BUILD IN REWARDS FOR ACHIEVEMENT.WHEN YOUR SCHEDULE IS SO TIGHT YO...
5. Build in rewards for achievement.
When your schedule is so tight you can’t eat lunch without
feeling guilty, the day is not only less productive — it’s no
fun. Team members experience the same sense of
“Common sense is
drudgery — and they are often less free to step off the
very uncommon.”
treadmill (by delegating tasks, etc.) than you are. Fun is a
major recruitment plus in today’s marketplace where
— Horace Greeley
organizations are vying for the best talent. Potential team
members question recruiters about the environment they
will be entering: What is the team like? Who are the stars?
What can I learn? How do they balance work and home?
What do they do for fun?
Fun and celebration are StaffCoach™ tools. They can pull
the best talent into your team, provide the light at the end
of a stressful time, and bring the team together into an
integrated unit. Laughing is a bonding experience. The
potential for errors, low morale and employee burnout is
great in today’s high-pressure world. Regularly consider
how you can provide team relief from a priority-intensive
schedule. Here are a few suggestions.
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•
Take a team to lunch.
This event could mark the end of a successful project
or just a fun and unexpected surprise.
•
Give the team tickets to an event.
Get tickets to favorite events — the arts, sports, a
circus — and offer them as ongoing awards
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for excellence.
•
Traveling trophy.
A funny poster, a small loving cup … anything can
serve as a “team of the week” award. Will the current
team or individual awardholder keep the trophy next
week? Whose performance will win it next week?
Watch your people have fun with these kinds
of questions.
•
Family fun.
Plan a picnic, bowling party or a get-together where
family and friends of team members can unwind and
interact in a nonwork environment. A great reward for
their growing effort and a great way to bond a team
together!
•
Food day.
Designate a day for the team to bring fun foods to the
office, and let them use shared breaks to gather round
the treats and talk about work, the day, their lives or
whatever.
•
You name it.
Be creative! What would you like to look forward to if
you were a member of your team?
•
A twofer reward.
Recognize someone with two of something — two
bags of microwave popcorn, two packs of gum — for
the double effort they gave.
•
Switch shoes.
Do someone else’s job for a day or an hour, and let her
do yours.
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Coaching, Mentoring and Managing
•
Give a creature comfort.
Contribute a fan for the office, a radio to use.
•
A new mug.
Give a new mug with a humorous or serious
recognition printed on it.
•
A bouquet of balloons.
Personally deliver it to the team’s area.
•
“Let them eat cake.”
Treat them with a special cake.
•
A nonbirthday party.
Celebrate no one’s birthday.
There is a story in the book, In Search of Excellence, by Peters
and Waterman, about a company that desperately needed a
technical advance for it to survive in its early days. Late one
evening, a scientist rushed into the president’s office with a
working prototype that was just what they needed to keep the
business afloat. Dumbfounded at the elegance of the solution and
wanting to reward the scientist, the president started rummaging
through his desk drawers. He leaned over to the scientist and said,
“Here!” giving him the only thing he had — a banana. From then
on, a tradition was started, and a small “gold banana” pin has been
the highest accolade for achievement at that company. The point:
bananas work. What’s your idea?
A corollary to that story: Tom Peters has been mentioned in
this book several times. Do you recognize Robert Waterman? Or
perhaps Nancy Austin, another co-author of Peters’? Why is it that
Tom Peters is instantly known but not his associates? Consider
that when you give out rewards. Do you want to accelerate one
person’s performance or career? Do you want the team to
be known throughout the organization and extolled for
its achievements?
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Exercise
In your workplace, what’s the greatest hurdle in encouraging
team members to do “the right work right” and integrating their
efforts? How can you use one of the techniques discussed to keep
your staff focused on the job and increase their performance?
Choose an area you want to improve and start planning for it
today. For instance, you might want to circulate a memo whenever
a change is announced, so everyone gets the information at the
same time. Or you might want to develop and e-mail a daily list of
priorities for each person on your staff. Maybe initiating team
recognition would add to the individual activities you already
offer. Whatever you decide to work on, make it specific
and tangible.
Here are some simple but revealing questions to help you
anticipate problems, design preventive measures and put strategies
into action.