Make Recognition Public Again ??

Or maybe I'll refer to it as MRPA...ok, it doesn't have quite the ring to it..but hear me out ??

A few week's ago I wrote a post about the importance of giving recognition, especially when it comes to leaders and people managers who sometimes forget to say "Well Done!" to their employees if they've observed them doing something awesome.

In this short article I wanted to take that further and talk about the importance of going PUBLIC when it comes to recognition.

But first, a few questions...

?? When was the last time you were publicly acknowledged at work for doing something awesome?

?? If you were, how did it feel?

And while you ponder the answers, here's a short story of my own experience when it comes to the impact of public recognition in the workplace.

Many years ago I was asked to help turnaround a failed software implementation which cost the business almost ￡30m! The task was huge, not least because they wanted my help to form, shape and lead 3 new teams of specialists to do the work.

Not only had many of the team members never worked in an Agile environment but they also belonged to a vendor company and weren't familiar with the organisation's working culture.

As I slowly got to work putting in place the requisite ways of working and demonstrating what Agile looked like, I was conscious of the pressure the teams were under to deliver. Not just the pressure of turning around the programme, but the environment as a whole with plenty of eyes on us and worries of our impending failure.

I recognised how important it was to create a positive environment where team members felt motivated and were able to perform at their best.

So I decided to create Kudo Wall, just like the one in the photo above and I even got the team to help me design and build a special Kudo Box too (see below)!

So how did it all work?

Pretty simple actually...

Anyone could nominate anyone else for doing something well. Whether you were a leader, manager or a team member it didn't matter. You simply had to write who you were nominating and why, on a gratitude card and place the card into the Kudo Box.

Every few weeks I would open the box, place all the nominations on the wall and count who got the most. And the best part? We'd hold a small ceremony, all the cards and nominations were read out and a prize was awarded to the winner - the person with the most nominations??

The impact was HUGE! It created a buzz in the office, and team members felt they were being RECOGNISED for their hard work. The number of recognitions from team members and managers increased each time we held a ceremony. In effect, it slowly became normalised ????

To this day, I firmly believe that the impact of public recognition was a critical factor in maintaining and building a high performing environment. Mainly because the feedback loop was so short.

Nobody was waiting for a quarterly review or a yearly review to receive feedback, instead their peers and managers were nominating them every few weeks, how cool was that?!

So to all the leaders and managers reading my post, here's my challenge to you..

?? Who will you publicly recognise at your next team meeting and HOW?

After all, what's important is normalising public recognition in the workplace!

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Hey ?? I'm Arif and I'm a passionate leadership and career coach. If you're looking to up your leadership game then hit that ?? button for more.

And if you want to explore how leadership coaching can help you lead with impact then get in touch!