a result, we ended up making money.

Sarah:

And so here you are, you’ve left behind a job that you loved, teaching, and then you started a business that you loved. And then you find out that you don’t love it anymore. Was there a turning point that helped you, sort of like an “A-ha” epiphany moment that allowed you to get back on track to living your values and figuring out what you really wanted to do for the “rest of your life?”

Piyush:

Yes. It really was a catalyst moment. I remember sitting at a business conference and this guy got up and started talking about core values. And I was thinking, “Oh, yeah. We’ve got those. We put ’em on the board.” And then he said, “I don’t really care about your company core values. What are your core values?” And I thought, “Wow, nobody’s really ever asked me what mine were.” And I never really connected the dots that mine are the company’s because it’s my company. I’m the only shareholder of the organization so I’m trying to be somebody I’m not for the majority of the day, and I just realized I don’t want to be that person. I need to be genuine, I need to be who I am. In the book, I talk about core values, not in the sense that you need to have my core values ’cause that just brings you right back to where I was. It’s really going down the journey to find your core values and then how do you present those and live them in your business.

Sarah:

What I value about what you’re sharing is that although we’re talking about your entrepreneurship journey, of which has been an incredibly lucrative journey … not only were you making a lot of money then, what folks may or may not know about your story, and if they don’t know they should look it up … in fact you do a lot of speaking, so some people may have already heard you speak or hear you speak in the future … it just expedited your business’s financial success once you got clear on this. What’s so powerful, though, about people hearing that, even if they can’t relate to the entrepreneurship component, “I need to have this lesson as an entrepreneur,” I’m sure so many people tuning in to this will say, “It’s like he’s talking to me about my career. I’m not really feeling like my values are showing up in my job as a leader, or my job as a frontline staff member.” Did you feel that, once you figured this out about yourself as the business owner, that you also noticed that same thing with your staff and the leaders who work for you?

Piyush:

Absolutely. I mean we started to attract the right kind of people. And the right kind of people aren’t the hardest working, the smartest in the business. They’re the ones who fit my core values. And what I find when I go visit with other organizations and help other companies really break through that flat-line plateau of where they are to where they want to be, the biggest thing that I see is things like core values of honesty. But everybody lies in an organization. It’s the first thing I see. I see transparency on their list, and I go, “Great! Are you an open book?” And the first thing they do is look at me and go, “No, why would we do that?” “Because you’re not transparent. That’s why you don’t do that.” And that’s what happens. Let’s talk about honesty, ’cause it’s fun to talk about honesty. I sat in a lobby one time and I heard the person I was going to meet with telling the receptionist, “Hey, tell everybody that I’m out of town.” Yet, clearly, he’s standing right in front of me. And then we go have our meeting. We started talking about core values and he said, “Well, one of our main core values is honesty.” I said, “That’s interesting. Tell me more about that.” And he said, “Oh, you know, we’re really honest with our customers and our staff, and how we run the business.” And I was like, “That’s great! But, you know, you just asked the person answering the phones to lie.” “Oh, well, I mean …” And he tried to kind of justify, “No, that wasn’t a lie. This is a lie.” Well, what happens is, when you say honesty is your core value, you attract the most honest people on the market to come work for you. And then they get there and realize, “Wait a minute. This is not real.” And that’s how they start behaving. And so what I told him was, “Hey, you should make your core value, ‘We are habitual, hardcore liars. And you will go hire the best liars in the business.’ Why are you trying to attract honest people? Just attract liars and invest in your business!”

Sarah:

It brings it back to the point that so much of these exercises, why people don’t believe in them and value them, and they roll their eyes when it happens, is because folks have seen this happen before where we put the values up on the wall and people don’t practice them. And what I find even more difficult to swallow, and I’m sure that you see this too now that you’ve sold your business and you’re doing consulting work, is that then when leaders talk about, “We need to hold people accountable around here to living the values,” and yet they’re not doing it themselves. It just creates this downward spiral of distrust and frustration and lack of recognition. Because then it’s like, “What do we value around here? What do I support and what do I appreciate?” And that’s when you really have that lack of your “BAM formula”. Tell everybody about your “BAM formula”.

Piyush:

People work for five things. They need food, shelter, so that’s pretty much handled by every employer with a paycheck. We pay somebody; that money is used for food and shelter. You need that. You need safety, which most companies provide in the form of some kind of health insurance or life insurance or retirement. Some kind of safety feeling. Every employer gives you that. After that, people only work for three things, and we made the acronym “BAM”: Belonging, Affirmation, and Meaning. People want to belong to something bigger than themselves. They want to be affirmed for their work. And I don’t just mean, “Hey, it’s 3 o’clock. Walk around everybody and pat ’em on the head and say, ‘Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Keep it up. See you tomorrow at three.” Right? That’s not affirmation. We know what your base affirmation … your listeners are tuned in to recognition, so they are really mastering that. I also think when people aren’t doing the right thing, it’s our duty to acknowledge that, pull ’em aside, coach ’em. And that’s part of that affirmation as well. “Hey, I’m going to have to have an uncomfortable conversation with you.” And then the last one is meaning. It doesn’t matter if it’s somebody answering the phone or somebody doing the most critical, important work. They want their work to mean something. And the hardest thing to do is to take a company full of individuals and create that environment, but classrooms do that every day. And so we just brought that classroom feeling with an instructor who’s a leader and say, “We are all here to accomplish something big, so we’re going to give you belonging; we’re going to tell you that you’re doing great ’cause we’re going to put those stickers on you and say ‘good job, good job’, and when you’re not doing great we’re going to coach you so we can say ‘good job, good job.’ “And our meaning is part of our mission, which is we’re going to go change the world.” I think when people say, “We’re going to go change the world,” they’re thinking of the entire planet. I think you look at it in microcosms. My world was people who make movies and video games, and so I didn’t want to be something to everybody. I wanted to be everything to someone.

Sarah:

Every person can connect with that, right? ‘Cause that’s honestly why they’re coming to work. Yes, absolutely, there are lots of people that would work even if they won the lottery. And the rest of us, it’s BAM that really gets people, not just coming to work, but also coming to work with your greatness, your talents, your passions, your virtues that make you want to elevate your true potential at work. Because you can do it at work, you can do it at home, you can do it in the community. There are many different places you can do it. Or you can do it nowhere, of course, and then you really have deflated folks and that’s where we’ve got mental health challenges and folks who just feel so lost and stressed and frustrated. I just love how you concretely put this into practice in meetings with folks. When you talk about the values story. Can you tell us about how people can make the connection between values and affirming people through that really helpful formula of a value story?

Piyush:

I’m a big, big believer in tribes. Everything that’s going on in the world right now is because we’re all different tribes, right? You and I may have completely different views on every single thing in life, and we can be neighbors, and we hate each other. Right?

Now, you pick us both up. You put us in the same town T-shirts, and you drop us off in Germany. And we bump into each other. All of a sudden, we’re now best friends. “Wow! We have so many things in common!” That’s all tribal. All of a sudden, we found somebody of something similar to our tribe in a world that’s different.

I recognized it and I created that same thing in my environment. Our monthly meetings were called Campfires where we all come together and have a full staff meeting, and we open with, “Everybody’s going to share a story around one of our core values. Now you can share one of yourself or you can share one of the ones you saw.” What are the rules? Everybody plays. We don’t go around; we go in whoever would like to go, that way everybody matches their comfort level.

But we practiced this every single day. At 9 o’clock every single day, we sit down and do this activity called “The Three Happy’s”. And The Three Happy’s allows every employee to create BAM for themselves, and it’s really simple. It’s just a name and date, and then there are three things. Two things at work that made you happy in the past 24 hours, and one thing personally that made you happy in the past 24 hours. And what happens is I now, as an employee, I’m telling everybody in my team, “Here are two things at work that created belonging and meaning for me. And now I’ve self-affirmed, and I’ve self-affirmed because I’ve said it out loud and you’ve listened.” And so we teach every employee on their first day of employment this activity called “Listening is an Act of Affirmation”. And so to be a great listener, you’re affirming somebody. And we do this every day, 9 o’clock; you could set your watch to it.

Sarah:

And so, when you teach the art of listening, I would be curious to know how many people brought that home and had better relationships in their family lives, as well. Did you hear any stories about that?

Piyush:

Oh, my gosh, so many. And doing The Three Happy’s with the kids and wife or husband at home at dinner, and just doing it with parents, and just creating this movement around, “Let’s just pause for a second and be really happy for what we have.” “We’re a bunch of nerds and we sit in front of a computer. How hard is life?” It’s just a little bit of perspective.

Sarah:

Well, and one of the things that I think you have done in your culture, that you work really hard to build … I’m sure this wasn’t oh, you had an awakening and then overnight you had, “Oh, I’m going to do Happy’s and I’m going do core value stories.” I’m sure it was a lot of soul searching to get to this place, and when you arrive there, what it comes down to, are basic human needs. I know you were talking about a framework of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that we need certain things first before we can get to that point of self-actualization and meaning. Absolutely people need meaning in that, and you’ve taken it one step further to talk about “What is an every-person need?” No matter what your education level; no matter where you live; no matter what type of work you do, this transcends all cultures.

And so I’m really hoping that folks take that away. They start doing their own Happy’s each day if that’s how they feel that their level of influence is at this point. Do it with your closest colleague; do it in a team meeting. Try it once, see how it goes, because what’s the worst that could happen? And really, all of the things that you’ve been talking about is what people who’ve read my book and my co-author book, and people who come to my sessions, they realize it starts with self-recognition first. Your Three Happy’s is another version of you also get to acknowledge yourself, and in your core value stories. People can choose to talk about themselves or each other.

And when we feel filled up with who we are and what we’re contributing first, we can see all the contributions all around us. And it just becomes so much more authentic, and that goes back to living our values too, right? Because it’s coming from that place where you are your most resourceful and the best version of yourself. Incredible. Any last words of wisdom to share with folks before we wrap up?

Piyush:

I think you did a great job, Sarah, of reinforcing that everybody can start. Honestly. And if they feel pressured that they can’t start in their office, they can definitely start at home.

Sarah:

So powerful. And, you know, that’s a great place to end because, just last week when I was doing some speaking for a really large community, all staff and leaders were invited, it was “mandatory” so you know how thrilled a few people were showing up. And I’m not sure why some people feel they need to declare it to me that they have to be there, but I guess it’s their way of saying, “I’m not thrilled to be here.” But by the end, a couple of those folks said to me, “Okay, I’m not going to guarantee I’m going to do anything differently at work, but I am going to try some of this stuff at home.”

Wherever we need to shine and be our own version of great, that’s perfect. Isn’t that the best place to start? Focus where you’re most comfortable? Thank you so much. It’s just been such an honour to speak with you, and I’m going to make sure that we include in our comments section here, how people can get a hold of you. I’m sure that they’ll want to chat with you more, learn about the type of work that you do now, as well as potentially find out about your speaking, as well, because that would be amazing to have you share this message. We are in the midst of a talent shortage, I tell everyone. I know I talk about this all the time. You do such an amazing job of talking about how it’s one thing to recruit great people; it’s another thing to recruit great people to your culture.

Connect with Piyush

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How to Handle Grief: Leveraging Recognition to Survive Loss

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Using recognition, even in times of our greatest grief, can provide comfort and touch people lives.

My Auntie Sue had not even reached her 60th birthday when she passed away from cancer. She was an incredible person, full of life, positive, happy, had many friends; we couldn’t believe her life was cut short. A year after she passed, my family gathered for a celebration of life. We knew we wanted to remember her, but we didn’t want it to feel forced or awkward. So, we took a leaf out of Auntie Sue’s book and we made it fun.

We used F.R.O.G. Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness™ to honour my Auntie Sue.

We took a frog charm with a pink ribbon for breast cancer. Whoever was holding the charm shared a memory, a funny story, an attribute or gift she had, or a story of how she had touched their life.

By the time it got to her husband (my uncle), he was choked up. “I wish that we had done this when she was alive.” One of my kids looked at him and said, “Well, why don’t we that for each other now?”

Out of the mouth of babes, right?

So that’s exactly what we did. We had a bit of an awkward moment of trying to guess each other’s favourite colours (turns out we don’t know that about each other!) Then, we took turns being recognized. Each member of the family passed around our charm, again sharing a funny memory, story or what they most admired in us. They honoured our greatness. And by it being sparked by commemorating Auntie Sue and because she would have loved to be a part of that, it honoured her too.

Now, some of us felt more comfortable receiving public compliments than others (I for one, surprise, surprise had no problem!) However, we did it for her. And each one of us experienced that endorphin rush when you experience positive things. Who would have expected to feel better leaving a Celebration of Life than when you came in?

A few weeks later, I received a text from my cousin. She shared how much the day meant to her and her dad. And, she attached a picture. It was a shadow box containing four FROG charms – my aunt’s, my uncle’s, hers and her fiance’s. Today that is proudly displayed in my uncle’s front hall and it’s one of the first things you see. It’s apparently a common source of inquiry, and how lovely to retell the story of the day we all recognized Sue’s greatness together.

How can you honour your family’s greatness? How can you bring recognition into your family gatherings? How can it comfort you during a loss? How do you already do these things? Will you share your strategies and ideas below?

If you felt that this was powerful for you, or you know somebody who is looking for an idea about how to celebrate somebody that they’ve lost, why don’t you share the video or post with them? A problem shared is a problem halved, isn’t that what they say?

Sending you warmth, support, and comfort if you’re going through a difficult time. Recognizing your greatness in how well you’re handling it.

Guest Blog Post – How to Be Resilient During Family Crises

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By: Summer Masterson-Goethals, Masterson Law

As a family lawyer and mediator, I deal with situations that can become overwhelming for all parties. Divorce, child custody battles, visitation modifications, paternity and the like are all high-stress issues that take a high toll on members of the family. Crises can tear families apart, but they can also have the exact opposite outcome and bring the family closer together. The way these situations are handled determines the ultimate result.

In this blog, I discuss strategies for you to use to help your family stick together and be resilient during tough times.

One of the invaluable tools that you can use during tough times is the concept of recognition. What this essentially means is acknowledging what is great, not only in yourself but also in those around you.

Unleashing the power of Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness™ (F.R.O.G.), as described by recognition expert Sarah McVanel, is key to getting through tough times. Recognizing the greatness in yourself, as well as in your family members, can help identify strategies that turn negative situations into ones that promote cooperation, unity, productivity, and equal contributions.

Here are four ways to use the concept of recognition to help you get through tough family situations:

1.Do something unexpected. Make a nice gesture like offering a small gift or bringing a favorite snack for him or her to eat during a long negotiating session.

Surprising, unexpected acts like this send a positive message that says, “Yes, this isn’t fun, but thank you for your efforts.” It shows that you appreciate their commitment to working things out, even when negotiations become testy. It demonstrates that you understand the sacrifices that everyone will have to make.

2.Utilize a Think Tank Approach. When faced with a family crisis, sit down with other family members, even the kids, to determine what you’re doing right. Then, brainstorm together about what you can do differently or improve upon.

View this not as a complaint session, but as a time to generate positive ideas. By asking for feedback, you show family members that you value their opinions. It provides everyone with a sense of ownership.

Ideas and feelings that come out of such sessions can be surprising. You may find out that others have similar feelings to your own, or that your efforts have been more appreciated than you thought.

3.Recognize Everyone’s Strengths. Learn more about yourself by taking this free survey provided by the Via Institute on Character. Ask your family members to do the same. By taking this 15-minute survey, everyone will find out their best character qualities and learn how to use those strengths to foster well being.

This exercise is particularly helpful when you feel stuck and need new ideas. By mapping out your strengths, you can help everyone get through the trying times.

4.Measure and celebrate milestones. Breakthroughs are critically important. Reaching an agreement or getting through that tough situation is a big accomplishment. Note when you make progress to avoid feeling burned out.

Recognize how far you’ve come. Be mindful that you make these simple acts of recognition for everyone’s efforts. This helps everyone do their best no matter how tough things become. Celebrate, and do something to make everyone feel good about it.

Employing some of the points listed above helps you to recognize the good qualities in each family member during tough times, often when they least expect it. Recognize accomplishments and celebrate them, no matter how small they may be. Brainstorm and ask for input. This can be especially helpful with children who may feel lost in the process.

Also, employ the increasingly popular technique of mindfulness. This can also help everyone get through family crises. Mindfulness will encourage you to take an honest look at yourself and help you recognize what your strengths are. Don’t forget to ask family members for support when you’re feeling low. Finally, journal and make lists of successes that occur along the way to help you monitor your progress. It can serve as an excellent reminder of all the positives in life.

Summer Masterson-Goethals is an experienced divorce attorney at Masterson Law serving families, businesses, and individuals in Springfield, Missouri.

Five ways to retain top talent during fast-paced growth

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How do you keep up recognition of your top talent even when your business is growing at an exponential pace?

This is a question I have been asked by hundreds of individuals, leaders and business owners over the last few months. The assumption being: we don’t have time for recognition during growth cycles.

But I would question the assumption underlying the question.

Recognition needs to be front and centre all the MORE when your team, organization or industry are growing and the pace is exceedingly busy. This is when you need your best people the most, and it’s also one of the times you’re most at risk of losing them.

When your focus is not on recognition, it can lead to your most needed and valued people feeling like just a cog in the wheel of growth. They may feel like giving up and burning out. They may begin to wonder, “could the grass be greener on the other side?” The fallout: intention to leave.

Ironically, simple acts of recognition can help to insulate against fatigue and keep people motivated to do their best even during those exceedingly busy times. When your organization or industry is in a period of exponential growth, taking on more and more, that is exactly when you need your top talent the most, focused, implementing and performing. You cannot afford to lose your best people any time, and certainly not when you’re growing.

But leaders think they have no time. They cannot fit it in and certainly, can’t afford to not do it. And, the fallout (e.g., recruitment) is way more time consuming than simple acts of acknowledgement.

Recognition can help insulate against burnout and fatigue and provide an opportunity to see how scalable your recognition efforts are. Consider:

  • How committed are you to making sure that your best people know they’re appreciated and valued?
  • What is your people philosophy on the long-term?
  • What do you want your people to be saying about the organization on the other side of your current growth cycle?

It’s a great opportunity to ensure your vision for the future keeps your people at the forefront. And here are some ways to ensure recognition now helps retain them so they stay with you later.

  1. Provide the unexpected

When your best people go the extra mile, do something unexpected, surprising and personally meaningful. For example, you have a core team working late for a few weeks, sacrificing a lot. The surprise recognition gesture: send dinner home to their families.

Think about it. They miss dinner with their families. Someone has to pick up the slack at home. Many people don’t like cooking (or certainly the dishes that follow). When your top people go home to smiles versus upset kids and spouses, they’re less frustrated about the extra time. And the cost is pretty low in the grand scheme of things.

Dinner sent home sends a message to the employee that you recognize and appreciate the extra effort and commitment. It sends a message to the family that you understand the sacrifice they’re making and appreciate them too. It also sends a message throughout the company that even though sometimes you have to ask people to work longer hours, it doesn’t mean you expect people to be married to the job; when you have to take time away from family, that will be acknowledged versus expected.

  1. Have a milestone celebration!

As much as you may have this huge growth, stop and celebrate. It doesn’t have to be a long pause. The importance of that pause is remembering how far you’ve come since the last time you took a pause. It’s that sense of accomplishment, that hit of dopamine, that allows you to feel the sense of success. Otherwise, it just feels like there’s more to do, and you get overwhelmed; the path to burnout.

I spoke for a client at a milestone event, celebrating progress so far on a long, onerous project (where no wins were that visible yet) after a multi-company merger. The energy in the room and appreciation for taking the time to break bread together, hear a non-work motivational speech and get to know each other on a social level was appreciated by every person I spoke to. They all said, “They didn’t have to do this. But it matters that they did.”

I hope you’re doing shout-outs all the way along. That is not just for your leaders and the business owners, but it’s also for your colleagues as well. Peer-to-peer recognition is one of the easiest ways to keep recognition momentum going. When you have that, as you’re growing, it allows everybody to have an opportunity to keep that strong recognition culture afloat.

  1. Strategize using an employee think-tank

If you are finding that you’re growing so exponentially that you can barely keep on top of it, bring the employees together to strategize together. Ask things like:

  • What are we doing that’s working?
  • Is there anything that’s not efficient?
  • Is there anything we could be doing differently?

By asking for feedback (especially feedback that starts with an abundance mindset about what’s already working), you’re showing you value their feedback and they’re not just “worker bees”. Take the quick wins (even better encourage people most passionate about the quick wins to run with it) and put ideas into place right away. Keep that sense of ownership, that feeling of “I belong here despite the changes”, alive and well.

Something like this if not geared at being a complaints session. It’s not a passive “suggestion box” type of idea. Rather a strategy and opportunities generation session. What you’ll find is, there are things taking away good people’s time and attention that really aren’t important, and you can likely get much of that cleared away so they can stay focused on the most important work needed for growth.

  1. Strength discovery is critically important

There’s a free, really valuable tool called the VIA Signature Strength Survey, although maybe you have already done a strengths tool. Look at the results and map out their individual strengths. Consider if they are well aligned with the work being done. While you’re growing, the easiest, most efficient way to maximize people’s talents is to leverage the strengths and expertise they already have. When you’re trying to work outside of your strengths and push yourself, on top of having a huge volume of work and tight deadlines, it’s exhausting and not as rewarding. Map out the strengths and try as best as you can to match your growth strategy to how you already have strengths within the organization.

  1. Measuring matters

Finally, find a way to have those performance milestones. Are you measuring performance and progress as you’re growing? Are you still measuring the cultural variables that individuals feel most strongly about preserving? Are you measuring both process and outcome measures (usually we like to measure the final product – outcome – but that doesn’t keep people going, nor does it allow for quick course correction, when measured in isolation).

What you measure matters. As you’re measuring it, as you’re going through those milestones, I hope that you have some of those “people measures” as well. And pull them into the celebration!

I hope these tips have been helpful as you continue to embrace recognition. What other suggestions do you have?  Pop them in the comments below.

For other free resources to help you keep recognition strong in your culture, feel free to hop over to my website for the Cool Stuff page and download many helpful tools to use even when you’re growing.

Four Ways to Connect Quickly: Having Conversations that Matter

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I’ve noticed a theme lately where people are asking, “How do we have more meaningful connections?”

Some theorize this is a backlash to Facebook and the “Gram” –  that people are just sharing the best face of their life to the world. Maybe I’ve just got the whole social media thing all wrong and I’m showing way too many warts and all. Really, I think we’re pointing our finger at the latest trend when actually we could be asking a more powerful question: “How do we have more meaningful connections?” That transcends trends and time.

We need to ask this question more than ever before. We are a distracted society. We’ve got our heads down checking our devices. We’re so busy that our attention is focused on the discussion about the most valuable commodity that we have today and that we are spending so much time in our cars, commuting to and from work, driving our kids to activities and just occupying our life that we’re not spending the time connecting with each other.

Yes!  There is an opportunity!

We can engage in meaningful dialogue, and build these relationships very quickly, even with perfect strangers. For those of us who are in business, we can find connections with people that potentially could be great clients through having a different approach to a dialogue. I mean, how many times has somebody asked you, “How’s it going?“, and you just say, “fine” or “good“, but you aren’t! Or if you are it still deflates a potential powerful connection opportunity.

When we engage in meaningful dialogue, where we seek to understand, connect and learn about the other person, we ask different questions than people having transactional dialogue. And that’s how you get noticed. These conversations are what people remember. You stand out because you cared just a little bit more. You are memorable because of what you discussed.

We’re not used to having these conversations though. When I coach entrepreneurs to have more meaningful conversations when they’re networking, conversing with a potential client or even in their personal lives, they’re worried they’ll come across as “nosy”, “pushy” and put people off. But consider this: do you like benign small talk? No way! Do you like realizing that you have something in common with a perfect stranger? Yes! So, what if you could make this connection at the same time it takes to have meaningless small talk? And what if it led to a cool new relationship, partnership or even a sale?

Consider this unique and great formula – “F.R.O.G.” (no not my normal FROG – Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness™) – this time it’s an easy to remember formula of the four areas that you can relate to just about anyone on. In fact, you can download a list of questions that fall under each of these four here.

F – Family & Friends

Family and Friends. If you ask or start a conversation inquiring about people’s family and friends, people are so much more interested in having that conversation. It could just be, “So, what are your kids into?” You may find within three shares back and forth that you have a lot of things in common.

R – Recreation

Recreation. What do you do outside of work, or what do you do for fun? What did you do when you were a kid? What would you do if you had a windfall of $10,000? There are all kinds of questions that allow you to connect on a human level, and to learn about what that person most values because that’s how they spend their very limited and precious discretionary time.

O – Occupation

Occupation, and not just “what do you do?” You can learn that from visiting someone’s LinkedIn profile. It’s more than that. What do you love about your job? Why did you choose that degree? Did you take a different career path? You’d probably learn something about their journey that would benefit you, but also, it’s questions that people don’t normally ask individuals, particularly as they’re networking and building relationships for the first time.

G – Goals & Passions

Goals and passions. What do you think will be the most important achievement that you will have in your career? Do you have anything on your bucket list that you want to accomplish this year? Whether somebody has a bucket list or not, they probably have heard of the concept and they can come up with something. Again, by understanding what somebody is super jazzed about, how cool would it be to have a conversation about that rather than the weather?

If you were to add a fifth area to build out some meaningful connection questions, what would it be? What is your favorite question to ask or be asked?

I hope that’s been helpful for you in having a conversational framework that you can plant in your head the next time you go to a networking meeting, meet new colleagues, in a sales meeting, or want to have a deeper, more meaningful connection. If you go to my website’s, Cool Stuff page, I’ve put together some questions underneath the F-R-O-G that you can put in your toolkit and effortlessly practice using those strategies.

Want another dose of authentic connection? Why not subscribe to receive the Greatness Magnified newsletter and my YouTube channel to get your dose of greatness every week!

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