Remember What Your Mother Taught You - Always Say Thank You.: Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

April 18, 2007

Remember What Your Mother Taught You - Always Say Thank You.

Anne Fisher, a senior writer for Fortune magazine had interesting article in her recent "Ask Annie" column. Her column Why saying "Thank you" is more than just good manners highlights how important it is to sincerely recognize people for their contributions. In this post she quotes some research that indicates that companies that have a culture of recognizing contribution and excellence show better performance than those that don't. This is all based on the book "The Carrot Principle" by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. More information is available at www.carrots.com.

While I believe it is a good idea to recognize people I'm always skeptical when people try to link one management trait to superior company performance. Superior company performance result from many things not just one type of action. In this case I think you should recognize people simply because it is the right thing to do and the right way to treat people. You shouldn't need a monetary incentive to do this.

Fisher's post talks about one situation where a manager states "People who are good know they're good. They don't need to hear it." as a reason to why he doesn't need to tell people their efforts are appreciated. This is not an unusual situation and seems to be more common with the stereotypical engineers and IT types that only want to deal with the technical facts and not the messy people issues. Fortunately most engineers and IT folks don't match the stereotype. When you talk to people that believe this, the strength of their belief is obvious. They truly don't believe it is necessary to recognize people's efforts.

The best counter to this train of thought is to suggest that they go home and tell their spouse and children that they won't ever tell them they love them again. It should just be assumed that they are loved until they are told otherwise. People instinctively know this wouldn't work. I have yet to see one of these no-recognition-necessary managers think that they could or should do this. When you look at it in these terms it is obvious that people want to be recognized and appreciated for their efforts and that expressing our appreciation is important.

So now that we all realize we should do thank people why don't we do it? I think the answer is that the day-t0-day pressure and deadlines blind us to all other considerations and somehow we just "never get around to it". As manager the one thing we need to remember is that our job is all about people - motivating them, acting as a resource for them, guiding them and recognizing them.

The other trap we need to look out for is just recognizing the big projects. The big project typically gets all of the attention but that doesn't mean that those people involved in the day-t0-day activities aren't doing a good job and deserve recognition too. The folks on the Help Desk, those running the data center etc. provide a valuable service and want to be recognized for their contribution as much as those on the high-profile projects. Make sure you don't forget these types of efforts when you recognize people.

Recognition comes in all forms from a simple "Thank You" to elaborate bonus programs. Although I'm not suggesting that you forego the big programs I've found that often the most effective recognition is timely, direct, specific and most importantly sincere. Over at the HR Council for the Voluntary/Non-profit Sector they list some key characteristics from Bob Nelson called the "ASAP Cubed Guidelines":