Federico Jack’s Blog

One of the big ironies cited by recognition experts is that the recognition techniques that often have the greatest motivational impact are practiced the least, even though they are easier and less expensive to use. Day-to-day praise or other informal recognition gestures can be very inclusive, flexible, and powerful. Here are a few resources with some ideas on how to broaden your approach to recognition.

Ideas for Recognizing and Appreciating Your Colleagues

Whether you are a manager or not, here are a few ideas on how you can recognize your colleagues beyond giving them formal awards. Remember, almost anything can provide meaningful recognition if it is sincere, specific, timely, and creative. And, the more you know about a colleague’s interests and preferences, the better you will be able to ensure that your recognition gesture will REALLY be appreciated. I have organized three lists of recognition practices that you can start implementing ASAP. Keep this list handy to help you remember that recognizing and appreciating your colleagues should be a habit that you keep up throughout the year. Make it a priority to help create a culture of recognition!

Personal related

• Greet your colleagues by name and take a few minutes to see how they are doing.
• Give a handwritten ‘thank you’ note or card- It adds a personal touch.
• Send an e-mail congratulation on a job well done (copying other people).
• Make or buy your colleague’s favorite food and bring it in to work.
• Offer to do your colleague’s most unpleasant task for a day to say ‘thanks.’
• Ask for a colleague’s opinion or ideas on a project or to help implement a new process.
• Say a simple, sincere ‘thank you.’
• Write several ‘thank you’s’ on post-its and hide them among your colleague´s desk.
• Make a contribution to the colleague’s favorite charity in his or her name.
• Give a book by the colleague’s favorite (professional) author.

Team related

• Plan a surprise party to celebrate a special achievement.
• Make a banner of appreciation to hang in the work area.
• Write a newsletter article describing a special achievement.
• Thank colleagues including names in your blog.
• Give a souvenir with a project logo to commemorate an achievement.
• Create a picture poster of a colleague or team to celebrate an accomplishment.
• Create a thank you ‘traveling trophy’ that can be passed from colleague to colleague.

Organizational related

• Give an inspirational speech to a deserving colleague during a company meeting.
• Recognize and thank colleagues who set the example by regularly recognizing others.
• Pass on positive remarks you hear about a colleague to that person as soon as possible.
• Include ‘kudos’ as an agenda item in staff meetings.
• Point to the management team your vote in recognizing outstanding performance by one of your colleagues. 

During the last couple of weekends, I read two books written by Lance Armstrong –“It’s not about the Bike” and “Every Second counts”. If you ever heard about him, you probably know him for being a cancer survivor who won the “Tour De France” seven times, and created a foundation to fight against cancer (LAF). All those facts are true, but I found something that you probably did not know: he is the kind of person that has most of the mindsets that we share at Southworks. By now you might wonder “ok, what does a book from a pro-athlete have to do with Southworks?” well I found that the answer is: a lot!. I found lots of pages about mindsets and core values that we share, and I personally recommend you to read his books. In this first post I wanted to share with you some very inspiring thoughts he has about “team work”.

“Team mates are critical in cycling-I had eight of them on the Motorola squad, and I needed each and every one. On a severe climb it could save me 30 percent of my energy to ride behind a colleague, drafting, ‘sitting on the wheel’. Or, on a windy day, my eight team mates would stay out in front of me, shielding me and saving me up to 50 percent of the work I’d had to do otherwise. Every team needs guys who are sprinters, guys who are climbers, guys willing to do the dirty work. It was very important to recognize the effort of each person involved-and not waste it. “Who’s going to work hard for someone who doesn’t win?” Och asked me, and it was a good question. You don’t win a race all on your own. You need your team mates-and you need the goodwill and cooperation of your competitors, too. People had to want to ride for you, and with you”. (“It’s not about the bike”, page53)

After reading this kind of things, It was clear for me that I would recognize in his book more about mindsets than I could ever expect. I found another interesting part in his second book “Every second counts” also about the nature of team work:

“The Tour de France poses an interesting question about the nature of team work: why should eight riders sweat and suffer for three weeks when only on man, me, will get the trophy? This is asking for an extreme degree of self-sacrifice, perhaps an unnatural amount. But the smart athlete, and person, knows that if self sacrifice is hard, self interest is worse. It dooms a team; you wind up a bunch of singletons that just happen to wear the same shirt…. If you truly invest yourself in a team, you guarantee yourself a return on your investment, and that’s a big competitive advantage over other less-committed teams. On the Postal Service team, we invest in each other’s efforts –and the result is that we often have the sensation that we’re racing against teams that merely spend themselves. What’s smarter, to invest or spend? Investment implies a longer-term commitment; it’s not shallow or ephemeral; it’s enduring, and suggests a long term return.”

“Who would want to be a singleton, when you could have all that? Anyone who imagines they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is, no one ascends alone.”

That said, I kept thinking: why is that so many people find it difficult to understand what team work is all about? Maybe it’s because creating a great team takes time and in the world you can find a lot more bad teams than good ones. People tend to follow “the herd”. Even Lance Armstrong spent five years carefully identifying, recruiting, and signing the kind of people he wanted to work with, before completing the 2002 USPS team. Probably the best cycling team that ever road a road. I think that there are no shortcuts for building a great team and everyone of us is responsible for our team but again… “who would want to be singleton, when you could have a team?”.