3 Tips on How to Start a Recognition Movement in 24 Hours: Lessons from Northern Lights College

What would you do if you have two spare tickets to a really cool performance?

Give them to your best bud? Likely.

Sell them on Kijiji. Sure!

Create an impromptu recognition opportunity in your workplace? Bingo.

Jessie Drew, Executive Director of Organizational Development & Human Resources at Northern Lights College in Northern British Columbia, home to 300 staff and 1400 students, did just that. What’s more, what started as an impromptu gesture to spark recognition turned into a movement within 24 hours.

Just Go For It

It doesn’t take much to start a movement. First, you need a call to action that connects hearts and minds. Here’s her email:

“I was lucky enough to be given four tickets to tonight’s concert and would like to give away two of them! Here’s the cool twist. I would love it if you would nominate a colleague who you think would be a deserving recipient and why. When we demonstrate gratitude for others, our worlds transform. It’s a pay it forward kind of deal.”

What did that take, 2 minutes to write? What she got back was incredible. Not two hours later, Jessie sent out another email:

“My email is BLOWING UP!!! (Sorry IT...) The outpouring of gratitude is absolutely amazing at NLC!!! Thank-you and keep ‘em coming. I am announcing the winner at lunch. Clear your dance cards tonight!”

By lunch, she had received over 40 replies.

Enjoy the Ride

Talk about a fun lunchtime! Reading about the incredible talent, goodwill and support that exists throughout her organization is enough to get anyone’s metabolism on overdrive!

It was hard to pick the “winner”; the conviction with which many wrote about their deserving colleagues and the quality of the staff was incredible. She had to decide though. And one person consistently stood out, nominated time and time again with a breadth of amazing value she brought to her colleagues and students. Jessie announced the winner:

“My heart is bursting right now!!! Forty-two emails expressing gratitude and appreciation for their colleagues this morning. Outstanding response!!!! There were so many but ONE person in particular received MANY accolades from almost every campus... I am going to share...”

Then Jessie proceeded to share the specific words of praise that every nominee shared about the winner Claudia Ruel from IT (lucky turn of events given the email traffic the movement caused!) You can only imagine how appreciative Claudia was, not only to receive two surprise free tickets to a performance she could enjoy with her husband and a very proud senior leader, but also to hear just how valued she was by her peers and the College.

It doesn’t end there though. It continues to get better. Insert: movement.

Capitalize on a Movement

No Jessie didn’t go out and buy more tickets or scrounge her drawer for gift cards. She didn’t have to. Others were inspired.

Her colleague, Rodney Cork, the Chair of Trades and Apprenticeships, approached Jessie to offer extra hockey tickets he had. After all, there must be another deserving winner on the list surely?

True, but Jessie realized that this was where a nice gesture was going to get huge. In leadership, Rodney stepping up was significant. He became “The First Follower”.

Jessie intuitively knew that this could be another nice gesture, and absolutely it would be a nice idea to recognize the “runner up”, but what if Rodney took over the charge? Furthermore, there’s a fine line between spontaneous acknowledgement by senior leaders and the impression of a “corporate” initiative afoot. Not that there’s anything wrong with a corporate initiative, it’s just it has a different “feel” on the intuitive authenticity meter.

Follow Good Ideas

Rodney had a choice. The first follower has to be willing to take a risk - maybe you haven’t done something quite like this new thing before, not sure how people will “take it”, wonder if it’s “my role”. But that’s the power of going next. It really has the opportunity to start something huge.

So instead of Rodney’s tickets going to the “runner up”, he put out his own call in a different way. He publicly reflected on the impact of the gesture and the flurry of positive activity he witnessed. He reflected on a recent change in roles that had enabled him to have a wider view of the college which in turn lead to growing pride of the amazing people across all of the campuses. To that end, there were so many amazing people deserving of recognition, he put forth his own call for recognition:

“So, moving forward, I challenge you all as members of this college community, to continue with a weekly or monthly give away to recognize the exceptional people around us. With that in mind, I have 2 open tickets for a Junior Canucks game here in Dawson Creek, any game, any seat. I would like to ask for nominations once again for a staff member who makes our days here at work better. Tell me who and why!”

Acknowledge Your Top Talent

Next, insert the President Dr. Bryn Kulmatycki. He too sent a message to staff that ended with:

“These stunning results can be extrapolated to all of our staff because the percentage and proportional numbers of staff involved would be quite representative of our entire organization. I am incredibly proud of what I have seen demonstrated.

This particular impromptu exercise demonstrates clearly about how you, collectively as a staff, view those with whom you work. There are always organizational challenges, but as a collective, this initiative has resulted in a huge statement to each other, and it’s a huge morale booster for us all. To everyone in our organization, thank you all for your wonderful contributions to our organization, to each other, and to our students. I’m quite overwhelmed by it actually! Special thanks to Jessie whose creative initiative provided extraordinary results.”

President Kulmatycki then took out his pen and proceeded to write a thank-you card to every person who was nominated in Jessie’s call, acknowledging the specific contributes their colleagues pointed out, and, every person who nominated for their spirit of gratitude.

The incredible momentum continues to build at Northern Lights College (even as recently as today!) But you probably guessed that already.

Let's Recap

Northern Lights College started a recognition movement in 3 simple ways:

1. One person did something generous, spontaneous and authentic that got noticed.
2. Acknowledgements were shared publicly (we call that “resource gossip”), creating pride & fueling momentum.
3. Others were inspired, and stepped in right away to keep build the momentum

It’s worth noting that another key reason this worked was that Northern Lights College used the three forms of recognition that a preferred by 85%+ of people (according to our analyses):

1. A verbal thank-you
2. Personal specific words of praise
3. A written thank-you

Really, how could they go wrong that those successful ingredients?

Now it's Your Turn

Are you inspired? Any individual in any industry on any day can have similarly great results. If you are inspired, and I hope you are (these questions will make more sense if you are!) I ask you:

• What can you do right now that will create exponential energy from surprising and authentic recognition?
• What might be the result?
• How might this start a positive movement of your own?
• Are you ready?

Want a thinking partner? Jump into my calendar here for a 15-minute exploration together!

Sarah McVanel is a recognition expert, sharing her knowledge and client stories through professional speaking, coaching, training and her co-authored books “Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness: Solution Focused Strategies for Satisfied Staff, High Performing Teams and Healthy Bottom Lines” and “The FROG Effect Workbook: Tools and Strategies to Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness”. Visit her at www.greatnessmagnified.com or on eSpeakers.