Recognize employees for a job well done.

When employees do a good job and receive acknowledgement both from their managers and sometimes from senior leaders, it shows them that leadership is paying attention, that what they do from day-to-day is important and contributes to the company’s success. Acknowledgement from managers also shows employees they matter, no matter the size of their pay cheque.

Recognition does not have to be awards, cash prizes or trips; although any of these items will always be welcome. Employees want to feel special and leaders can achieve this outcome in so many small ways. Synonyms for the word ‘recognition’ are ‘notice’ and ‘acceptance,’ according to dictionary.com.

Think of the many ways a leader can notice an employee or show them how they have been accepted into a company. Sometimes a handshake or a shared warm conversation can have more impact than an email sent to all employees sharing achievements.

Comments

Dear Executive: Say What You Mean

If you read Clare Lynch's article called: " 10 Ways to Protect Your Copy from A Verbose Exec ", you'll see the following sentence: "There's nothing worse than some verbose exec "improving" your finely crafted copy by inserting references to "delivering key learnings," "driving employee integration strategies," and "interfacing holistically with clients." If you're anything like me, you actually want to tackle rewriting those mucky terms she's highlighted. Let's start with the first one: delivering key learnings. The word 'learning' is a noun; that's not the problem. When you put an 's' on it, you are attempting to count an abstract concept like learning, and that causes confusion. Allow me to give you an example: Merriam-Wester defines learning as: "knowledge or skill acquired by instruction or study." You do not typically count the number of knowledges you've acq...

If You Clarify, There's No Need to Explain

Clarifying is not the same as explaining. Let me explain. No, wait: let me clarify that...which is it? When I hear the word 'explain', I envision multiple paragraphs of additional text that may not be necessary. Whereas the word 'clarify' evokes a beautiful landscape of writing where every word means something and no word can be left out. In the meantime, yes, 'clarify' and 'explain' are synonyms, which means they are similar, not exactly alike. In the context of writing well and writing to engage, I recommend clarity over too much explanation; perhaps that's a better way to put it. If anyone needs me to clarify that, let me know.

What did I say yesterday?

Look at what messages have gone out before communicating new ones. A huge mistake managers often make is to communicate new messages without reviewing what they've already said on the subject in the past, hoping no one will notice. Imagine how far a politician would get using that approach. Unfortunately, we can imagine it all too well. The mistake is not in forgetting what you've said before; with all the messages coming from the CEO, the website, from various marketing and customer service campaigns, it's no wonder we cannot remember what we said yesterday. However, it is our job to either know or find out exactly how we characterize our messages and what we share, even long after we've shared it. For example, if you tell your team to focus on continuous improvement and then a week later, in a weak moment, yell at someone for taking too much time to reevaluate a process, you'll lose trust and credibility--probably two of the most important badges...

iClarify | Simplify | Engage

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