Companies should be “melting pots” too…  Individual diversity is important within an organization and as that diversity adds value, the organization will be strengthened and sustained.  If individuals are not assimilated, if people do not understand how to contribute, and if people are not recognized for the value they add, you’ll likely end up
with a “muffin tin” company where pockets of people gather to support each other in ways that they choose – and those ways may not be in the best interest of the organization.

Founding a country, baking a cake and creating an engaging, sustainable organization is messy work and, sometimes, you wonder if everything will come together.  When it does, it’s pretty cool…

A recent article in Forbes caught my attention and communicated some facts that, I think, are important (http://www.forbes.com/sites/keldjensen/2012/04/12/intelligence-is-overrated-what-you-really-need-to-succeed/).  The article is written to individuals and
encourages people to consider how to improve Emotional Intelligence, Moral Intelligence and Body Intelligence (EQ/MQ/BQ) and it points to these qualities as being greater indicators of success than IQ alone.  There’s a compelling case for being purposeful about developing these areas because, unlike IQ, there are actually things that can be done to grow our potential in all three categories.  As I read the article, I wondered what kind of corporate environment would best support individuals that took on the challenge of expanding EQ/MQ/BQ.  Here’s what I think –

• EQ is best accomplished in places when fear is reduced and where people have autonomy.  A healthy perspective on defining performance standards and an understanding of right behaviors, roles and expectations creates an opportunity for people to know what to do to succeed and be part of the organization.
• MQ is best accomplished in places that are consistently honest and are aware that people are “whole” – we all are a package that includes emotions, perceptions,
  weaknesses, strengths, values, etc…
• BQ is best accomplished in places that support healthy physical work environments and that promote healthy living.

Many places are making strides in these areas and I think that’s a very good thing for all of us.  Those of you that work with Recognition and Reward Systems – consider what your system does to support the behaviors and performances that will allow EQ/MQ/BQ.  Tenure, wellness, behaviors and performance are all available to be used to point to the values of your organization.

At our core, we all want to feel safe and be part of a community where we are accepted and valued.  Safety comes first and, from a work standpoint, corporate profitability and job security are primary issues.  Assuming the people in your organization are free from the fear of their job disappearing, what can be done to instill hope and create an environment where people have an opportunity to be part of a healthy community?

• Create symbols within your culture that highlight contributions.  The symbols can be physical or they can be part of your “corporate language”.  A large hotel brand scans their organization for examples of great performance and puts the stories in a book that is shared across the company and with guests.  An international technology company created a group of behaviors that is celebrated across the organization and all employees can send an e-card or present a physical card that recognizes those behaviors.
• Audit your brand and how the brand is being communicated to all your audiences– internal and external.  Remember brand is physical and emotional.  Is there
  anything that speaks to the human side of your company?  If so, are the words true?  A major airline has become famous for the tight alignment of the employment experience and the customer experience – both heavily emphasize “fun”.
• Leadership should be visible.  Smaller organizations can do this with physical
  presence.  In large organizations, use technology to communicate the “heartbeat” of corporate leadership and highlight the people that exhibit the behaviors and performance that reflect where leadership is taking the company – which should be to safe places and a pleasant community.  A large financial services company uses a technology platform to communicate new direction and recognize people within the organization that are doing special things.

Remember your Turangawaewae (the Maori term for “the place where I stand tall”)

Be the kind of company that encourages people to “stand tall”. Create practices and build tools that support a culture where people know they matter. Expect that people will engage to greater degrees when they are respected for their contributions. Ask yourself, “What is it about our culture that builds people up and acknowledges their contributions?”

Allow all participants a voice in the meeting

Evaluate your culture to ensure everyone in your organization “has a voice”. Build and support a system that encourages real communication. Expect that people will gladly participate in the conversation if they believe someone is actually listening. Ask yourself, “Is there anything we’re doing as a company that shuts down communication?”

Challenge all perspectives

Seek out perspecitves from the entire organization. Expect that you will benefit from radical ideas when they are safe to offer. Ask yourself, “Can people in our organization safely offer an opinion – even when it differs from leadership or conventional wisdom?”

Start strong to be productive

Be the kind of company that supports people with information, tools and guidance that enable the right work to get done. Expect that you will enjoy more productivity from people with the right tools. Ask yourself, “Are we doing everything we can to help people be successful?”

Ensure that the whole person is in the room

Acknowledge the fact that we are holistic – we all have one brain, one soul, one body. Account for that truth in the way your company addresses the physical work environment and individual wellness. Expect that you will recieve gratitude and loyalty from people when they are cared for as individuals. Ask yourself, “Does our company support the physical and mental well being of the people that choose to work here?”

If your answers to the questions cause you concern, it’s time for your organization to work through a cultural audit to help determine the value you’re delivering as an employer. If people can not stand tall with your company, they will leave to stand with someone else.

Level 6: Passion

Level 5: Creativity

Level 4: Initiative

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­———————–

Level 3: Expertise

Level 2: Diligence

Level 1: Obedience

There was a time when “Level 3 work” met all the expectations for excellence in a work environment.  Not so much these days…  The marketplace says that compensation (jobs) will ultimately go to the most efficient provider of solutions available.  The internet and a shrinking globe make the inexpensive acquisition of the first three levels of this scale very easy.  If all an employee does is meet “Level 3”, there’s not much unique about their offering and they are at risk of being replaced.  For an individual to be highly valued by an organization, they’ll need to move beyond expertise as their highest capability.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin…

What are organizations doing to support and encourage contributions beyond Level 3?  If Initiative, Creativity and Passion are so highly valued, it stands to reason that companies would be keen to create environments where those qualities can flourish.  I think there’s a desire to accomplish that goal – but I think it’s very difficult to achieve.  1/2/3/ are linear and observable; 4/5/6 can appear in many ways and may, initially, be disruptive and look unlike “normal” organizational behavior.  Easy to see how creating a culture that highlights 4/5/6 behaviors can be a challenge.

A hospitality company uses a Peer-to-Peer recognition program to highlight unique “4/5/6 behaviors” within their organization.  All employee partners are empowered to recognize other employees when certain types of behavior are observed.  The recognition can happen in any environment, it happens quickly and it is captured in reporting that helps the organization identify the cultural and performance “hot spots”.

Use your companies Recognition and Reward System as a tool.  A Peer-to-Peer program component that is flexible and targeted to organizational values can be a powerful ally in the effort to create a culture uniquely suited to those individuals that are willing to take initiative, use creativity and bring passion to the workplace on a regular basis.

“Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100. This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity has no historical precedent. It’s totally at odds with our scientific knowledge of the finite resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for survival.”

The last few decades have produced a tremendous amount of business growth and wealth.  A vast majority of business leaders, economists and prognosticators are forecasting that growth levels over the next decade will not come near matching what we’ve become accustomed to.  Certainly, every company will be working hard to be as productive and profitable as possible.  We’re Capitalists and we are in business to produce profits that lead to prosperity…  But what will we do if (when?) we don’t hit our goals?

Is your organization equipped to deal with flat growth trends for the foreseeable future?  Will your employees be able to enjoy “prosperity” during this time?

Perhaps we should all consider a new definition…

What words would you use to define prosperous if you couldn’t refer to anything related to a financial condition?  Could the company you work for live with that definition?

Here’s where a RRS can be very valuable…

Jot down or make a mental note of the things your company would say are “competitive advantages” – now, think about your company’s RRS – how many of the items on your competitive advantages list are being reinforced via the RRS? If a potential employee you were recruiting asked the question, “I understand that xxxxx is very important here, how will I know when I’ve done xxxxx?” If you can easily answer that question, congratulations on working for an exceptional company with a clear competitive advantage. It’s likely that the people working at your company have an excellent understanding of what success looks like and what they have to do to achieve success. If you struggled to answer that question, you’re in a great position to align an existing RRS or to build one that reinforces the behaviors and performances that make your company unique and that create its competitive advantage.

• Provide training that’s been validated and brings a credential.  RPI’s Certified Recognition Professional training (CRP) program was developed by industry professionals in an effort to help individuals understand the nuances inherent in using recognition to support organizational cultures, drive behaviors and highlight performance.  Graduates of the four module program receive the designation of Certified Recognition Professional.  Graduates have come from companies like Wells Fargo, Ameriprise, Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, T-Mobile, Abbott Labs, Verizon, Boeing, Delta Airlines, Microsoft, MetLife, governmental agencies and hospital groups.
• You’ll meet people who do what you do.  The creation/maintenance of an RRS is not a very common job description and it helps to have a network of people outside your company that you can go to for questions and discussion.
• You will have a chance to be part of a larger discussion.  RPI is the only association that deals with RRS as its sole issue.  At conferences you’ll be surrounded by people that are involved in their work just like you are and are interested in what’s new, how to do things better and what’s happening in other places.  It’s dynamic…

If you’re curious about how to get involved, there are two things happening pretty quickly – CRP Training is being held in Dallas, Texas at The Miller Company on February 21/22 and the RPI  Annual Conference is being held in St Louis, Missouri  at Maritz on April 29 – May 2.  For more detail on these and other opportunities, go to the RPI website.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw

In the 60 minutes Bell played, a few people stopped and listened, one person actually recognized him and he collected $32.  Two days prior to the DC Metro concert, he sold out a theater in Boston where average ticket prices were $100.  The effort was part of a social experiment by The Washington Post to determine people’s priorities, taste and perception.

Why will people gladly pay serious money one day to see a world-class performer and then the next day, walk by that same performer as if he didn’t exist?  Social scientists would use quite a few words to explain the human behavior observed in this experiment, but I think three words provide a summary that’s relevant and that translates to the workplace:

Time – the perception of a time surplus creates opportunities to experience unplanned events.

Presence – when we allow ourselves to be “in the moment”, we are more likely to notice our surroundings.

Context – when we are predisposed to life experiences occurring in one context, it is difficult to process that same experience in another context.

Too often, we all walk by “great performances” in our work   environments because we feel swamped by our circumstances and all we can do is think about ourselves and the pressure we are experiencing.  Further, we may be uncertain about what we’re supposed to be doing – we want to be productive, but we’re not sure how to maximize our time and talent.  It’s ironic that, in fact, we may be offering a personal “great performance” but everyone around us is buried in their world and no one notices the beautiful music we’re playing…

I think it’s very difficult for organizations to create environments that engage people.  Too often, leaders make the mistake of using past paradigms to define modern work cultures.  There’s a classic definition of “productivity” that speaks to how many widgets can one person produce in a given period of time.  The problem is that definition doesn’t translate well to today’s largely knowledge based workforce.  The best organizations are those that are finding ways to create cultures that appreciate unique human performance.

Is your company considering the amount of time people have to “be human” at work?  Are the people you work with focused on the present and aware of what’s happening in their space?  Do the people in your organization understand what they should be seeing and can they translate that into personal success?

A well designed Recognition and Reward System (RRS) can help support cultures that value time, presence and context.  When a company gets those things right, there is a great chance that many Joshua Bells will be discovered playing right in front of you.

I prefer the approach Dan Pink has popularized – Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose (the acronym even works – AMP).  Hire the right people into a well defined job and expect them to perform, give them the support and tools to become best in class at what they do and then ensure they understand and appreciate why what they do matters to the organization.  Makes sense, right?

But even if your company perfectly practices and executes that strategy, how do you know  when “employee engagement” happens?

Many companies use an employee survey to discover what trends are developing and where employee’s heads are relative to the employment value proposition offered by the company.  Great tool – but a pretty blunt instrument as it’s generally an annual exercise and things can change faster than that and, because humans are involved, getting to the root of what people think is just plain complicated.  Here’s another idea…

“Listen” to what employees are saying by watching their behaviors.  You can do this by using the data generated by your company’s Recognition and Reward System to spot trends and watch what people are doing within the stated culture of the organization.  What’s being recognized?  Who is doing the recognizing?  What’s the financial performance within the groups most active within the RRS?  Do you see geographic trends?  Seasonal  trends?  When internal communication goes up/down do you see a response?  There are many more things you can evaluate, but you see the point.

Don’t have an RRS that generates actionable data?  You’re missing an opportunity to “listen” every day to what your people are saying.