“I don’t spend a lot of time looking backward, giving attaboys. I’m always looking forward. That’s just the way I am.”
I listened as a business leader say this to his team recently and it’s not the first time I’ve heard something like that. Most entrepreneurs – me included – are too busy looking ahead to the next milestone, the next opportunity, to spend much time recognizing the people who accomplished the recent goal.
In the words of Benjamin Hardy, they’re living in the gap rather than the gain.
But recent research from Gallup suggests that business leaders would do well to take the time to recognize and reward the accomplishments of their teams.
In a report titled, “Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition” they found that “when employees strongly agree that recognition is an important part of their organization’s culture, they are 3.8 times as likely to strongly agree that they feel connected to their culture.”
And those who feel strongly connected to the culture are:
- 3.7x as likely to be engaged
- 5.2x as likely to recommend their organization as a great place to work
- 68% less likely to feel burned out
- 55% less likely to be looking for another job.
All of that, just for recognizing them and the contribution they make to the business! Rewards and recognition are one of the easiest and cheapest ways that business leaders can connect and engage their employees.
I acknowledge that I’m not great at this. Just like the business leader I quoted at the start of this, I tend to focus more on what I don’t have than what I do. As the book by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy explains, if left to my own devices, I tend to live in the gap more than the gain.
That’s why I need prompts to help me lean into this important activity. In My FLOW Planner every day, in addition to writing down my goals, I also write down some things I’m grateful for and some wins I had that day.
Our Code of Honor at FiveFour – which dictates how we behave toward each other – includes the commitment to Celebrate all Wins. It forces me to take the time to celebrate our successes before I start focusing on the next one.
That means it’s not enough to write down in my FLOW Planner the name of the company who just hired us to help them grow. I must celebrate that win with my team, thanking each and every person who played a role in the decision to engage our services.
The leadership of another one of my clients, when confronted with the need to recognize their employees, committed to writing handwritten notes to team members thanking them for their contribution to the business. They were blown away by response to those notes – by the amount of appreciation they heard back for the recognition.
If you want to continue to grow your business, don’t just focus on the future. Make sure you take some time to celebrate the wins that happened in the past.