We Can’t Treat Them All the Same

One of the things that Cindy and I enjoy most about customizing our Emerging Leader Development course for many of the bigger clients we work with has been providing them with the tools to communicate more effectively with each individual on their team. As we teach them how to quickly recognize and understand the primary communication style of anyone they interact with, we explain the importance of delivering a message the other person can receive. In doing that, we build on the idea of The Golden Rule that’s served so many of us well for centuries by suggesting a slight tweak; communicating with others as they need us to communicate with them rather than how we would want them to communicate with us. To make sure the idea sticks, we refer to it as The Platinum Rule…

Make no mistake though, this idea applies to a lot more than just how we communicate with others. It’s every bit as applicable to how we show appreciation and how we reward the great people on our teams for helping achieve our organizational purpose and driving overall profitability! 

Not long after enduring that first time study I mentioned before, things started to click for me as a press operator and I was able to churn out well more than the number of parts I needed to make my daily efficiency. In those days, the company I worked for gave employees an occasional T-shirt to celebrate stellar performance. I can’t remember if that was monthly or quarterly, or even how much I needed to exceed my target. What I do remember is never giving a shit about those shirts… Had a supervisor ever acknowledged how hard I was working to make that happen, it would have gone so much farther. I think the idea of giving a shirt to individuals who go above and beyond has been replaced in most organizations today by the proverbial pizza party when an entire department beats the goal, but I still haven’t heard many stories of direct recognition or appreciation - and we’ll circle back to why that’s such an issue soon…

In smaller businesses, I’ve seen quite a bit more creativity in passing down the fruits of hard labor. I’ve seen substantial bonuses, trips, and even shares of the company as ways to reward team members for extraordinary work. At one point, about a year or so into a new role, I received a glowing review and was given a twenty percent pay increase. While I truly appreciated that the effort I was putting into my work had been recognized and the owners of that company were so willing to compensate me for that, I was at a spot in life where I was much more interested in extra flexibility than additional pay. In a different role, I had the most flexibility I had ever been offered in a full time position and a fair salary, so each merit increase got funneled to my 401(k) since that was pre-tax. I’ve also seen a few cases where key team members were gifted a stake in their company for their hard work.

Don’t miss my point here, I’m not suggesting any one of these as being right or wrong. I’d be willing to bet that each of the things I’ve detailed here could be received well by many folks on any given day, but I believe any reward we provide a great team member will be best received when it’s one that fills a pressing need they have at that time. And it’s very unlikely that one great team member will have a need that matches any other. If we truly want to reward our teams for helping increase profitability while being a part of something that matters, we’ll do well to pay close attention to the things they need and value most. The best part is that doing this will give us a chance to help them identify and pursue their own definite purpose in the process, because we’ll be watching for some of the same indicators to identify both - and that’s where we’ll pick up soon!