Why do we recognize people for their work performance? I can think of three reasons, or at least three reasons why we should recognize people for their work performance.
The first is to communicate the values or goals of the organization. People do what they are rewarded to do. If an organization gives an award or positively recognizes a person for a particular behavior, it is rewarding that behavior, and it is encouraging others to behave the same way. Monetary bonuses fall into this category – the organization is using recognition to try to inspire employees’ goals to match the organization’s goals.
The second purpose of recognition may be unique to the military: to build esprit de corps. In the Coast Guard, the stated purpose of recognizing individual performance is to build esprit de corps. The military has a centuries-long tradition of awarding medals and ribbons. These awards can be presented for individual or group achievements. The awards are always presented in front of a group so everyone can hear a summary of the performance being recognized. But no matter the story, certain sentences in the citation are scripted, the same for every award. This draws a link between the award presented and every previous award in its history. The award is for the recipient but also about maintaining the traditions and spirit of military service. In keeping with that spirit, we wear our awards on our uniforms, each one in its prescribed place and order based on the rigid hierarchy of award significance. When a servicemember retires, they are presented with a “shadow box” containing every award they received during their career, so the awards can remain a part of their lives even after they leave active service. This very formalized system of recognition does achieve its goal of building esprit de corps.
The third purpose of recognition is one that I think is too often forgotten. By giving someone an award, we should be trying to make them feel good! There is nothing we can give another human being more valuable than feelings of happiness, joy, or self-value. Those feelings are far more meaningful than a physical medal or ribbon. If you’re trying to provide really great leadership, work recognition can’t just be about communicating the organization’s goals or highlighting one person’s performance to build esprit de corps. Really great recognition has to be about engaging someone in the core of their being, reaching them at a deeply personal level, and doing or saying something that makes them feel good.
No formalized system of recognition can do that. Great recognition must be so individually focused that no organization-wide standard can deliver.
The shortcomings of formal recognition
Formal awards can’t be great recognition because they try to match an individual’s performance to a limited set of well-defined awards the organization has created. The process of giving formal recognition is not focused on the individual or what would be meaningful to them, but instead on fitting their performance to the right award. An exercise of matching words describing their performance to the words describing the award criteria. If an organization has three formal awards, named A, B, and C, formal recognition boils down to one unspoken message sent to the recipient and heard by the rest of the organization: of the various formal awards we have, we’ve determined you fit award (A, B, or C). You get to check the box for (A, B, or C) in your performance record and wear the ribbon for box (A, B, or C) on your uniform from now on.
The formalized, stratified nature of this system may help build esprit de corps by upholding a centuries-old tradition, but it may do little to make someone feel good, and it might even be counter-productive. A formal system’s published criteria for recognition, and its long history of giving the same award to many people, create a potentially poisonous stream running through the organization: expectations.
Every member of the organization knows the criteria and knows what other people have done to earn award A, B, or C in the past. Everyone has a belief about how their own individual performance stacks up against everyone else who received A, B, or C before them. So the unfortunate truth of every formal award ceremony is that everyone there, including the recipient, arrives with an expectation about the award about to presented. The moment of truth arrives when the presenter announces the award – either A, B, or C. If the award matches expectations, the recipient and observers’ moods will likely be lukewarm positivity. If the award is higher than what the recipient expected, they’ll probably feel good, but if its higher than what everyone else expected, they’ll probably feel angry that this person received award C when other people they know that did pretty much the same thing only got award B. If the award is lower than expected, its awkward for everyone – and the recipient may walk away angry. That is the opposite of what we want to happen. The hazards of a formalized award system, with its specific criteria, limited options for recognition, and pervasive expectations, mean leaders cannot rely on formal awards alone if they want to give people truly meaningful recognition.
Creating meaningful recognition
The first mental step to give meaningful recognition is to start with a clean slate. Meaningful recognition can be anything, not just award A, B, or C. The range of possibilities is infinite. Obviously, this creates a leadership challenge a bit tougher than picking the right formal award. But the limitless possibilities mean there is limitless potential for how good the recipient will feel after receiving the recognition. The limitless possibilities also mean that a leader had better have a good idea of what would be meaningful to the person they want to recognize.
Good recognition is therefore dependent on a strong leadership relationship in the first place. You can’t have a distant relationship and expect to swoop in at the last minute to deliver recognition that goes straight to the heart. Every day spent with someone is a chance to note an event, interest, trait or shared experience that can become the basis of something special to recognize them with later. Something that draws a line between the recognition and all the time the recipient spent earning it. Informal, personalized recognition should make the recipient feel good on the day they receive it, but it should also make them feel good about all the work they did to earn the recognition.
A leader needs to take advantage of the possibilities and the relationship they have with the recipient to come up with something they’ve never done for anyone else before. The only way to dodge the danger of expectations is to do something completely unexpected. It can’t be the same as something the recipient has seen you do for anyone else. Allow the goal of finding something new, something you’ve never given anyone before or ever will again, to guide you towards something unique and personal. The best recognition for one person would probably be meaningless to another person. So if you have an idea that could be used to recognize people other than your intended recipient, you need to dig deeper. Other people will recognize that you made it personal for the recipient, and that’ll make them feel good too.
I don’t think I can go into any greater detail about what meaningful recognition should be without giving away an answer – that wouldn’t be the right answer for anyone anyway. As a leader, you must figure out the rest for yourself and the person you want to recognize. All I can offer are two more places to seek inspiration.
The first is the book The Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. Specifically, the fifth of the leadership practices they write about, what they call encourage the heart. Read that chapter. Perhaps take their 360°assessment called the Leadership Practices Inventory, to learn more about how others perceive your heart encouragement to date. That could be a bolt of lightning experience for you as it was for me.
The second source of inspiration is an idea I took away from a retiring senior officer. There’s a story to go with it, a story for another article, but I’ll give away his key message: make it special. Figure out what would be special for your people and you won’t go wrong.