The 5 Best Ways to Praise Employees

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Think your "Employee of the Month" program is a great way to recognize performance?
Think again. Praising an employee should:

• Boost their confidence and self esteem, and
• Reinforce positive behaviors, and
• Reward their effort and accomplishment, and
• Build their motivation and enthusiasm...

Can a special parking spot, or a photo in the newsletter, or a $20 gift card really accomplish all that? Nope.

Here are five great ways to praise employees:

1. Ask for their help. Asking another person for help is possibly the most sincere way to recognize their abilities and value. Why? Asking makes us vulnerable: We admit weakness or need or a lack of skill. Ask employees for help and not only do you show you respect their skills, you also extend your trust.

The key is to ask for help partly or totally unrelated to their function, and to make the assistance relatively personal to you. I once returned from a corporate meeting where layoffs had been discussed. I proposed alternatives to cutting staffing but was unsuccessful. By the time I got back word had already spread throughout the plant that layoffs were imminent. Just before the plant meeting one of my employees said, "So, layoffs, huh?" I didn't have to confirm it; he knew. I said, "I have no idea what to tell our employees. What would you say?"

He thought and said, "Just tell everyone you tried. Then talk about where we go from here."

Simple? Sure. But powerful. Later he told me how much it meant to him that I had wanted his opinion and took his advice.

2. Ask for their ideas. Again, make it somewhat unrelated to the employee's function. For example, don't go the typical, "Do you have any ideas regarding how you can do your job faster?" route. Instead, build off skills or insights they possess to use them in other ways.

Say an HR employee is incredibly organized. Say, "I'm always impressed by how organized you are; I wish we could clone you." Then ask if she has thoughts about how to streamline warehouse processing, or streamline the paperwork involved in hiring new employees, or how another department could handle data collection more efficiently. Not only will you get great ideas, but you also recognize skill and ability in a more meaningful way than simply saying, "Wow, you're awesome."

3. Create informal leadership roles. Putting an employee in a short-term informal leadership role can make a major impact. Think how you would feel if your boss said, "We're swamped... and now we have this huge customer problem. If we don't take care of it we may lose them. Can you grab a few people and handle it for me?"

Informal leadership roles show you trust an employee's skills and judgment. The more important the task, the higher the implied praise and the greater the boost to their self esteem.

4. Do something together. Since you're the boss, you and your employees are on unequal footing. A great way to recognize an employee's value -- especially their value to you -- is to tackle a task together.

Years ago my boss said, "I'm thinking of joining Toastmasters to improve my presentation skills. Would you be interested in joining with me? Might be good for both of us..." I was flattered he asked, flattered he saw me as someone who would someday need great presentation skills....

What you choose to do together doesn't have to be outside of work, of course. The key is to do something as relative equals, not as boss and employee. Unequal separates; equal elevates.

5. Play Priceline.com. Congratulate an employee for a job well done, then let them name their "price." Say, "You did an outstanding job; what can I do to reward you?"

You might be surprised by how simple the reward they choose will be.

Bottom line: Verbal praise is always great, but implied praise can be even more powerful. Asking for help or ideas, putting an employee in charge, dropping hierarchical roles and working together... each is a powerful way to recognize the true value of your employees.

And to show you trust them -- which is the highest praise of all.

By: Jeff Haden

 

Source: CBS Money Watch

5 Simple Principles for Becoming an Expert

There aren’t shortcuts.
Merely direct paths.
Most people don’t take them, because they frighten us.
Things that look like shortcuts are usually detours disguised as less work.
-Seth Godin

For the past month, I’ve been studying people who have become skilled and knowledgeable enough to be called “experts” in preparation for the launch of a new blog.
I’ve interviewed experts, spent time with them and have asked them whether shortcuts exist to becoming an expert (and received some incredible responses like the one from Seth Godin above). I’ve even read books by people who study success and expertise (expertologists?).

Part of me expected to find some secret shortcuts to becoming an expert, and part of me knew better. I’m most interested in how people gain expert-level skills and knowledge on multiple subjects quickly. Being a renaissance man has always appealed to me, as has getting very good at just a couple of things. Both types of expertise are as fascinating as they are useful.

Despite wanting to believe secrets and shortcuts to expertise exist, deep down I think I’ve always known what you probably know too: becoming an expert takes hard work, focus and dedication.
There are certainly ways to become an expert faster than traditional teaching might dictate, but there’s no getting around putting your time in.

The good news is, becoming an expert is much like changing a habit. The fact that secrets don’t exist is a good thing in my book, because we can stop wasting time searching for secrets and start making direct progress towards our goals.

Instead of looking for secrets, rely simply on these best practices for becoming an expert:

1. Realize expert is a relative term.
I’m a big believer in relative expertise. For most purposes, you don’t need to be the world’s foremost expert on something to benefit from what you know. Being expert enough means knowing enough or being good enough to accomplish your goals, however modest or grand they may be.
Someone once told me to think about expertise as a scale from one to ten, not as an absolute. If you’re a two or three on the scale, you’re expert enough to help people who are ones and twos. In fact, you might be better suited to helping beginners than a ten on the expert scale, because you’re closer to their level and better understand where they’re coming from.

2. Learn from books and experience.
There’s a time for learning and a time for practicing. A true expert needs to have both expertise (book learning) and experience (real-world practice).
For example, if you want to become a bodybuilder, all the reading you can possibly do won’t help you actually build muscle (unless they’re really heavy books). On the other hand, would-be bodybuilders who just jump into lifting weights without learning about best practices won’t know time-saving techniques and principles for optimum rep counts, resting time between sets, nutrition, supplements and more.

There’s a balance between learning and doing. Most people spend far too much time doing one or the other. If you’ve been mostly learning, it’s probably time to start doing. If you’ve long been practicing without the results you’re looking for, it’s time to learn more and time to focus, which brings us to point #3.

3. Focus.
Just as Leo advocates for changing habits, focus is a powerful ally for gaining expertise (especially in the beginning).

When you start learning something new, it’s easy to become daunted by everything you have to master to reach your final goal. Instead of just focusing on the very next step you need to take, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the bigger picture.

Focus is critical for two reasons. First, it helps you pay attention to the task at hand so you don’t become paralyzed by the thought of everything to follow. Second, you have to focus so you can ignore all the possible distractions that are always waiting to pull you off your path.
You can follow Leo’s four steps for changing habits to focus on what you need to become an expert:

1. Start very small.
2. Do only one change at a time.
3. Be present and enjoy the activity (don’t focus on results).
4. Be grateful for every step you take.

4. Get outside help.
When I asked productivity coach Charlie Gilkey about whether shortcuts exist to becoming an expert, he pointed out another critical aspect of gaining expertise:

When you look at peak-performing experts, you’ll often see that they have either coaches, involved mentors, or a pack of growth-oriented friends that help them excel. You simply can’t gauge your performance as well as someone external can, and, past the “competent” stage of skill acquisition, it gets increasingly harder to both observe what you’re doing and find quick and easy answers as to how to improve.

At some point, learning and practicing will only get you so far. You need feedback from outsiders to uncover more opportunities for improvement.

5. Make mistakes.
Fear of failure might be the biggest opponent you’ll face on your road to learning new things.
Take something as simple as learning a language. As language hacking expert Benny Lewis explains, people who speak a language learn it. People who don’t speak a language don’t learn it. It’s simple: you need to learn and practice. What keeps many people from practicing a language is the fear of making mistakes and embarrassing themselves.

You have to be willing to make mistakes in order to learn and grow. That’s what practice is. The sooner you get comfortable with making mistakes, the quicker you’ll learn your new skill.

What’s on your wish list to learn and do?
Maybe there’s a skill you’re actively trying to get better at, or maybe you’ve been afraid to get started. In either case, try these five simple principles and see if you can make a breakthrough.
Try becoming a (relative) expert in something you’ve always wanted to learn or do. There are few things as rewarding and fun as acquiring new skills and knowledge that enrich your life.

By: Corbett Barr
Source: Zen Habits

Three Things You Need to Know About Recognition

I can live for two months on a good compliment – Mark Twain

A story is told how one day the great Italian artist Michelangelo happened to overhear a group of people admiring his Pieta, a statue of Christ on His mother’s kneeafter His death on the cross. One man attributed the work to another sculptor, much to the chagrin of Michelangelo, who took particular pride in the Pieta. Returning to the sculpture after dark that evening, Michelangelo carved his name on it so that no similar mistake would occur in the future.

In your workplace, does recognition matter? Is it a motivator? John Baldoni, author of the book, Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders, says it does. “It matters a great deal. As mentioned earlier, employees have a strong desire for recognition.” Baldoni summarizes the findings of Catherine Meeks, president of Meek Associates who has conducted thousands of employee interviews. Meeks states, “If I had to pick one thing that comes through to me loud and clear it’s that organizations do a lousy job of recognizing people’s contributions.”

One pitfall leaders face is in giving proper recognition where deserved and having to cater to employees who require a lot of strokes. Dave Ramsey, in his highly acclaimed new book, EntreLeadership, says, “Too many people in business have become so shallow that they are merely transactional, not relational. The people on your payroll are not units of production, they are people.” That is practical advice worth remembering. Understanding the practice recognition and how it impacts your business is important. Consider these three benefits and the difference it can make.

Recognition builds morale. The hard work and efforts of your team are worth praising and recognition is always an investment in your people. Highly motivated people do not necessarily need the recognition, but it does signify that you are mindful of their hard work and that it is appreciated. For others who require more strokes it can be the spark they need to go to a new level.
Dale Carnegie says, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” Do you want to build morale in your organization? Would you like to see an uptick in productivity? When you recognize team members it builds morale and the environment you create will give wind to your sails.

Recognition breeds loyalty. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your employee- to- employer loyalty quotient? Rensis Likert said, “The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.” Recognition and loyalty go hand-in-hand. If you want to build a culture of loyalty first begin with recognition.

From her employee interviews, Catherine Meeks quotes them as saying, “If my boss would just say thank you, if he would just acknowledge that I exist. The only time I hear anything is when I screw up. I never hear when I do a good job.” That type of attitude will do more to breed contempt than it will ever do to build loyalty. Loyalty is reciprocal and when it is not given it should not be expected. In short, loyalty is a two-way street.

Recognition builds bridges. When you build morale and loyalty within your organization, you are building up the greatest resource you have — your people. What is your R+V=P score? The formula is: Recognition +Value = Performance. In short, a team that is recognized and valued will perform with greater purpose and performance.

Do you need to build bridges to greater productivity, or new clientele? How about building bridges to better relationships in your office? When morale is strong then loyalty will not be far behind. Couple strong morale and loyalty and you now have the winning ingredients to create a climate of excellence.

Who have you recognized today?

By: Doug Dickerson
Source: Leaders Beacon

The Surfer's Guide to Personal Development

A few years ago I wrote an article here about navigating the waters of life.

Surfers have a different relationship with the ocean than most people do. Rather than admire its beauty from the sidelines, we feed off its energy because for most of us it’s a second home. We’re more comfortable in water than on land. It’s much more than a sport, but our calling in life. Every session leaves us with powerful life lessons and today I just wanted to share a few of my most important ones with you.

Live in the moment, but keep your eyes on the horizon

If there’s anything that surfing really teaches you it’s how to be present. When you’re on a wave you really can’t think bout another thing and if you do you will find yourself submerged rather quickly. But, the interesting thing is that you have to keep your eyes on the horizon and anticipate when the next wave will arrive. Life is kind of the same way. We need to live in the moment, while being mindful of our future goals and plans. However if live too far in the future our performance in the presence suffers.

Embrace the Unknown
Every single time you paddle for a wave you’re taking a risk because there’s no telling how it’s going to turn out. You’re either going to take a hard fall or experience the ride of your life. When you do catch that ride every sense of fear, doubt, and uncertainty disappears and you’re overcome by a sense of pure bliss that words can hardly describe. In life when when we’re willing take risks, and step into the unknown we dramatically raise our potential for the possibility of an extraordinary life. Everything you know and are confident in today was once an unknown that required a leap of faith. So embrace the unknown.

Learn to Shake The Wipeouts
If you want to ride waves you have to be ok with the occasional wipeout. In his recent graduation speech at U-Penn, Denzel Washington eloquently said “you will suck a something and you will fail.” That’s just a part of life and once you learn to realize that your failures don’t define you, but build character you can learn to shake the wipeouts.

All It Takes is One Good Wave
Talk to anybody who surfs and they’ll tell you their addiction started with that very first wave. Standing up for the first time is the hardest part of learning how to surf. But once you do, you can never get enough of that rush. Accomplishing anything in life is kind of the same. It might take a while for you to hit your stride, but once you do it will have been totally worth it and all it takes is one major milestone to establish your confidence and keep you pushing yourself to the next level.

There’s Always Another Wave Coming
The ocean teaches you abundance because there is always another wave coming. But if you’re too caught up in the one you missed or didn’t’ catch you won’t be there to catch your wave when it arrives. People talk quite a bit about missed opportunities. When you dwell on the past and the opportunities you missed, you’ll be looking back instead of seeing the opportunity that might be right there in front of you. So don’t sweat it when you miss your chance and believe at your core that there is always another wave coming.

Nature Rewards Patience
When you’re in the ocean you’re on mother nature’s schedule rather than your own. You learn to be extremely patient. In life we have a tendency to want to force the order in which things happen and we end up creating the very resistance that kills our flow. When we become patient and let nature take its course we’re able to navigate the waters of life with far more ease.

The ocean is an incredible teacher. There won’t be a single day that it doesn’t leave you humbled, grateful and slightly wiser.

 

By: Srinivas Rao

Source: Dumb Little Man

A Killer of Success

If you were to start a business today from scratch, how long would you work to see a profit until you would decide to just quit? Of course the time line would depend on the business, but I would imagine your answer to be something that was at least a year. The reality is however, many people would quit well before the year is up. So what is one of the main causes and killers of success? The answer is impatience.

With all the hype and advertisements enticing us to give into our instant gratification urges, it seems that more and more people are getting a bit impatient when it comes to producing results. Think about people who go on a weight loss program and quit after a few months. The only reason they quit was because they weren't seeing the results they wanted quick enough.

Have you ever done this? Have you ever set a goal and only after a few weeks or even months of working on it, you decided to quit? I realize that sometimes people are just doing the wrong things, but many times, they were just expecting too much too soon. If you want to be able to stick with your goal until you achieve it, then you must be patient. Anything worth obtaining will take time.

So how do you deal with impatient feelings? You get knowledgeable and plan it out. You must do a bit of research to find out about how long it would take to accomplish your chosen goal, then plan out your actions and expectations accordingly. Too often people will throw themselves onto the path of achieving a goal without know how long it will actually take.

If you wanted to lose 50 pounds, for example, you must find out how many pounds a month you should expect to lose. That way, when your first 30 days is up, and you step on the scale and see that you have lost 8 pounds, you will be motivated to keep on going. Suppose you didn't know this piece of information and expected to lose all 50 pounds the first month. If you see that you've only lost 8 pounds, you will most likely get discouraged and quit.

Being patient just comes down to knowing what to expect. If you expect to be in your car for an hour in traffic while driving home from work, you'll be more patience with the slow moving traffic compared to the guy who thought the drive would only be 20 minutes. So the next time you set a goal, take the time to find out how long you should expect it to take to obtain that goal. This will help increase your chances of not quitting too soon. Just be careful not to buy into promises from people who are trying to sell you something since many tend to exaggerate.
By: Kevin Ngo
Source: Motivational Well Being

Motivation Refueled: 12 Ways to Find It if You Lose it Along the Way

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
Zig Ziglar

“I was thinking one day and I realized that if I just had somebody behind me all the way to motivate me I could make a big difference. Nobody came along like that so I just became that person for myself.”
Unknown

Staying motivated until you reach your goals and dreams isn’t always easy. There are often roadblocks, plateaus and valleys along the way where you can get into a slump. Or a rut. And feel like your motivation has flown away.

So today I would like to share 12 ways that I have used to find that motivation again. I hope you’ll find something helpful here.

1. Refocus on doing what YOU really, really like to do. When you really like doing something then the motivation to do it comes automatically (most of the time). And when you really want something then it simply becomes easier to push through any inner resistance you feel. So if you lose your motivation, ask yourself: Am I doing what I really want to do? If not and if possible, refocus and start working on that very important thing instead.
2. Make a list of upsides. Write down all the benefits you will get from achieving something, like for example getting into better shape or making more money. Save it and then pull that list out of the drawer whenever your motivation is lacking again and review it. Or put it somewhere where you will see it every day until you reach your dream. This is a powerful way to reconnect with your motivation and reasons for taking action.
3. Make a list of downsides. You can combine this with the list of upsides to give yourself even more motivation to start moving and get things done. Ask yourself: how will my life look in 5 years if I continue to stay on the same path as now? How will life likely become worse for me and maybe even for the people around me? Try to see the negative consequences as vividly as you can in your mind to kickstart your motivation to start going for that positive change again.
4. Spend 3 minutes with remembering your successes. If you lose your motivation then it is easy to get stuck in looking at your failures and so you get stuck in that slump. So instead, sit down for three minutes and just remember your successes. Let them wash over you and refuel your inspiration and motivation.
5. Go for a bigger goal. Set a big goal that inspires you even if it may seem a tad unrealistic at the moment. If you have too easily achievable goals then you may find that they don’t give you that motivational spark and drive. When you start to think a bit bigger then you get motivated and your mind starts looking for the solutions that will help you achieve that goal. Thinking too small can leave you with a “meh…” feeling or make you feel like you can do it later.
6. Remember how far you have come and compare yourself with yourself. Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation. There are always people ahead of you. So focus on you. On your results. And how you can and have improved your results. This is important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come. Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review.
7. Reconnect with optimism. How you perceive what you are doing or are about to do makes a huge difference. The positive and constructive way of looking at things energizes and inspires you. It makes it easier to keep going even when you hit roadblocks. So ask yourself questions like: What is awesome about this situation? What can I learn from this and what is the opportunity in this situation? How can I or we solve this and what is the next small step that I or we can take to do so?
8. Work out. I like this one because even if you feel too frustrated and down to do ask yourself the right questions you can still drag yourself to the gym or wherever you go to exercise. And if you just do your pretty mindless repetitions then your body will do the rest. Endorphins, testosterone and other chemicals will be released. Inner tensions will loosen up and leave your body. Your negative emotional pattern will be broken. And new energy will be added to your body.
9. Talk about it. Sometimes you just need to let it out and talk to someone about your motivational low point. Letting it all out can release a lot of pent up emotion and let you get a new, more positive and healthy perspective on things. Often we build our own small or medium-sized problems into big scary monsters in our minds. Letting the monsters out into the light and letting others see them can make us realize that we were making a too big of a deal of it all. It allows us to lighten up a bit, to not take things too seriously and to start moving out of the self-created slump. So talk to a friend or family member. Or try an anonymous internet forum with likeminded people.
10. Remember to have fun. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the seriousness of a task and the stress and tension of completing it. So remember that you are allowed to have fun when you are working on it. There is no rule that says you have to be all serious about it all the time. When you can, create fun in a task. Compete with yourself to finish it even faster than you did the last time, whistle a nice tune while working or have fun and joke around with your co-workers and class mates.
11. Start moving and let the motivation catch up with you. Many times I have found it better to just do it and start working instead of trying to motivate myself to get going. At first what you do may suck quite a bit and it’s hard going. But after a while inspiration and motivation seems to catch up with you. Things start to flow easier and your work is of a higher quality.
12. Take a break. Yeah, sometimes you just need to take a break. Perhaps your time-plan for your goal or new habit is just too optimistic? Maybe you have worked harder than you can manage right now. Then take a break. A few hours or days of rest and recuperation can change how you feel in a remarkable way and recharge your batteries.

By: Henrik Edberg
Source: Positivity Blog