It seems so simple once you try it. But it took me a long time to uncover an effective way to change negative behavior to positive, benefiting our entire firm and solving a frustration I’d struggled with for years.
Since we started GV Financial Advisors, we have had weekly training sessions for our advisors. When we began, the sessions started at 7:00 AM. It was always a challenge to get everybody to show up on time. As we got older, we changed the meeting to 8:00 AM. That will solve the problem, I thought. Everyone has an extra hour to make it on time.
Hardly. We still had stragglers every week. I tried several methods to motivate people to arrive on time. I asked them to apologize to the group for being late. I started a fine program where the people who were late donated money that was divided among those who showed up on time. I pleaded with them to just come on time and then I pleaded to their sense of community, saying it wasn’t fair to those who arrived on time. Nothing worked.
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After years of this frustration, a friend of mine told me about the incredible impact of recognition and praise. The next week, at the end of the meeting I thanked those who had come on time. The following week, the number of on-time attendees about doubled. Again, I praised each advisor who was on time. The following week, only two people were late. I went around the room and thanked everyone who had been on time. The following week, we had perfect on-time attendance.
With one simple technique, I had solved a problem that had been bothering me for years. And I made my co-workers feel good as I was doing it.
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Many of us may be familiar with a similar strategy for parenting. “Catch them doing something right and praise them,” is one you will find touted by many parenting experts.
Yet in the business world, we often fall into the trap of believing that people are motivated purely by money. We set up elaborate review and bonus strategies to engage our employees to work at their highest capacity. While these can sometimes be effective, praise is always effective. And it adds to your bottom line, while costing you and your company nothing.
A study done by Bersin & Associates in 2012 (now Bersin by Deloitte) found that “companies with recognition programs highly effective at improving employee engagement have 31 percent lower voluntary turnover than their peers with ineffective recognition programs.” The study also concluded that “in organizations where recognition occurs, employee engagement, productivity and customer service are about 14 percent better than in those where recognition does not occur.”
Using praise is also one of the three elements of managerial success as detailed in “The One-Minute Manager,” by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. “People who feel good themselves produce good results,” they wrote.
Mary Kay Ash, founder of the multi-billion dollar cosmetics company Mary Kay, claimed she was able to motivate her international sales force by “praising people to success.” One of her guiding principles was to encourage her staff and sales force to treat each person they met as if they were wearing a sign that read, “Make me feel important.”
Money can still be used as motivation. But as Gary Hamel wrote in the article “Moon Shots for Management” in the Harvard Business Review, “As an emotional catalyst, wealth maximization lacks the power to fully mobilize human energies.”
Amazing what a few kind words can do, isn’t it?
David Geller is the author of Wealth & Happiness: Using Your Wealth to Create a Better Life. He is the CEO of Atlanta-based GV Financial Advisors and is available for professional speaking engagements.
