Pass a gratitude audit! Add some recognition to your leadership DNA

Question: How often have you recognised your team this year?

Unsure = fail.

Just once for the year = you barely passed this gratitude audit! Here’s how to bring gratitude and recognition into your leadership DNA.

First some shocking news: A pay check, though sadly increasingly rare in many parts of the world, is not recognition. #facts Workers earn their pay. if you want to motivate quality performance express gratitude more often. #alsofacts

Why this matters: Happiness at work increases productivity, quality of delivery and boosts retention. We hopefully all know this. It’s actually science. Oxford University's Sa?d Business School proved that happy workers are 13% more productive. A University of Wisconsin study linked increased happiness to quality - by studying dairy cows. Cattle who are happier (as measured by serotonin levels) produced more nutritious milk (levels of vitamins in the milk). Higher serotonin levels in humans also improves quality of live, temperament etc...Imagine the impact of a happy team on quality of performance? Time to get happy!

Feeling appreciated, recognised...hell, even feeling just seen, can help team members feel more content (if not happier!) and motivate better quality performance. Bonus? expressing gratitude can help leaders feel better too. #winwin

Another newsflash: Gratitude, well and authentically expressed can be a boomerang. ??????Leadership can feel like a thankless job too! Change that! Thank upwards (and sideways) too! ???

3 quick tips to add gratitude and recognition to your leadership DNA 

1. Schedule thank you time into your diary??: what gets scheduled gets done. This does not mean that your thank you’s are less genuine. Instead it means that that saying thank you is important enough to make your diary! Bonus tip: bookend your week with thank you time. Starting and ending your work week by carving out time for expressing gratitude can help you make more meaningful effort to be more active in your expression of gratitude. Leaders I have worked with said that by carving out this time, they not only did the basic email note type recognition , but sometimes walked the floors to say thank you in this time or randomly called team members to say thank you. This resulted in more meaningful conversations about team member contributions to success. Nothing like some time set aside for something important to improve quality of delivery. Rushed recognition = fail. Planned recognition = success. (Just don't tell the whole world you do this - it can, as we say, kill the vibe!).
2. Be specific and public: Leaders, please bold enough in your thank yous to express them specifically and publicly.?????? Yes - I mean thank employees by name and task. ??????I get it. Forgetting someone is always a risk of public thank yous. Guess what? You've done risky things before and they have paid off! This matters!! If you take the easy road out and just say “thanks team” your gratitude will have less impact! Get the details before you thank. Ask questions!!! And be human vulnerable enough to say that if you miss anyone in this act of recognition: 1) it does not diminish their work in anyway and 2) ask the team to let you know who was missed 3) make it up to them next time. What happens then? The team gets really focused on ensuring you know who needs to be thanked/ recognised = their work being more visible and your helping to build the team recognition muscle. ????????????????????
3. Add some sparkle: feedback is a gift - but recognition is the type of feedback that benefits from a little extra effort - like bow on a present??. 3 ways to do this: 1) Send a video thank you message??????! Turn your camera on, hit record and then send that video to team members via your messaging system of choice. Why this works: it’s cheap, easy and modern. It also is a great way to be personal-Ish in a virtual work environment. 2) Go retro with hand written notes????. Email recognition is overused and undervalued. Hand written thank you notes are increasingly rare = likely to be more appreciated. Imagine the impact of receiving mail with your leader’s actual handwriting? #sothoughtful This is especially great for appreciating team members that don’t like the spotlight. C) Show. Them. The. Money??????. Ok I get it, budgets are tight and profits minuscule or absent for most. But hey - if you company allows, give a gift card, send a gift or yes, award a bonus (at least ask!!). Big figures are great but small bonuses, especially on these times, have impact too.

Thanks for making the time for a #MojoMonday read. Try these out - let me know how it goes!