Personal message and ownership in successful recognition program

When I was working as consultant I was passionate to discuss on the spot award/recognition award. Back then me and my colleagues in tend to believe that the key to successful recognition program is either in the lucrative awards (in its financial and non-financial value) or in the ease of access/tools to execute the on the spot award, or in some combination of both.

After some period of years and learning from the real life success stories of some organization that implemented I found out that those two are not the most important.

The first most important impact factor is actually the PERSONAL MESSAGE. A short but sincere email, simple lunch invitation from senior leadership or handwritten letters stays for as long as one person's career journey. The more engaged employees in an organization that I witnessed typically have one or more personal experience from a meaningful interaction with the CEO, Directors or Senior Management often even in a seemingly mundane settings. You may test this by conducting deep dive/FGDs to your most engaged employees. You will likely find stories such as a people went to extra mile because one of the directors personally congratulate him/her on an achievement while remembering their name or employees so dedicated to the organization mission because the founder listen to his idea and publicly credits him. The cross from material to personal fulfillment is the one that gets remembered.

The second and equally most important factor is the OWNERSHIP from the top to bottom. I It is not the wet signature on the fancy paper that looks good on a frame. It is the discretion taken so that for a brief moment the organization can muster its attention to appreciate and honor the honest work and dedication among its rank. When the top level does this to their mid level management. The mid level will naturally emulates this pattern of behavior and then repeat. And when this invitation of doing even stellar work because the good work is recognized and not only replied with demeaning retorts of "it is your job" or some other transactional remark, then the organization creates the self reinforcing morale and motivation.

Those two things are why the ending scene of then King Aragorn said to Frodo and the Hobbits, "You bow to no one!" and then proceeded to honor them, it felt like the best thank you scene in cinema!

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