Too Much Recognition?

[Paul Hebert]

Reprint of post from Incentive Intelligence 8-4-09

I can honestly tell you I don't know where I'll end up with this post. It's more of a stream of thought than a thought out stream.


The US Medal of Honor has only been awarded to roughly 3,467 brave soldiers since 1862 (half of which came during the Civil War.)



The Pulitzer Prize is associated with only 21 categories.



Major League Baseball only awards 18 Golden Glove awards each year.



The Nobel Award has only 5 categories.

These are very prestigious honors. Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that the Golden Glove and the Medal of Honor belong in the same category - I'm only saying that the rarity of the award makes them standout - makes earning them extremely special. And that got me thinking...

There are a lot (and I mean a lot) of articles lately that talk about creating a culture of recognition and advice from experts focused on reminding management teams to work hard at recognizing the contribution of employees and others (vendors, suppliers, channel partners) for their efforts. I'm guilty of it as well - posting about how important it is to highlight the efforts of individuals and teams.

But I'm concerned that we're losing something - we're losing the scarcity of the award - and when we lose the scarcity we lose the value.

Validate VS Recognize

I posted a week or so ago on the need to validate people instead of motivate them. I even changed the header on this site to align with that point of view. I'm not moving away from that point of view in this post but I do think we need to distinguish between validating and recognizing.

I can validate someone's contribution through conversation, or by bringing up someone's work in a team meeting, by sending a letter to a person's supervisor and by simply using the ubiquitous Peer2Peer programs that exist in most companies. I think that is very important. I believe validation is what we need to continue to want to work at an organization and continue to contribute.

But I don't think I want to call it recognition. I want that word to be reserved for something a bit more special - a bit more courageous - a bit more "out of the box."

I want to reserve recognition for those efforts that truly establish a new standard or create a new level of play. Not unlike the awards mentioned in the introduction to this post - those awards only go to people who truly changed something - either the way a game is played, the way we view the universe or the outcome of a war. Those aren't awards for staying a half hour late at work or filling out all the forms correctly. Don't misunderstand - I want to validate that work as important but do I really want to recognize it?

Do Me A Favor...

Look at your recognition award structure. Do you reward a limited number of folks with a big award based on picking their name out of a hat at the end of a month or a quarter? Do you even have an award at your company that only a very few people can (or should) earn? Do the people who have earned your top award still work at the company? (If not - you might have a much bigger problem... I'm just sayin'.)

Do you think I'm splitting hairs? Do you think having lots and lots of recognition awards is good - or bad? Do you think the categories for recognition in your programs truly represent what you think is important and worthy of special notice?

Here's a thought experiment - ask yourself - what would you think of a Pulitzer Prize Winner if you knew they gave out 250,000 of them every month? Would you think it was a great honor or an average honor?

When we recognize people for performance we should make sure that performance is recognizable.

What do you think? Have I found a distinction without a difference?

[Bryan James Mason]

I agree with your observation. I like th "How Full Is Your Bucket" approach to recognize everyday contributions to the organization. A short note recognizing employees performing their responsibilities and the impact it has on the organization has worked well for me. My challenge is to engage all managers and ultimately all employees in this practice. We also celebrate the contributions of our departments by taking them out to lunch or dinner. Purchase a token of appreciation like a cup or a jacket. Additionally, we ask all of our students what they appreciate the most about these employees and capture their responses on a framed document.

[Paul Hebert]

I may be splitting some hairs here. I do believe that validating someone's contribution on a regular basis is something that has to be done to communicate to the employee that they make a difference in the organization. I am more concerned that by creating too much "recognition" in the form of awards and tchotkes that we diminish the larger, more important contributions that truly reflect game changing performances.

My impetus for this post was thinking about all the Gen Y conversations that discuss how they want to be recognized for everything and are junkies for reinforcement. But what I really think is that Gen Y want to know they make a difference - not that they need special "recognition" but that they just want to know that contribute. That isn't part of a recognition program - but part of good management. When companies abdicate good management to a systemized recognition program it becomes a problem.

[S. Max Brown]

Paul,

You ask a great question, and it is one that people should ask when they start planning their recognition programs. However, I want to push back a little by suggesting that while the highest awards may be few and far between, there are thousands of smaller awards that recognize achievements in every industry you pointed out. Likewise, corporations hand out very few "President's Awards", but lots of smaller tokens of recognition IF they hope to encourage and validate great performance.

The hitch: If the daily recognition loses all meaning than it is no longer serving a purpose. So, we ask a critical question: Does the recognition we do communicate respect? If the Employee of the Month program has become a joke, maybe it is time to reassess the program and find out how to recommunicate respect.

A culture of support and validation comes from regular practice. Recognition done well helps support and demonstrate that this is more then an HR initiative.

[Bryan James Mason]

To enhance employee engagement and.develop a culture of success, there should be a conscientious effort to develop a system that generates lots of winners. We rocognize improvement, goals accomplishment, as well as the highest achievers. This practice has contributed to our organization moving from a national ranking 67th in the nation I our industry to 38th. We are looking at expanding recognition this year to include customer satisfaction recognition awards.