In my client meetings many occasions of perfect synchronicity occur that remind me of the powerfulness of building Strategic Discipline into the fabric of business structure. A recent monthly meeting provided a reminder to the powerful impact that simple recognition offers to feed employees souls.
I love this quote from Cavett Robert, “"Three billion people on the face of the earth go to bed hungry every night, but four billion people go to bed every night hungry for a simple word of encouragement and recognition."
Don’t forget to recognize your employees and celebrate your victories!
Achieving peak performance in your business requires bringing out the best in your people. How frequently are you recognizing, rewarding and simply appreciating the contributions your people make to grow your business?
This past month one of my clients met for their 2nd Quarter Planning. Each planning meeting we dedicate 15-30 minutes to review the victories that the individual or their department has achieved. This means including about 3-5 quick stories on success and achievement. After everyone has bragged about themselves the next exercise asks them to offer success or achievements that they observed others accomplish in the organization.
Imagine that, you don’t even need to notice how your people are doing; you can enlist the support of your staff to observe and recognize them. In fact in many cases their scrutiny and detective work is more insightful than yours. Receiving recognition from your peers can be more uplifting than hearing it from the boss. Isn’t it your job to give them recognition? A peer observing it means much more.
As we continued through bragging on others it became obvious that everyone was recognizing everyone. In fact one member who identifed just three people as the form suggested, he immediately expanded his, offering he had wanted to include everyone but felt restricted by the form. (It is limited to two lines to brag on others.)
The stories and tales of achievement included some redundancy, however many offered additional insights and background to the extraordinary efforts everyone made. What do you imagine the meeting room felt like? Participating purely through video on GoToMeeting I could still feel the change in enthusiasm and upliftment the comments provided. The meeting was lighter in mood and the openness and vulnerability blossomed as the meeting continued.
The meeting moved on to reviewing last quarter and planning the next quarter, yet the harmony and good will this established flowed through the meeting and made decisions easier.
Every quarterly planning meeting doesn’t go quite as smoothly. Every team isn’t as cohesive, nor have they built a spirit of harmony, cooperation and trust as this team has.
Aubrey Daniels, (author of Bringing Out the Best in People) offers recognition should be in a four to one ratio. This meeting certainly surpassed that by a multiplier of two or more!
Getting your people to perform at a higher level isn’t always easy. A good start is to remember this four to one ratio. If everyone is feeling good about themselves and their contributions, performance improves dramatically.
Another portion of Strategic Disciplines Quarterly Planning Meetings is “What did we learn?”
It’s remarkable what is overlooked each quarter and year as we move forward striving to achieve more. Your organization will achieve more even if the gains are small. Success breeds success. Each gain builds momentum. Victories recognize the achievement of the individual, department or team, and business! They elevate good will, and recognition paves the way toward more success.
The “What did we Learn?” exercise often continues the victory parade. It includes wins and mistakes which when not identified often can be compounded in subsequent quarters ahead. How often has your organization failed to achieve a desired outcome only to discover the method used had been tested and failed somewhere else or previously in your organization? This will prevent that from occurring.
Celebrate your victories. You’ll be pleased to see the progress your people are making. The recognition will please and inspire your team and build steady momentum in your business.
For help building quarterly planning and meeting rhythms that build a cadence of accountability contact Positioning Systems.