Blanchard LeaderChat

There’s an old saying that, “People don’t really care what you know, until they know you care.”  This is good advice for leaders who often get caught up and lose focus while dealing with all of the performance pressures at work.  Sometimes it feels like you have to choose between focusing on people or focusing on performance.  This is a false dilemma.  As Ken Blanchard has advised over the years, the best leaders focus on both people and results at the same time. 

In case you’ve gotten off- track with this, here’s a short acronym to help you remember to stop and take the time to show that you CARE about the people you work with, and who report to you.

Connect. Take the time to lift your nose from the grindstone today and check in with your people.  How’s it going?  What’s happening in their life?  What are they excited about?  You might be surprised at how long it’s been since you checked in, or how much has changed in their lives.  Take a minute to reconnect.

Acknowledge. Listen to what people are telling you.  Truly hear what they are saying.  As a leader, it’s easy to get caught up in telling instead of listening.  How are your people doing on their tasks and key responsibility areas?  Chances are that they are just as busy as you are.  Take a minute to acknowledge the work they are doing and the effort they are putting into it.

Respect—the skills, effort, challenges, and needs that your people have.  What are their strengths?  What challenges are they facing? Where do they need help?  What can you do to help them succeed?  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your primary job is to evaluate performance.  As a leader, your primary job is to help your people succeed.

Encourage.  Everyone can use a kind word, a pat on the back, and a word of encouragement.  Who in your group has been up against it, fighting fires, chasing deadlines, and making sure that things get done?  Who seems burnt, or worn out, from all the work they’ve had to accomplish? Take a minute to show your appreciation, offer some encouragement, and let them know that you appreciate what they’ve been doing.

In today’s hectic work environment, it’s easy to neglect the people side of work.  Don’t let that happen to you.  Relationships are an important ingredient to an engaging work environment.  If you’ve been out of touch lately, use these four practices to reconnect and show people you care.

Why are videogames so addictive? Dr. Marjorie Blanchard of The Ken Blanchard Companies believes that there are three reasons.

1. The player is in control of their environment.
2. The player receives rewards and recognition on a regular basis.
3. The player experiences a sense of growth and mastery as they continue playing.

Employers can learn a lot about creating motivating work environments by studying video game design. Let’s take a closer look at each of these factors and how they can be incorporated into today’s workplace setting.

Read more…

Yes, you should let people know you care about them and appreciate them as work colleagues, but a recent article in the Wall Street Journal shows how confused some people can be when thinking about how to display caring and appreciation in the workplace.

In an article entitled Does Your Work Wife Get a Valentine? columnist Sue Shellenbarger looks at how some co-workers are showing affection for their “work spouse” with a valentine.  The article explains how men and women—who are already in a committed romantic relationship with spouses outside of work, also want to use Valentine’s Day to show their affection for their “work spouse,” a colleague that they have a close bond with.

And while the employees in the article make a case for why it is okay to acknowledge the special nature of their work relationships with a valentine, the response from readers has been mostly negative with most questioning the wisdom of doing anything that encourages people to combine recognition, caring, and appreciation with anything romantic.

So how does a leader or co-worker show that they care for someone at their company in the best sense of the word?  Here are three tips:

1.  Do it on any other day except Valentine’s Day.  Don’t confuse a strong professional relationship with a romantic one.
2. Check your motives.  Are you trying to show appreciation, recognition, and caring—or is there something more that you are trying to say? 
3. If it feels like you may be blurring the line, don’t do it.

Feelings have a place at work, but it has to be in the collegial sense.  Focus on recognition and appreciation and steer clear of any romantic aspect.  To read Shellenbarger’s complete article, click here.  To share your thoughts on the article, or offer tips on proper ways to show appreciation for co-workers, use the COMMENTS button above.

Organizations want their employees to be more intrinsically engaged at work.  They want their employees to be more creative, more innovative, and to take more risks.  One of the ways organizations are supporting these initiatives is through the use of incentives.  While incentives can be a good way to drive short term behavior, you have to be careful that they don’t undermine long term motivation in your organization.

In his book, Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes author Alfie Kohn points out that when reward and recognition is conditionally based, it can actually undermine performance by: 

• Setting up a competitive atmosphere where some people win while other people lose 
• Discouraging risk taking when employees fall back on what has worked in the past instead of trying new things which may or may not work 
• Eroding natural interest by replacing intrinsic motivators with extrinsic ones

Perhaps most importantly, improper use of rewards and incentives can sometimes get in the way of good management.  This happens when managers rely to heavily on the use of rewards and incentives instead of drilling down on the reasons why employees may not be performing up to level. 

For organizations looking to improve the creativity, innovation, risk-taking and intrinsic motivation of their employees, Kohn recommends that leaders focus on three areas: 

1. Rethink financial incentives.  Instead of putting so much emphasis on pay-for-performance, pay people a little more than industry norms and then do everything in your power to help them put money out of their minds. 
2. Reevaluate evaluation. Make performance evaluation an ongoing process instead of a once-per-year event.  Make sure that it is a two-way conversation that is separate from conversations about compensation. 
3. Create the conditions for authentic motivation.  Kohn recommends focusing on collaboration—helping employees work together, content—design meaningful jobs and help people find the value in their work, and choice—wherever possible, give people the opportunity to determine how the task will be accomplished.

Kohn is a provocative thinker in this area. For leaders looking for the complete picture on the use of rewards and recognition in their organizations, he offers a great alternative viewpoint on the use of incentives.  I highly recommend him to you and invite your thoughts and comments here.

Last week I re-tweeted a blog post from Tom Peters, the best-selling business management guru.  In Appreciation! “Tool” No.1 Tom shares his own growing appreciation for a quote by the American psychologist, William James who said, “The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

Tom goes on to talk about the power of appreciation and his belief that bosses-managers-leaders (not to mention parents and teachers and spouses) should express appreciation more often.

So why don’t people recognize others more often?  That was a question Senior Consulting Partner Mark Paskowitz of The Ken Blanchard Companies asked 650 people who joined him for a webinar on Reward & Recognition on a Limited Budget earlier this week.  Mark asked participants to choose from among the five reasons he hears most often in his work with clients.  81% of the audience responded.  The rank ordering?

1. Lack of time (25%)
2. Not part of their personality style (20%)
3. Lack of awareness (15%)
4. Lack of skill/competence (15%)
5. Afraid of leaving someone out (6%)

The general sense is that recognizing and expressing appreciation can seem like a complicated process sometimes.  It doesn’t have to be.  A quick word of appreciation, a sincere thank you, and just noticing on a daily basis is all that is required in most cases.  For more ideas on how to get started, check out yesterday’s post on Don’t Overthink Recognition and Praise.  For a more complete look at the entire subject of reward and recognition, check out the recording of Mark’s webinar.

Catching People Doing Things Right Twitter Contest Winner!

Congratulations to Lance Dumigan, today’s winner in our Twitter contest to “catch people doing things right.”  Lance was recognized by Deborah Mourey.  Lance will be receiving a personally autographed copy of his choice of one of Ken Blanchard’s latest books.  Congratulations Lance—and good on Deborah for taking the time to recognize him!

Managers can be shy or unsure of themselves when it comes to recognizing and praising others at work.  That’s some of the feedback we’ve been getting as people have been participating in our Catch People Doing Things Right Twitter contest (see details below).  Part of the reason is that leaders are concerned that they won’t do it right—or that it won’t be received well.  These fears are mostly groundless.  Everyone loves to be praised.  For managers looking to catch their people doing things right, there are really only two things to keep in mind:

1. Be Immediate and Specific–For a praising to be effective, it must be immediate and specific. Tell people exactly what they did right as soon as possible. For example, “You submitted your report on time Friday, and it was well written. In fact, I used it in a meeting today, and that report made you and me and our whole department look good.”

Use examples such as “I see productivity in your department is up ten percent” or “Your report helped us win the contract with the Jones Company.” Comments that are too general, such as “I appreciate your efforts,” “Thank you very much,” “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” and “Keep up the good work,” are less likely to seem sincere and thus are unlikely to be effective.

2. State Your Feelings–After you praise people, tell them how you feel about what they did. Don’t intellectualize. State your gut feelings: “Let me tell you how I feel. I was so proud after hearing your financial report presentation at the Board of Directors meeting. I want you to know how good I feel about your being on our team. Thanks a lot.”

Recognizing people and expressing appreciation doesn’t have to be a laborious, drawn-out process.  In fact, many times your best praisings are the informal, spur-of-the-moment opportunities that happen throughout the course of the day. 

Get started today.  Catch someone doing things right.  It’s a powerful way to show someone you care and it can be your best management minute of the day.

Twitter Contest–Today’s Winner!

Congratulations to Christie at Mississippi State’s Women’s basketball program.  She was recognized by Coach Joey Burton and is the winner of today’s prize of a personally autographed copy of one of Ken Blanchard’s latest books. 

If you’d like to participate and recognize someone you know for a job well done, just follow the instructions below.  We’ll be choosing one more winner tomorrow.

Instructions for “Catch Someone Doing Things Right” Twitter Contest

1. Go to www.twitter.com  and post the name of the person you would like to catch doing things right along with a very short (140-characters or less) description of why. Include the following code in your message @leaderchat

For example: @leaderchat  Nick Peterson—for your work in developing our new press release program and keeping everyone up-to-date on a regular basis.  Thank you!

 2. Push the UPDATE button

It’s as simple as that.  Every day between now and Friday we’ll randomly choose one lucky person among those entered to receive a personally autographed copy of one of Ken Blanchard’s latest books.  Each day’s winner will be posted at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time right here at www.leaderchat.org

Yesterday we kicked off a special year-end Twitter contest to help recognize people doing things right.  Between now and Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time, we will be giving away copies of a personally autographed Ken Blanchard book to one lucky person each day from among the people nominated during the previous day.

If you’d like to catch someone doing things right—and possibly win them a personally autographed copy of a Ken Blanchard book—just send us your nominee’s name along with a short (140-characters or less) description of why you’re nominating them. We’ll automatically enter them into our daily drawing.  Be sure to add @leaderchat in your tweet so we can track your nomination.

Here are some examples from yesterday:

@leaderchat recognize Cara Garlock for all she does as our admin to keep us grooving

@leaderchat Janet Powers @divatoolbox for creating the powerful radio network and women’s resource website.

@leaderchat David Means –Thank you for all your work at Horizon House. It’s really paying off!

Recognition is important. Who do you know that deserves to be recognized for a job well done?  We’d like to help you let the world know here at LeaderChat.  Winners will be announced tomorrow and Friday at 6:00 a.m. and contacted directly so they can choose the book they would like to receive.

Today’s Winner!

Congratulations to Keith Hayward of Dillanos Coffee Roasters for being our first winner of a personally autographed book by Ken Blanchard.  Keith was nominated by Dillanos CEO David Morris for “going the extra mile for a last minute trip to Alaska to take care of a customer.”

Congratulations to Patti Breckenridge of Tampa, Florida and Lee Wise of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania who were announced yesterday as the winners in our Twitter contest to help identify today’s top leaders.  Both Patti and Lee will be receiving a gift pack of 7 of Ken Blanchard’s best books, including best-sellers together with some of Ken’s newest releases.

It’s been a great week devoted to identifying all of the wonderful leaders around us today and to explore some of the traits that make them special.  We’ve looked at the people who push the edges, inspire us, and lead us to places we may not have been able to get to on our own.

We also looked at a special group of people who we called the unsung hero, or the everyday leader.  These are the people who may not be household names, but who have had a powerful positive influence on our lives.  Here are a couple of more unsung hero/leader nominations from Ken Blanchard’s Twitter page that I wanted to share:

• My favorite leader as a coach: my mother-she understands me, keeps me grounded, pushes, backs-up.
• Innovation, courage, and caring make 8th grade science teacher Sandy Willmore my choice for Top Leader.
• My unsung hero is my cousin Chris an army helicopter pilot who will be leaving for Afghanistan.
• Susan Baldwin. For maintaining relationships with previous employees to use for training and back-up.
• This may sound like a cliché, but my boss is one of the best leaders I have ever met. He never has to ask for respect.

If you haven’t had a chance to see everyone who was nominated, go over to www.Twitter.com and type @kenblanchard in the search box.  You’ll see everyone who was recognized.  Thanks again to everyone who participated over this past week.

65% of North American workers reported that they were not recognized at work during the past year according to the authors of The Carrot Principle, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. That’s a shame because recognition supercharges the basics of good management according to the authors.  Here’s how 

• Goal Setting—once you set goals, use timely recognition to identify progress towards those goals.  For example, if the goal is greater efficiency—recognize employee who are the most efficient—if it is accuracy—recognize the employees who make the fewest mistakes. 
• Communication—add recognition as an agenda item to all individual and weekly staff meetings.  It’s also a good way to communicate company values and culture on an ongoing basis.  
• Trust—recognizing the contributions of others shows direct reports that you care and appreciate their efforts.  It also lets people know that everyone will be recognized for their contribution on a project.  That goes a long way towards building trust. 
• Accountability—recognizing good behavior shows that you are paying attention to goals and progress.  It’s also a positive way to let people know that behavior is being tracked.

What’s your organization’s approach to reward and recognition?  You can learn more about The Carrot Principle by checking out this short video at BNET, one of our recommended web sites.