5 Keys to Effectively Communicating Appreciation in the Workplace

Paul White:  ”As I travel around the country to consult for businesses and organizations, I hear the same message over and over—both from leaders and from their employees: People are getting burned out.”, and ”approximately 50 % of the workforce are just passively enduring work they don’t enjoy.”

Wow.

These are the ‘drones’ that so many managers complain about. These are the people who are not enthusiastic about the latest ‘innovation’ or ‘change’ program in the enterprise.

What is too often overlooked (or purposely ignored) is the fact that these drones were once children with shiny eyes and enthusiasm, just begging to be engaged. Many factors contribute to change in people, but lack of appreciation is surely one of them.

While you obviously cannot and should not play therapist, how about some authentic appreciation?

1. Praise very specifically – not just a blanket “that was great”
2. Some people react better to actions – spending time with them, assigning an interesting task…..
3. Do it in the language of the recipient: sports analogies should be used only with real sports enthusiasts
4. Save the qualifiers for another time – no “now next time…..”
5. Mean it – most people have very good detectors for …. fibs and ‘praise by the book’ often is worse than none at all,

as with most everything you do as a manager/leader, do it mindfully rather than on auto-pilot.

This entry was posted on November 25, 2011 at 06:32 and is filed under Scoops, Tools & Hacks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.