Dr. Ali Qassem's English Articles
International Motivational Speaker & an HRD Consultant and Trainer
Dr. Ali has his weekly English article every Wednesday, and his weekly Malay article every Saturday in
New Sabah Times
Sabah's First Established Newspaper.
New Sabah Times
Sabah's First Established Newspaper.
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Managing People Part 4
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Many organizations spend a lot of money to provide their employees with good pay, healthy and comfortable working environment, medical care and treatment, annual celebrations, flexible working hours, and training. They do so in order to increase their employees’ productivity, morale, job satisfaction, level of motivation, and to reduce the organization’s turnover. However, if the management - beside these - cannot provide the greatest motivator and the most important reward; recognition, their effort will fail.
People, in general, need to feel significant and important, to have a personal touch, and to be respected. The deepest and joyful feeling of human nature is the feeling of being appreciated. The American novelist, Edgar Watson Howe said, “The greatest humiliation in life is to work hard on something from which you expect great appreciation, and then fail to get it”.
Human resources employees’ satisfaction studies conclude that we will never find an organization with low employees’ recognition that scores high in employees’ satisfaction. Every employee contributes to the organization’s success; therefore, every employee deserves recognition for both individual accomplishments and team effort.
There are many managers who enjoy looking for their employees mistakes as if there are rewards for them, but we hardly meet a manger who is looking for the good in his people. Andrew Carnegie said, “When you work with people it is a lot like mining for gold. When you mine for gold, you must literally move tons of dirt to find one single ounce of gold. However, you don’t look for the dirt, you look for the gold”.
Do you remember, as a manager, when was the last time you dug deeply trying to find the good in one of your employees, found it and then reward him/her?
Do you remember, as a manager, when was the last time you made a list of the people who work for you and spoke to each of them personally of how much he or she has contributed to the success of the organization and how much you appreciate his/her effort? Do you remember, as a manager, when was the last time you wrote a note and personally placed it in one of your employees’ table thanking him or her for the task accomplished?
If you say that you do not have the time for that, or that doing so is not important, I would suggest that you think again.
Tom Peters, the great economist, and the father of performance excellence, put forward remarkable questions for any given manager.
He asked,
“Have you, as a manger, thanked an employee for a small act of helpfulness in the last three days?
Have you, as a manger, thanked an employee for a small act of helpfulness in the last three hours?
Have you, as a manger, thanked a frontline employee for carrying around a great attitude today?
Have you in the last week recognized-publicly-one of your employees for a small act of cross-functional co-operation?
Have you personally in the last week/month called/visited an internal customer to sort out, inquire, or apologize for some little or big thing that went awry?
(No reason for doing so? If true-in your mind-then you’re more out of touch than I dared imagine.) “.
We hear managers and companies’ owners sometimes saying, “Why should we do so? They are getting their pay”. I would remind those of what Burrhus Fredrick Skinner, the greatest psychologist in Harvard’s history said. He said, “The paycheck is not a reward, people do not go to work to get paid, they go to work so the pay does not stop”.
Recognition is the best way to increase productivity, cooperation, morale and keeping people motivated. If we want to bring out the best in people we must appreciate what they do, and then reward them accordingly, regardless how big or small the accomplished task was. All it takes from the manager is just a few words and they cost almost nothing; “Thank you! “Well done”.
In their celebrated work,” Putting The One Minute Manager to work”, Dr. ken Blanchard and Dr. Robert Lorber explained the ABC of management, Activators, Behaviour, and consequences. Activators are what the manager does before performance. Behaviour is the performance; what someone says or does. Consequences are what a manager does after performance.
According to them, wrongly, most people believe that what the manager does before the task has a greater influence on performance than the consequences. The fact is, “that only 15 - 25 % of what influences performance comes from activators like goal-setting, while 75 - 85 % of it (Behavior) comes from consequences like praising and reprimands.
If you walk into IBM’s New York Financial branch, the first thing greets you is a massive floor-to-ceiling bulletin board with glossy photographs of every person in the branch hung under the banner:
“IBM NEW YORK FINANCIAL, THE DIFFERENCE IS PEOPLE.”
People, in general, need to feel significant and important, to have a personal touch, and to be respected. The deepest and joyful feeling of human nature is the feeling of being appreciated. The American novelist, Edgar Watson Howe said, “The greatest humiliation in life is to work hard on something from which you expect great appreciation, and then fail to get it”.
Human resources employees’ satisfaction studies conclude that we will never find an organization with low employees’ recognition that scores high in employees’ satisfaction. Every employee contributes to the organization’s success; therefore, every employee deserves recognition for both individual accomplishments and team effort.
There are many managers who enjoy looking for their employees mistakes as if there are rewards for them, but we hardly meet a manger who is looking for the good in his people. Andrew Carnegie said, “When you work with people it is a lot like mining for gold. When you mine for gold, you must literally move tons of dirt to find one single ounce of gold. However, you don’t look for the dirt, you look for the gold”.
Do you remember, as a manager, when was the last time you dug deeply trying to find the good in one of your employees, found it and then reward him/her?
Do you remember, as a manager, when was the last time you made a list of the people who work for you and spoke to each of them personally of how much he or she has contributed to the success of the organization and how much you appreciate his/her effort? Do you remember, as a manager, when was the last time you wrote a note and personally placed it in one of your employees’ table thanking him or her for the task accomplished?
If you say that you do not have the time for that, or that doing so is not important, I would suggest that you think again.
Tom Peters, the great economist, and the father of performance excellence, put forward remarkable questions for any given manager.
He asked,
“Have you, as a manger, thanked an employee for a small act of helpfulness in the last three days?
Have you, as a manger, thanked an employee for a small act of helpfulness in the last three hours?
Have you, as a manger, thanked a frontline employee for carrying around a great attitude today?
Have you in the last week recognized-publicly-one of your employees for a small act of cross-functional co-operation?
Have you personally in the last week/month called/visited an internal customer to sort out, inquire, or apologize for some little or big thing that went awry?
(No reason for doing so? If true-in your mind-then you’re more out of touch than I dared imagine.) “.
We hear managers and companies’ owners sometimes saying, “Why should we do so? They are getting their pay”. I would remind those of what Burrhus Fredrick Skinner, the greatest psychologist in Harvard’s history said. He said, “The paycheck is not a reward, people do not go to work to get paid, they go to work so the pay does not stop”.
Recognition is the best way to increase productivity, cooperation, morale and keeping people motivated. If we want to bring out the best in people we must appreciate what they do, and then reward them accordingly, regardless how big or small the accomplished task was. All it takes from the manager is just a few words and they cost almost nothing; “Thank you! “Well done”.
In their celebrated work,” Putting The One Minute Manager to work”, Dr. ken Blanchard and Dr. Robert Lorber explained the ABC of management, Activators, Behaviour, and consequences. Activators are what the manager does before performance. Behaviour is the performance; what someone says or does. Consequences are what a manager does after performance.
According to them, wrongly, most people believe that what the manager does before the task has a greater influence on performance than the consequences. The fact is, “that only 15 - 25 % of what influences performance comes from activators like goal-setting, while 75 - 85 % of it (Behavior) comes from consequences like praising and reprimands.
If you walk into IBM’s New York Financial branch, the first thing greets you is a massive floor-to-ceiling bulletin board with glossy photographs of every person in the branch hung under the banner:
“IBM NEW YORK FINANCIAL, THE DIFFERENCE IS PEOPLE.”