How do you create meaning?
- You say what matters.
- You show what matters.
- You share what matters.
Accomplishments in isolation are threads left on the floor. Who knows of their colors or textures? Sharing them is like weaving them to into a brilliant tapestry. In business it’s called ‘culture.’
The all-nighter by the IT department to save the servers and purge them of a virus, a worm, or the diligence in building a secure series of protocols goes unrecognized.
The creativity, persistence and diligence by the customer service department to save that valuable customer who then turns into a loyal and volunteer sales person for the company goes unrecognized.
The savings found by the eagle-eyed accountant or CFO that serves to fund an innovative project that then adds another 5-10% of revenues goes unappreciated and future innovations remain unfunded.
Explain why the servers always serving, never crashing, allows the creativity and diligence of customer service reps to be delivered in a timely manner which in turn saved that customer whose resulting word-of-mouth testimonials generated more referrals for sales who saw a rising conversion rate, higher commissions from higher sales generating higher revenues for the company.
Sharing them weaves them into a beautiful fabric, for everyone to enjoy, and see how they compliment, enhance the value of other threads, accomplishments, of those around them. Sharing these accomplishments empowers them to create their own understanding of their culture, independent of website and annual report platitudes. That’s engagement.
If you explain why their accomplishments matter...for everyone...then you create meaning for their work, recognition for their contributions, a fine fabric of conversations and relationships that...matter.
And their conversation threads can continue, revealing the meaningful web of tasks, relationships,projects and meetings, processes and innovations that result in a culture of achievements. Those conversations are your culture of recognition, up and running independently.
Explain how the savings found by the eagle-eye of the accountant or CFO funded the innovation that resulted in a new product/service/business model that generated x percent revenue growth and more cash-flows which allowed the company to invest in more dependable, faster, bigger servers that meant more customers could be made happy to generate happier prospects that closed faster, converted in shorter times, that further inspired the sales staff, that made the customer service people happier, that generated prompter payments that made the CFO have the time to look closer at finding more internal sources of revenues to innovate newer solutions to sustain the growth of the company.
Explain their accomplishments and why they matter. Because they do. Because too often they labor in isolation but their accomplishments ripple through the company. Explain how you recognize what they do matters and matters to everyone. So everyone can recognize it, so everyone can recognize it each, so you create a culture of recognition. That leads to engagement.
Belatedly, I took this step as CEO of a small company when I saw that even with our small group, everyone remained focused exclusively on their work, their goals, their accomplishments. I was asking, we needed, everyone to do more - to learn more, to change more. They responded well. But, the stress of change increased the need for recognizing not only that day’s accomplishment but the tertiary accomplishments happening in the background that enabled the achievement we celebrated. At every such victory dance, I reminded everyone that Sales was able to do x because IT did Y and Customer Service did Z and Finance did A. As time went on everyone moved to the front of that sentence. It was good. It’s one way we were able to maintain revenue growth and positive cash-flows while retail prices for our industry dropped by over 70%, for new and existing customers.
WARNING: Self-Promotion.
If you want to know more ways to engage with your employees, my book RECOGNIZE THEM: 52 Ways to Recognize Your Employees in Ways They Value offers 52 ways to recognize your employees, easy exercises to reinforce those habits and skills and inspirational quotes to keep you going.
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