If you asked a follow on question on how did that praise and recognition impact on your performance afterwards, they will tell you that their performance improved dramatically.
All straightforward so far? Then ask any staff member when they last received meaningful praise and recognition. You just might be astounded at the answer. In 80% of cases it will not have been in the previous week and in a high percentage it will be much longer than that.
The reality is that managers simply don’t praise their staff enough or in most cases give their staff the recognition they deserve. They spend most of their time and effort dealing with problem staff and often on the problems that they caused. Constantly delivering reprimands is one of the signs of a poor manager. Some staff are like children and they feel rewarded just by gaining the attention of the parent or teacher, staff often react in a similar way to their manager, any attention is better than no attention, a reprimand is better than being ignored! As you go on your quest for excellence in management remember this simple rule. If you want to get good behaviour, focus on good behaviour, reward good behaviour and expect good behaviour. If you want bad behaviour the same rules apply.
We have all watched the program with the Super Nanny who is called in to help with badly behaved children – no matter how bad the children are, no matter what they do or how they behave, there is always one thing in common; it is never the children, it is always the parents! While she may be called in because of the behaviour of the children, to be successful, she knows that the only way to get success is to change the behaviour of the parents.
Management works much the same way, if there are problems in any department, if staff are unhappy, if they are not being as productive as they should, if they are regularly delivering a poor performance or failing to meet or exceed the reasonable targets set, I guarantee you can trace it back to the manager.
I am appalled at the level of training given to managers, (I know you will think, he would say that wouldn’t he – he’s trying to sell training!) There is this process where someone is a great credit controller so they are promoted to Team Leader, Supervisor or even Credit Manager. This process is also true in al other roles in business including Sales, Finance etc. The reality is that the job of management is a completely different discipline that requires totally different knowledge and skills. It is only with proper training, development and coaching to ensure the learning is being implemented on a day to day basis and the results are being monitored and tweaked and managed on a perpetual basis.
The One Minute Manager tells us that managers should take time out each day and go around with the purpose of catching people doing something right! It is really good advice.
You have to be careful how and why and when you praise your staff as if it is done incorrectly it can have the totally opposite effect if not done correctly and above everything else it has to be sincere.
I hope I have convinced you of the need and importance of praise and challenge you to maintain a “praise log” where you keep a note of the times, the people and the circumstances that resulted in you praising a staff member. Taking this advice on-board could be exactly what is required to improve the morale and performance of your team.
I would also like to remind you that at this stage we are still on the basics of management!