I hope after reading the title you now hear in your head what I believe to be one of the best inspirational songs ever written.
What a fantastic podcast find…the EntreLeadership Podcast, a Dave Ramsey production. If you do not know who Dave Ramsey is, stop reading now and Google him. He is the money magician!
While I love every episode they put out, this one in particular caught my attention and I felt I needed to bring it to yours. This follows along nicely with a blog I wrote a couple of weeks ago about celebrating as a team. This podcast asks you to recognize the individual. Listen to the entire episode here.
Let’s start with the acronym Chris Hogan shared which he now has as his desktop screensaver. AIR. All people, no matter who you are, need AIR.
Appreciation
Inspiration
Recognition
As a leader, it is your job to insure your team feels valuable. How do you do that? You show them appreciation, you inspire them to be better, and you recognize their accomplishments.
One of our new hires recently made her first placements. (In case you are new to my blog, we are a recruiting agency and we help people find jobs. When we find a candidate a job, we call this a placement.) She did not make just one; she made two in the same day! First, a congratulatory email was sent to the entire team. We work in a cube environment, lovingly referred to as the bullpen. It was like a wave as each team member opened their email to learn about her success. Shouts of “congrats” and “way to go” and “you’re killing it” soon spread throughout the office. Next, everyone was called into the conference room where scrumptious, warm Tiff Treats had just been delivered. We celebrated our team member’s first success again.
Here is why this is important. We are in major hiring mode at the moment and part of our interview process is the team interview. As we were interviewing a potential new teammate, she asked the question, “Why would I want to work here?” Our teammate who was recently celebrated took the floor and said, “I will tell you why. When you are successful, the team celebrates your wins as if they were their own. I have never worked in a place where I felt more encouraged than here.”
People want to feel a part of something and I love Chris Hogan’s advice in this episode, “Make recognition part of your employee retention plan.” Our team members want to be accepted, appreciated, and want genuine affection.
The opposite of this is falsely complimenting or praising with ingenuity. This will have the exact opposite effect of encouraging the team member, as he or she will sense your falseness. Last year, I was exposed to a team member who did just this. He would over the top congratulate people for little or no reason and eventually, the team no longer gave value to his comments. In reality, the compliments were eventually turned back to him and his wins, which again belittled the rest of the team. Make sure you are coming from a pure place when you praise your teammates.
Finally, one other piece of advice Hogan shares is including the team member’s family or people who are significant in the conversation. He said, “recognition matters most when the praise comes in front of people who are significant to that person.” He gave the example of Dave Ramsey complimenting him to his mom. That was huge!
When we celebrate together, endorphins are released and we cannot help but build stronger relationships and team bonds. I mentioned in another podcast (link above) the science related to the anticipation and experience of celebration itself.
I hope you will take the time to listen to this podcast as I have only scratched the surface of the wisdom shared in this episode.
Happy Podcasting!
New podcast coming soon! We Are VIP Podcast! The podcast is scheduled to air in August and will bring you some amazing thought leaders, leaders of growing and innovative companies, and tips from our amazing VIP team for hiring and landing your dream job.
