Today we’re talking about how to increase and maintain high morale in your business, along with keeping everyone aligned with your core values. And there’s a really simple strategy for this.
It’s also really easy not to do. It’s called recognition. Recognizing your team for the great work that they’re doing.
There’s a really good book on this, one of those short little books by Ken Blanchard called “Whale Done.” And not going to go into a lot of details but basically it’s all about incentivizing the behaviour that you want to see.
Imagine trying to make a whale do something? I mean, you can’t. But you can incent, reward, and recognize them for the behaviour that you do want to see.
I’m not saying that your team members are whales, but everyone, all mammals maybe like to have a little bit of recognition, right?
So how do we systemize recognition into your team and tie it to your core values?
One of the things that we want to do is to make sure that we have time every week where people are being recognized.
So bake it into your schedule. If you’re having a team meeting every Friday afternoon, wonderful. Make sure that you have time for people to be recognized.
They could be recognized by the leadership team for doing some great work, or even more powerfully, by their peers.
So you can have your team members recognize somebody else on the team for the great work that they’ve done.
And if you can tie it into a core value, how that great work was aligned with a core value, even better. Now you’re recognizing the person, you’re creating positivity, and you’re keeping those core values alive.
I’ve worked with business owners where they have a software system where people can type in a little kudo.
Like, “I want to thank Lindsay for helping me produce my videos this week. Couldn’t have done it without you.” Things like that.
And then they all accumulate and at their team meeting each week they get them read out.
And then people cheer for the other people that are getting kudos and it makes other team members that didn’t get a kudo, maybe want to get one.
So they might go out of the way a little bit to do something to be more helpful and to keep those core values alive.
So it’s easy to do. And again, it’s also easy not to do.
But it makes an incredible impact when people feel appreciated, recognized, and aligned with the core values. Now the business is really tight and we’re able to move forward together as a more solid, cohesive team.
I hope that’s a helpful tip for you. If you have any questions about how to pull together a system like that, feel free to give me a shout and I’m happy to talk to you about it.
In the meantime, happy recognition, and I hope that you get recognized for all the hard work that you’re doing as a business owner and a leader.
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