How important is it to praise the performance of your team members? If you want to turn a mediocre team into a magnificent one, it is essential!
Everyone wants recognition for their hard work. From the moment we are born we are striving for recognition from our parents, a friend, a teacher, and eventually our employer and colleagues. To receive recognition means we have value as a person, and this makes us feel good about ourselves, which re-enforces our continued efforts of achievement.
The web is full of “I hate my boss” web sites, where frustrated employees spend countless hours complaining about their bosses, and offering suggestions about how they would handle issues. Interestingly, most people are looking for appreciation of their work, recognition of a job well done, followed closely by communication, and job security in third place, while money or compensation is relatively low on the list.
The interesting part is that all three of the top issues that employees want are intricately related. Public recognition in its self communicates to the individual was well as the whole team that they have value, and you appreciate them. This in tern gives the person being recognized as well as the whole team, the feeling that their job is secure.
Even the most troublesome team member will respond well to public praise, and in many cases can cause the team member to continue to improve, becoming a valuable team member.
Using a term barrowed from marketing called perception-preceding-reality, I have seen team members that otherwise would have been terminated, make a complete behavioral turn around. While the roots of this concept are primarily from marketing, it is an excellent term to describe a method for altering a team member’s behavior who is not always a team player.
By taking the time to seek out actions and behaviors of border line team members, that you can praise publicly you will effectively re-enforce positive behavior in that employee. This re-enforcement will play to the employees self esteem, and with time positive behavior will dominate his actions.
The idea is that the positive feedback will re-enforce positive behavior, as well as the team member’s transition to being a team player, which will ultimately catch up with the perception.
Mary Kay ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics once said, “There are two things people want more than sex and money, and they are recognition and praise.”
Before you run out and start praising your team for every little thing they do, take care in what you praise and how often. Praise works best in moderation, so use it sparingly. If you start praising every little thing, eventually your praise becomes nothing more than an annoyance, as your team will quickly see that the praise is not sincere.
Employees need praise, like plants need sunlight. Just like a tree spreads its branches to absorb more sunlight, without praise, your employees will leave in search of praise.
