The Power of Appreciation

In the past several years, as COVID-19 has cut its swath through our lives, as technological advances have made jobs and tasks redundant, and as expectations for performance have increased (in terms of expectations from customers and employers), the phenomena of quiet quitting and the great resignation have gained momentum.  In many ways, however, the challenge of building up, maintaining, and sustaining employee commitment and engagement has been with us since well before 2020.  Individuals like Simon Sinek have made their mark for over 10 years talking about leadership and how to engage followers. The concept of employee engagement is now big business, but it has been so for many years, if not decades.  Companies like Gallup charge big fees for helping organizations evaluate employee engagement.  Ideally, these same companies help translate this data into strategies to change the lived experience of staff.

Why, with all this background, knowledge, and effort, are we still failing so miserably, in not only growing engagement with our people but, in very many circumstances, continuing to lose ground on employee loyalty and commitment?  Why do we continue to see so much movement and searching on the part of employees for something more and better?  What are people looking for?

Let's start by looking at the Gallup 12 questions that form the heart of their engagement assessment.  A variety of other tools and questions could serve just as well as a starting point, but the Gallup questions have some degree of familiarity in the marketplace and are simple to understand and apply:

1. Do you know what is expected of you at work? 
2. Do you have the materials and equipment to do your work right? 
3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? 
4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work? 
5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person? 
6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development? 
7. At work, do your opinions seem to count? 
8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important? 
9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work? 
10. Do you have a best friend at work? 
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress? 
12. In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?

I have purposely highlighted a few of the questions, particularly since they have resonance with my work and how I have been impacted by the power of appreciation.  Most relevant in this case are questions 4, 5 and 7.  Now, certainly the type of work I do - executive coach and management consultant - is very different than working within an intact team or large organization.  Often, by the very nature of the work, I am a team of one acting both as boss and staff.  But in other ways, as I seek to bring value to those I work with, I often develop a level of attachment and commitment to their goals that starts to mimic being a member of a team. 

In the past few weeks, several events had significant - and unexpected - impact on me to the extent that I had strong, and sometimes an uncontrollable, emotional response.  

Situation 1: As I was facilitating a workshop on governance, one of the participants marveled at my "...phenomenal ability to synthesize diverse perspectives and set foundations for teams to deliver maximum impact."  This was from a very accomplished and experienced leader in their own right who I had essentially just met.  They had no reason to artificially inflate my ego.  They had seen good and bad consultants and facilitators throughout their careers.

Situation 2: In this very same session, and out of the blue, one of my consultant colleagues texted me this simple message, "Have a good day.  Thank you for all your support and guidance." This was a message that came early on a Saturday morning, without context and completely unsolicited. 

Situation 3: Over the past number of weeks I have been acting as practicum lead coach to a team of five coaches as they explored the concept of team coaching.  At the end of each learning session, individual team members had a chance to lead a team coaching scenario.  My role was to support them in their learning and give them feedback in the moment and post-session.  At the end of the last session, the team engaged in an appreciation shower (as they called it).  Again, not something I was expecting but what I heard moved me to tears - generous, no-nonsense, highly observant, role model, brought ease to the work, constructive not critical.  There was even reflection back to one individual's experience with me from my leadership career which ended in February 2012!

Why do I highlight these experiences?  Because it had powerful impact.  It highlighted how important non-monetary factors were in encouraging ongoing effort, loyalty and commitment.  Would I come back and work with these people again?  Most assuredly.  

What made these comments so impactful?  What can we glean from my experience that you might copy in your leadership roles?  How could you practice effective appreciation, reward and recognition to promote employee retention?  Here is what I think mattered to me and might matter to others.

Don't script your appreciation.  Don't look to fulfill a quota of thank yous, appreciation or reward, and recognition. Don't make appreciation a check-box exercise.  Without a doubt, the appreciation and validation shown to me from the examples above was made more powerful because it was so unexpected.  

Make it genuine and authentic.  As I alluded to above, all of the comments and praise given to me came across as highly genuine and authentic.  I can't capture the tone of what I heard from people through their verbalization of what it was like to work with me.  All I can say was the appreciation for the work I had done with them oozed throughout the conversation. 

Make it specific.  The comments and feedback given to me were very specific.  There were no generalized thank yous.  There were no clichéd statements you might typically get in other circumstances. The comments received were very specific and directly related to the work I was doing.

Make it timely.  The compliments I received were very immediate.  In my role as coach for several organizations, I may not get feedback on my coaching engagements until months after a coaching engagement has concluded.  In the consulting world, some of the only ways you know you have hit the mark is if a client organization decides to invite you back for a repeat performance - but that may only come several months later. 

Understand your recipient.  This is probably a harder one to capture and translate into other circumstances.  What I can say is the comments from my clients and colleagues left me feeling validated and that my opinions, perspectives and guidance were valued.  What I was trying to do with my clients was actually seen in action by my clients and valued!  They saw me and they appreciated me.

Those are my takeaways for how you might approach employee reward and recognition efforts in your leadership and in your organization.  None of what I note above is about compensation.  In fact, in two of the three examples, there was little to no compensation involved.  The third circumstance was from work with a not-for profit entity (so no private jets, concierge service, or purple M&M's for my turn down service). 

I hope you will find value from these personal insights and reflections and I hope you can tailor your future work with your staff guided by some of these perspectives.  Without a team there is no leadership and part of leadership has to be about genuine appreciation and recognition.

_______________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

3rd Generation Canadian Ukrainian

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.