Thank someone each day

Recognition for what we do each day comes rarely. Many of us were brought up in homes that neither gave recognition nor modeled receiving recognition well. Recognition improves job satisfaction, encourages open communication, and reinforces good behavior.

I remember hearing a wonderful story on NPR a number of years ago about an author who had suffered from mental illness and was institutionalized in her youth. Now, many years later, she recalled an anecdote that epitomizes this topic. She had been in a communal area and heard one of the doctors calling on the phone to the maintenance department and asking "Who cleaned my office today?" She had assumed she was about to hear this doctor chide someone for inferior work. Instead, when the doctor had gotten his answer, he went on to say "Well he cleaned my office better than it has ever been cleaned, please thank him for me." The author was blown away.

You too can blow away an employee by taking the time to recognize them. It does not have to be a big public thing.

Here are some basics:

• Learn the facts (correctly pronounced named, the details of what they did)
• Go to them and do not make them come to you to thank them
• Do not mix the message with something they need to improve on (you can send that message another time)
• Find someone to thank each day
• Be sincere

Often, without recognition, employees will not feel valued or just equate good work with compensation. Neither of these outcomes are desirable. Create a culture of gratitude and it will be easier for your employees to go the extra mile for you and your company.

In this spirit, I would like to thank a number of people who have helped over time with this blog:

• LeeAundra Temescue who created my website and the accompanying look and feel for the blog (http://www.thecontrarypublicspeaker.com/).
• Bill Grosso (http://www.wgrosso.com/), Joe Strazzere (http://www.sqablogs.com/jstrazzere/), and Paul Brown (http://mult.ifario.us/) for their kind words about the blog and the book.
• My mom, Sandra Himelstein, who periodically gets on here and attempts to correct my spelling and grammar.

Be thankful and lead a better life and a better company.

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How can you build camaraderie in your company?

We all want to work together well, right? While a good technical or business debate is essential in any endeavor, I believe companies accomplish more when employees work together well.

Here are some basics:

• Be clear about company and group direction
• Foster open dialog
• Respect
• Create shared experiences

It is hard to work together if you cannot agree on company direction or there are misunderstandings about company direction. Everyone in the company should be able to articulate the direction of the company -- maybe even make it a game at a company/group meeting taking turns saying the company direction and voting for the person(s) who does the best job at saying it. Clearly any divisiveness within your ranks will undermine camaraderie. Allow time for people to provide input, make timely decisions and get everyone to commit (even if they disagree). You should manage people who cannot commit appropriately.

You need to make sure people feel like they are part of the team. If employees have issues, good ideas or just information, they need ways to make them known. They need to feel that information will not be punished. You need to promote people sharing information and not keeping it close to the vest. Treat your employees like adults. Entrust them and charge them with keeping that trust. Encourage them to trust their fellow employees. Problems should be just things you solve together. Do not wait for your employees to come to you, you must engage them.

You must respect your team and you and your team must respect the rest of the company. Cynicism and sarcasm should be replaced by encouragement and suggestions and real problem solving. Set expectations with your team on respect and hold them accountable. Without respect, there is no camaraderie.

Finally, you must create shared experiences. These range from brainstorming some challenge, to working late together, to sharing meals. Shared experiences and shared challenges and ultimately shared accomplishments really make a team into a team. Acknowledge these events. Try and engage people who hang at the edges of these kind of groups (e.g. asking everyone's opinion in a room about some topic or decision).

Shared experiences are best when shared broadly. If one part of team has to work late to complete a project, it can help to have everyone work late including marketing and customer support. Clearly you have to balance this with people's schedules, when other employees had to last put in extra time, etc. The point is that it is good to find first-hand ways to understand what others are doing and to support them in any way possible including mere presence.

Set your intentions in this area and you can make a huge difference.

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What are the key factors in good morale?

In my job as a management consultant, I get asked to lead teams that have been through some amount of trauma including management changes, layoffs, missed schedules, etc. I am always asked about their morale and what we can do to improve it. The following is a list of basics:

• Improved sales
• Having a job
• Interesting work
• Communication
• Accomplishable tasks

There is nothing that helps morale more than a company that is doing well. Everyone wants to be on a winning team! If employees can see path to continued employment, R&D expansion and increased remuneration (stock and/or salary) then that is a great incentive. Note that success can be a two way street because there is a natural ebb and flow of employee movement. If a company is doing real well it is unlikely that movement will occur and it will take closer management of your employees to make sure people are not just hanging on.

Following 9/11, many developers were laid-off one or more times. Developers took lower salaries just to have a job. For many engineers this was the first time in their careers that they were out of work for any substantial amount of time. Stability rose as a priority in job seekers. While the environment has gotten brighter recently, the memory has not been forgotten.

Engineers may go to a company or stay at a company for the quality of work. The art and science inspire and compel many high-skilled developers to join or stay with employers. If all you have is maintenance work for your employees, do not assume they will stay even if you incent them. Incentives (bonuses, increased salaries) work for a while but not in the long run.

Employees can put up with a lot of hardship and change if they feel they are part of a team. The first way to make them feel like they are part of a team is to let them know what and why things are happening in a company. Communicate often and make it two-way communication. Solicit employee ideas. Explain rationale. The more you can share the better. Make sure you have a plan or a plan for a plan when you talk to employees -- ambiguity does not inspire confidence.

Finally, the item that is the lynch pin in morale, success, and satisfaction: accomplishment. If employees have impossible goals and they can never make those goals, they will always feel like failures. All good things in a company stem from accomplishment. If engineers can accomplish their tasks, sales has a chance to sell product, the company has a chance to make profit, employees get to make some money and do new exciting work. It ties it all together and it just feels good to accomplish something!

Go out and accomplish something with your team!

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