Appreciation #2
“Appreciation is like an insurance policy. It has to
be renewed every now and then.”
- Dave McIntyre -
Do you know what employees desire the most? It's
not more money, more vacation time or even shorter hours. It is appreciation. An employee who knows he is appreciated
wants to continue impressing you. As you know, it takes four times the cost to search, hire, and train and motivate
a new employee than to keep an existing productive employee. No employee ever has too much self-esteem. If you
take every possible opportunity to point out what employees do well, praise them descriptively for it and express
appreciation, your associates will become more cooperative, competent and confident. If you take every possible
opportunity to point out what employees do poorly, to criticize them constantly and express your displeasure, your
employees will become less cooperative, competent and confident. In reality, employees have more need for models
than criticism.
Journalist Walter Lippmann
included the following thoughts in his book A Preface to Politics; “Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their
thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies,
historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire.” I think that the same applies with respect to the workplace.
At SCR we believe that the best way to meet our objectives and to exceed our guest expectations
is to hire, train and retain associates that come to the job prepared to excel in a team environment and want,
no demand, to be empowered to act. It is our desire and commitment to maintain a workplace culture were each associate
is respected, treated fairly, challenged to achieve their potential, encouraged to be part of the decision making
process and recognized for their contributions. The ‘recognition for contributions’ was not placed last because
it is of lesser importance but because of its place in the chain of typical occurrences.
In last week's column, we dealt with similar words such as award/reward and faith/trust
and we pointed out that perception was important in our interpretation of their meanings. This week we are dealing
with a single word that has two different meanings, or does it? The dictionary indicates that the meaning of appreciation
is “to increase in value” as in our home appreciating and/or “an expression of admiration, approval or gratitude”
as in to judge with heightened perception. In the workplace, if an associate’s performance has appreciated ‘like
our home’ and we fail to show that we have ‘perceived’ that performance to be of greater value, we have depreciated
the associate, their performance and ourselves. If this is the pattern over an extended period, then our workplace
will eventually become as uninviting as a slumlords apartment complex.
The Human Resource Management Community archives offered this insight into our workplace
cultures. ‘Many hard-working, no-nonsense managers and supervisors think the word
"culture" is something remote and alien to what they do for a living. To them, culture is highbrow art
and music. They don't think of culture as any part of a supervisor's daily life on the job. They're missing an
important point. The truth is that supervisory personnel encounter culture every day - the culture of the workplace
(their factory, shop or office). This culture is more important to productivity than wages, benefits or working
conditions. More than almost anything else, the culture determines the success or failure of the organization.’
Are there ways that we can make a positive impact of these workplace cultures and what part
does simple appreciation play? Yes! The most lasting impact leaders can have on the work environment is by living
their values ("walk the talk") and modeling desired attitudes and actions. Employees in all businesses
and industries respond to authentic, principle-driven leadership. If the leaders consistently sets an example of
trust, respect, civility, honesty and integrity, these values will eventually catch on with others. Here are some
of the ways to make the culture in your workplace better, stronger, healthier, more humane and more productive:
- Concentrate on building positive relationships. People work better together when they know
and respect each other as individual human beings.
- Practice open communication. It makes employees feel valued and involved. When you override
gossip with hard facts and accurate information, you build trust in the process.
- Be inclusive. When everyone is involved in the planning and dreaming, as well as the hard
work, you multiply talent.
- Strive to be a "servant leader." If you remove obstacles and give workers what
they need to do their best work, everyone benefits.
- Grant everyone in the organization permission to have fun on the job. When people are having
fun, they work better, faster, harder and longer.
The best leaders strive to create a culture that empowers workers to achieve self-actualization
and promote optimum creative collaboration at the same time. This kind of workplace culture allows the value of
all that is involved to appreciate and facilitates leaders to demonstrate their appreciation. If you build that
kind of workplace, they (workers) will come. They will stay. They will produce.
In Search of Excellence (co-authored by Tom Peters) was published in October of 1982 and during the ensuing
22+ years many of us have forgotten one if its central positions: Management by Walking
Around (MBWA). When the concept was introduced critics pointed out that MBWA could
cause managers to revert to peer-over-the-shoulder, -"kick-in-the- backside" (KITA), management of bygone
decades. Mr. Peters clarified MVWA in the follow-up
book A Passion for Excellence three years later by
explaining that there was a wrong way to do it (KITA) and a right way (MBWA), which stressed listening and
facilitating. In 1986, Tom posted Seeing is Believing
on his Internet web page. In that column he stated: “The key to successful businesses,
churches, hospitals, schools and battalions is people successfully dealing with people. Yet at tiny organizations
or large, whether they make pizza or war, leaders tend to become hopelessly isolated from the people who work for
them and from their customers. We must work diligently and without respite to reverse this almost irresistible
tide.” MBWA is simply the method for leaders to resist that irresistible tide.
I believe that one of the reasons that MBWA breeds success is that getting out of the office
(the isolation chamber if you will) is really the first of many steps to appreciation. That first step takes the leaders into the field and places them on the level where work is actually being
performed and allows them to become reacquainted with it. Of course, these individuals do work themselves and it
is important work, in fact many of these individuals feel that the work they do is the only work that really matters.
The second step is perhaps the most dangerous one
to the ego’s of many who feel that only they can do work. That second step places then in the position to actually see the work being performed and enhances the opportunity
for them to appreciate it. The third step then becomes
rather easy because once the leader appreciates the work; the odds are that they will begin to appreciate the workers.
The next two steps then become rather automatic. Fourth,
a smile usually appears on their face and fifthly
they began to think of ways that they can show their appreciation. Could it be that they have been so out of tune
in their isolation that they forgot that a smile is one of the very best ways they could show appreciation? Why?
Because that smile is really the best form of non-verbal communications and when a smile is coupled with verbal
communications that includes a workers name the impact becomes irresistible.
Some individuals get out of the office by playing a game called ‘Show the Flag” and think
that this game serves the same purpose as MBWA. Show the flag is played something like this: The CEO fly’s
into town in his private jet and is met/greeted at the airport by a gaggle of his senior management staff all of
whom are dressed similar to the CEO in their blue pin-stripped suites, white shirts and yellow ties. He is guided
to a waiting limousine and driven to the factory. Once on the job site he is escorted into a machine shop with
one management type on his left, another on his right and the rest of the entourage trailing behind. The CEO looks
straight ahead because each of the executives at his side is whispering in his ear. Every once in a while he nods
at one of the workers that stopped what he was doing and looked up at the ‘parade’. About half way down the corridor
the CEO is led over to a giant machine which was the latest multi-million dollar investment added to the assemble
line. The workers at the machine step aside so that their work clothing does not brush up against anyone in the
entourage and transfer work grime. To the astonishment of the management types the CEO steps toward the workers
and offers his hand to one of them. That workers wipes off his hand, accepts the tribute, then steps back as the
CEO is quickly led away and out of the shop.
A similar form of this game is played out when our nations Chief Executive Officer (the
President) comes to town. His political cronies meet him at the airport while the rabble is kept behind chain link
fences, escorted to his limo which has had his flag of office placed on each front fenders and led from the airport
by two motorcycle cops with screaming sirens. This ‘showing of the flag’ occurs so that all within the range of
sound or sight may know that someone of importance is passing their way and so that they can show their appreciation
of that countenance by waiving a flag that has been previously provided by the advance team. Clearly this game
does not fulfill the objectives of MBWA.
Tom Peters thinks that the true value of MBWA is that it facilitates those who practice
it to learn. They learn from any setting and from any associate no matter at what level within the organization.
They learn that any idea is not too small. That striving for a thousand little successes and/or tiny improvements
is backbreaking work and worthy of recognition. True leaders don’t feel the need to hog all the credit… They learn
to listen like they are truly interested in what a common worker has to say. The best leaders have a way of making
the person they're with, at any level, feel like the most important human being in the world for the five or 35
minutes they are with her or him -- as if they had nothing else to do. They learn that sometimes doing the work
requires getting their hands dirty and that callous hands are more often the badges of productivity than is the
yellow power tie.
FINAL THOUGHT
Yesterday, it was clear and bright here in the southwest. From my position on the ground
I could see the America West passenger jet as it executed its takeoff pattern from Sky Harbor, the private plane
as it was executing its approach into Scottsdale Airport, and the F-16 as it soared above Luke. What I actually
see is the outer shell, the wrappings and the majesty of flight. From this view I cannot see those thousands upon
thousands of parts that make it possible for man to successfully imitate nature. The only time we think of all
those parts as individual and give them there just due is when one of those marvelous inventions crash.
When such a crash occurs the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) sends in its team
of experts and they begin their investigation of the cause of the crash. In many instances part of that work is
to gather all the bits and pieces of the plane and begin to reconstruct the whole from those parts in order to
determine if the cause of the accident was mechanical failures rather than operator error. The purpose of these
investigations is not to place blame but to learn so that steps can be taken to insure the cause, be it mechanical
or human, is appropriately addressed. It is not until you have walked into a hangar where one of these broken,
twisted and burned planes is being rearranged bit by bit, that you appreciate the magnitude of the tasks that is
being undertaken. Every one of those remnants is looked at, examined and catalogued. Each of these parts played
an important role in the successful flight. Did one of them fail and contribute to the eventual crash?
So it is with our businesses. Each of our various parts play an important role in achieving
whatever success we have. It is in our best interest that we don’t wait for some breakdown to occur before we reacquaint
ourselves with the value of each of those parts. Rather than doing some circularly walk around inspection like
a airline pilot, get out of your own workspace and really get in contact with your workplace culture and those
who inhabit it. Learn to appreciate them and discover new ways to show that appreciation. Remember both kinds
of appreciation results from mutually beneficial relationships and in the real world of employer – employee relationships;
distance does not make the heart grow fonder…
JS 3/05
