The importance of appreciation

I have been a firm believer in appreciation. No achievement is menial. From one’s point of view a certain achievement may have been routine and simple, yet from the point of view of the person doing the job, it may have been tedious and arduous. Appreciation for the work done well shows that good work is being valued and pushes people do more and better.

In my observations, I have found that appreciation drives positive behaviour, favourable for the organisation. I have been part of a journey where a dry culture moved towards a culture of appreciation (among other changes) and the productivity of employees shot up. I am not correlating the upward tick to only the introduction of appreciation as a corporate behaviour but, from where I see it, it had a very important role to play.

There are many behavioural responses to being appreciated. The primary ones are higher motivation to do better, a feeling of belonging to the organisation and the determination to go beyond the call of duty. The best response is the conversion of negative mind-set to positive. Make no mistake, appreciation is not the elixir for all evils, yet, it is a significant change agent in productivity. For my friends who have seen the Hindi movie ‘Chak De India’, recall the scene where Bindiya Naik is asked by coach Kabir Khan to help break the man to man marking of Korea. Before that, she was rebellious and destructive. When Kabir had to turn Bindiya into a contributor, he appreciated her experience and her knowledge of breaking man to man checking, and made her realise that the team/country needed her skills then more than ever. This appreciation coupled with the hard punishment metted out by the coach just before, motivated Bindiya to do what was needed. The film may be fiction but the situation was very real world.  

Remember the Indian cricket renaissance of the early 2000s under Sourav Ganguly? After every wicket, all fielders would run to the bowler, give high fives and butt slaps, all in appreciation of the wicket. A good save on the boundary would see an applause from the bowler. a seemingly tough catch would be celebrated. Press conferences would have words of appreciation from the captain. Among the many steps taken to reinvent Indian cricket, this sense of appreciation had a huge role to play.

I recently chanced upon this blog which details how appreciation is scientifically proven to trigger more productivity through the release of dopamine. Muthia Huda, in her post, has highlighted research findings on the positive impact of appreciation. Worth a read.

Appreciation leads to a happy workplaces. Surely it can combine with other measures of driving happiness and together they can yield better results. Yet, for productivity, driving better results and more commitment, nothing works better than appreciation. 

Don't think; appreciate. Not only will you make someone happy, you will drive performance!