Book Summary: Teams That Thrive -- Ryan T. Harwig and Warren Bird

Teams That Thrive

Five Discipline’s of Collaborative Church Leadership

By Ryan T. Harwig and Warren Bird

Part One: Why Read a Book About Leadership Teams?

Chapter 1: Myths We Believe: How Many of These Do You Think Are True?  

Myth: Great teams are primarily advisers to the top person, who makes the decisions.            

Reality: The best teams make decisions as a group.                  

Myth: Meetings are places not to make decisions but to work through decisions already made.            

Reality: The best teams both make decisions and “own” the implementation.                  

Myth: Teams first build trust, and then they learn to work together.            

Reality: Trust is built in the trenches as the team works together, especially on major initiatives and tough, controversial decisions.                  

Myth: Senior teams are created by drawing a circle around the top positions on your organizational chart.

Reality: The best leadership teams draw from a diversity of roles and positions.                  

Myth: Bigger teams are better, drawing from eight to twelve people.            

Reality: The optimal size is four to five in most cases, and sometimes three.                  

Myth: Shorter meetings are better than longer meetings.            

Reality: Long meetings can be highly productive, if they are carefully structured to accomplish clear objectives and fully engage everyone’s strengths.                  

Myth: Team leaders can’t really be accountable to their group if they’re the lead pastor.            

Reality: The best teams have an amazing level of mutual accountability and genuine camaraderie.     Myth: The senior pastor or person who’s been there longest is the best team leader.            

Reality: The best teams rotate aspects of providing leadership to the team.                  

Myth: Most team improvement is haphazard, largely based on each member’s growth outside of team meetings.            

Reality: The best teams continually work together on improvement as a team.

     

Chapter 2:  Your Vantage Point: How Is Your Church Being Led Right Now

Thriving churches are led by thriving leaders. Not one leader but many leaders. And not just by a group but by a team— there’s a big difference between the two.

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      Describe various types of leadership formations
• ·      Unpack the importance of a church’s senior leadership group
• ·      Help you identify who is, or might be, on your senior leadership team
• ·      Identify how to maximize your own role in terms of how you’ll be reading and applying this book

Quotes:

Great teams are unwilling to sacrifice effectiveness on the altar of efficiency.

For good or bad, leadership teams shape the culture, direct the mission, establish the vision and model the values of your church.

If that group is haphazard, unfocused, imbalanced or dysfunctional, the ripple effect will show up at every level of your church. By contrast, if your team is thriving, there’s a good likelihood that the rest of the church will as well.

When leadership teams fail to reach their potential, their churches follow suit.

Part Two: Why Do Leadership Teams Make Sense?

   

Chapter 3: The Bible Speaks: Scriptural Foundations for Senior Leadership Teams

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      suggests that the Trinity demonstrates a certain “team” quality about God
• ·      shows how the body of Christ metaphor undergirds the idea of teams in the church
• ·      applies New Testament principles for church leadership to leadership teams
• ·      affirms that collaborative leadership can work in your particular ecclesial context

Quotes:

Christianity is unique among major religions in presenting one God who eternally exists and functions as a divine team.

In the church as a body, diversity and unity combine seamlessly.

A team without diversity is no better than a single individual. But a team without unity will fracture from fighting and disparate visions.

The practice of multiple leadership— or teams— existed from the church’s birth.

Chapter 4: Passing Fad or Here to Stay: Ten Practical Reasons for Senior Leadership Teams          

Purpose of the Chapter:

·      explains the practical benefits of senior leadership teams for church leadership

·      offers a diagnostic to help church leaders distinguish whether their leadership group is more of a working group or team

Quotes:

Teamwork is not a virtue. It is a choice— and a strategic one. That means leaders who choose to operate as a real team willingly accept the work and the sacrifices that are necessary for any group that wants to reap the benefits of true teamwork.  -- Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage

The Benefits and Power of Shared Leadership:

• Greater Productivity
• Less stress and pressure on the lead pastor
• Greater leadership development
• More creativity and innovation
• Better decision making
•  More safety and accountability
• Less loneliness
• Greater joy and satisfaction among team members
• Greater trust among the congregation
• Provide better organizational leadership

Part Three: How Well Is Our Team Thriving?

Chapter 5: Reality Check: Eight Common Reasons Teams Fail

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      take an honest assessment of your team
• ·      identify some of the most common reasons that teams fail to thrive
• ·      learn to think differently about the impact of your team’s communication practices

Quotes:

•   Everything is a priority, so nothing is.
• Lack of team leadership skill and understanding.
• No inspiration or model for becoming a great team
• Undisciplined efforts
•  Absence of Godly character among the team
• Confusion over the teams purpose
• Over-reliance on the lead pastor
• Dysfunctional team communication practices

In fact, our research showed that the greatest predictor of leadership team performance was the amount of stress the team members experienced related to dysfunctional communication practices.

When we asked team members what made their team great, the responses almost always pointed to their communication practices.

Chapter 6: Our Survey Says: The Collaborative Disciplines of Teams That Thrive

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      present the five disciplines of teams that thrive as a pathway to bring out the best in your team
• ·      detail the research process behind our model
• ·      highlight the major findings from our research study

Quotes:

The Five Disciplines of Teams That Thrive

Discipline 1: Focus on purpose, the invisible leader of your team.

Discipline 2: Leverage differences in team membership.

Discipline 3: Rely on inspiration more than control to lead.

Discipline 4: Intentionally structure your decision-making process.

Discipline 5: Build a culture of continuous collaboration.

Part Four: What are the Collaborative Disciplines of Teams That Thrive?

Chapter 7: Discipline 1: Focus on Purpose, the Invisible Leader of Your Team          

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      discuss problems related to purpose that senior leadership teams frequently face according to our research
• ·      explain how to get team purpose right by focusing on what we define as the 5Cs of purpose
• ·      discuss the benefits of a 5C purpose
• ·      explore the most important purposes for church leadership teams
• ·      offer a framework you can use to craft your team’s unique purpose

Quotes:

Six Benefits of a 5C Purpose:

1. Narrows Your Teams Scope
2. Creates space for staff and volunteers to contribute at a high level
3. Compel People to contribute their best to the team
4. Inspires and energizes the team.
5. Distinguishes the leadership team’s unique contribution at the church
6. Cultivates trust and relationships among team members.

Leadership teams that thrive make key decisions as a team. Furthermore, top-performing senior leadership teams told us that the team made decisions 64 percent of time, while underperforming teams made decisions 43 percent of the time. Lead pastors in top teams made decisions 25 percent of time, but in underperforming teams, they made them 37 percent of the time. Finally, others outside of the team, such as board members or other staff members, made decisions 13 percent of time for top teams, where as they made 24 percent of the decisions for underperforming teams. This data, illustrated in figure 7.3, points to the fact that thriving leadership teams collaboratively make decisions rather than advising or waiting for others to give the team its marching orders.

More interestingly, though, the biggest gaps between the top and underperforming teams showed up in decisions made around finances and strategic planning, perhaps because these constitute the crucial issues.

Leadership teams that thrive structure their meetings to make decisions. The best teams don’t leave accomplishing their purpose to chance.

Chapter 8 Discipline 2: Leverage Differences in Team Membership

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      explains the optimal size for leadership teams
• ·      lists the characteristics of the right people to serve on a leadership team
• 
  
• ·      guides leaders on balancing team responsibilities with individual, departmental duties
• ·      offers practical tips to implement those principles in regard to:

·      finding the right people

·      gracefully narrowing a team’s membership

·      creating space for the leadership team’s work

·      managing compensation issues among the team

·      dealing with the loss (and replacement) of a team member

Quotes:

Teams with seven members must manage twice the communication channels as those with five members, as figure 8.2 illustrates.

Motivated leaders are typically high-performers, people who have done good work and often expect to be given space to continue to do good work, who have been rewarded for independent achievement, who thrive on challenging, meaty tasks and who eschew micro-management. That means your team likely will regularly experience fireworks. Resist the urge to tame that energy too much; if you squelch it, you will likely lose your motivated leaders.

Andy Stanley underscored this principle: “One of the most important things you can do is surround yourself with smarter people.” 8 Are the members of your team smarter than you? Are they both willing and encouraged to vehemently disagree (in a Christlike way) with all the members of your team, including the leader?

As pastor Larry Osborne notes, “Sooner or later the leadership table gets too crowded. Communication suffers, meetings run long, low-level conflict increases, and nothing much gets done anymore.” 11 If your team is populated with a person who constantly shuts down your progress, we’d like to offer suggestions for the confrontation that needs to happen.

The main senior leadership team doesn’t have to do all the leading.

The best teams are evaluated as a team, not only as individuals.

Chapter 9: Discipline 3: Rely on Inspiration More Than Control to Lead

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      explains the leadership behaviors of those who lead thriving teams
• ·      highlights the kinds of relationships that team members report with team leaders
• ·      discusses how leaders build trust within teams— and how that’s different than often thought
• ·      explores various approaches to “first among equals” on teams
• ·      identifies ten essential team leadership practices
• ·      shows leaders how they can cultivate greater shared leadership in their teams

Quotes:

The first step that effective leaders need to take is not to ask “What can I do?” Rather they should ask “Am I needed at all? Will my actions, or even my presence, do more harm than good?” The best leaders know when and how to get out of the way.

The best leaders exhibit transformational, inspirational and visionary leadership behaviors.

Behaviors of Those Who Lead Teams That Thrive

• ·      They are biblical
• ·      They are transformational and motivational
• ·      They cast vision and see the big picture
• ·      They are not hands-off
• ·      They are not autocratic
• ·      They prioritize relationships
•      Trust is a byproduct of a team’s focus and pursuit of a common purpose.

Less than 20 percent of leadership team leaders have received special training in how to lead teams.

Ten Practices of Great Team Leaders

1.  Structure the team for success
2. Establish with your team a 5C purpose (clear, compelling, challenging, calling oriented and consequential).
3.  Get the right people on the team.
4.    Facilitate goal setting in pursuit of the team’s vision.
5. Set priorities and focus on achieving team goals.
6.   Ensure a collaborative climate among the group
7.   Unleash talent by allowing others to do real work.
8.   Do real work themselves.
9. Employ thoughtful, careful procedures for solving problems, making decisions and innovating
10.   Manage performance.

Chapter 10: Discipline 4: Intentionally Structure Your Decision-Making Process Part 1: Collaborating While Seeking God’s Voice

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      discuss the particular problems senior leadership teams face when making decisions
• ·      explore typical hang-ups and problems with group decision making
• ·      offer a diagnostic to help you identify challenges with your team’s decision-making processes
• ·      present a solution to those problems: structured interaction that invites God to speak to the group

Quotes:

Maybe one of the reasons our ministries are so ineffective is because we don’t make room for God’s power, since we are so enamored with our own.

This parallels what group communication literature has suggested for many years: groups that conduct their business in a free-flowing, unstructured, haphazard manner tend to flounder, whereas those that intentionally structure and regulate their interaction generally perform at a much higher level. 7 Though sticking to a discussion plan or meeting agenda sometimes feels unnatural and awkward, it’s clear that doing so supports team effectiveness.

. What James warns us about is that our freedom to make plans is not a license to live free from God. To come to that conclusion would be arrogant. The phrase, ‘If it is the Lord’s will,’ ought to infect our thinking. It ought to be a standard part of our vocabulary.”

Chapter 11: Discipline 4: Intentionally Structure Your Decision-Making Process

Part 2: Collaborating in the Midst of Conflict  

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      discusses the communication practices that make a difference for team decision-making performance, specifically dealing with conflict
• ·      lays out a process you can use (and tweak) to help your team make better decisions

Quotes:

In one of the most representative studies ever conducted of US churches, involving over ten thousand congregations across every denomination and tradition, one factor rose to the top as the greatest predictor of whether a church is growing or non-growing. It is the presence or absence of lingering destructive conflict.

They fear artificial agreement more than offending a teammate.

“Conflict doesn’t destroy strong teams because strong teams focus on results,”

They are committed first to being members of the leadership team and secondarily to leading their respective ministry area (youth, kids, worship, etc.).

One way to train team members to take a churchwide perspective is to ask them to think like another team member, such as the executive pastor or children’s pastor when viewing a decision.

In fact, great teams tend to spend three and a half hours a week in team meetings, and another three talking informally with members of the team.

Chapter 12: Discipline 5: Build a Culture of Continuous Collaboration      

Purpose of the Chapter:

• ·      discusses the typical problems with meetings
• ·      identifies best meeting practices that made a difference for thriving teams
• ·      explores the relationship between getting work done and building community among team members
• ·      offers simple strategies to effectively structure meetings with sample agendas and meeting practices
• ·      provides advice for collaborating effectively and sharing information with people outside of the leadership team

    

Quotes:

The Problems with Meetings

• ·      They’re usually about words and abstract concepts, not real things.
• ·      They usually convey an abysmally small amount of information per minute.
• ·      They drift off-subject easier than a Chicago cab in heavy snow.
• ·      They require thorough preparation that people rarely do anyway.
• ·      They frequently have agendas so vague nobody is really sure of the goal.
• ·      They often contain at least one moron who inevitably gets his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense.
• ·      Meetings procreate. One meeting leads to another meeting leads to another.

Meeting Practices of Top Teams:

• ·      Teams do more than formally “meet” together. They collaborate continuously.
• ·      Meeting agendas are distributed to all team members, preferably at least one day in advance.
• ·      Meeting agendas are not solely developed by the lead pastor.
• ·      Agendas clearly delineate the work for the meeting.
• ·      Minutes are taken and distributed to relevant staff.

Part Five: What’s Your Best Next Step?

Chapter 13: Six Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Team

Purpose of the Chapter:

In this chapter, we discuss six headwinds that can radically affect your ability to succeed as a leadership team.

Quotes:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -- Aristotle

“culture— not vision or strategy— is the most powerful factor in any organization.”

Six Headwinds:

• 1.     Culture that embraces the status quo
• 2.     A Culture that Adopts the Latest Fad Advice Then Goes Back to Normal Operations
• 3.     A Culture of Spontaneity that Limits Planning and Structure
• 4.     A Culture that Reinforces the Ultimate Authority of the Lead Pastor
• 5.     A Culture That Undermines the Leadership Team’s Important Contribution
• 6.     A Culture That Ignores Biblical Accountability

Chapter 14: Catalyze Your Team’s Growth              

     

Quotes:

1. Make sure your team is really leading.

2. Ensure that your team is effective.

3. Keep evaluating.

4. Invest in your team’s development.

Book Summary: The Power of Thanks -- Eric Mosley & Derek Irvine

The Power of Thanks:

How Social Recognition Empowers Employees and Creates a Best Place toWork

By Eric Mosley & Derek Irvine

Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine write a fantastic book on ‘The Power of Thanks.’  Below I have included some highlights as well as momentous quotes.  I have purchased copies of this book for some relevant individuals in my work environment.

Introduction to the book and concept:

Culture is the heart and soul of any organization. Culture drives competitive advantage. Culture is powerful, pervasive, and enduring…. culture makes the difference between excellence and mediocrity, between success and failure.

Summary of Book Thesis:

It’s important to recognize high performers, but if you confine your recognition program to them, you create a very small winner’s circle— one already inhabited by engaged, motivated employees. Social recognition rewards that top 10 percent (and they will still get the lion’s share of the high-value awards). It also recognizes the 70 percent of people behind those top performers who carry the organization every day. These are the classic unsung heroes. They are the “Mighty Middle”— the people who dutifully attend to their tasks, are consistently polite on the phone, and reliably complete work on time. A broad improvement in company performance requires bringing these people into the winner’s circle.

Definition of Recognition Journey:

Achieving true recognition success happens through a process we call the social recognition journey. Companies start out with small, intuitive steps like publicly giving thanks for great performance.

This tactical recognition is the most common form of recognition— the plaque on the cubicle wall and a mention in the company monthly e-mail. It’s very basic, the equivalent of placing a “like” notice on a Facebook page.

The next step in the recognition journey is enterprise recognition, which requires applying a bit more structure and resources to a recognition program across the entire organization. This is where many recognition programs include cash or other awards, and HR departments track the recognition program. It gives better results than tactical recognition because it’s managed in a quantifiable and consistent way. And most organizations on the recognition journey stop there.

Strategic recognition is a significant step forward because it aligns the entire program, from funding recognition awards to defined reasons for recognition to capturing the data that a program can provide to strategic goals. Strategic recognition is on a par with first-rate financial controls or just-in-time procurement policies. No longer a nice-to-have, it is the technology that enables a host of strategic goals, just as financial practices and technology know-how enable strategic goals. Social recognition is the mass mobilization of all employees that’s pivotal to unleashing the full power of recognition.

Part 1— Understanding Organizational Culture

We will describe the behaviors found in an effective culture and how transactional factors among people such as appreciation, recognition, and respect benefit all employees individually and inspire the most productive attitudes and behaviors.

Chapter 1: The Rise of Company Culture

Summary: This chapter explains how culture drives core values deep into an organization, and why culture is the defining driver of today’s business environment.

Quotes:

A distinctive company culture starts with a clear vision, but vision alone doesn’t establish and sustain a culture. That happens when the values inherent in a vision inspire emotions that then drive new behaviors. The right behaviors drive change.

Yesterday’s differentiators are today’s commodities. In today’s rapidly changing and global marketplace, only an engaged workforce creates sustainable, defensible value.

Herb Kelleher, the legendary cofounder and chairman of Southwest Airlines, believed “Culture is what you do when people aren’t looking.” It’s how employees behave when they step away from the power relationships in an organization and operate purely on instinct based on their own values.

Creating a culture means choosing a limited number of values that define the company as surely as its products or logo do, and then encouraging expression of those values in everyday behavior.

“Culture is a slow-growing tree. In the beginning it needs protection. But after a couple of decades the culture will be stronger than you are. You need to work with it, not against it.… Culture is a powerful but fragile thing. If you burn down the culture tree, it takes a long time to grow another one.” —Wally Bock, Three Star Leadership

A strong organizational culture is a competitive advantage in its own right. It attracts talent. It promotes a winning spirit of optimism and energy.

Chapter 2: The People-First Workplace

Summary: Why does appreciation matter to a company’s bottom line? This chapter demonstrates how the power of thanks works with individual employees and across an organization to create, encourage, and manage a chosen culture. We’ll show how and why recognition enables employees and organizations to reach their fullest potential, and we’ll discuss the latest research confirming an old-fashioned idea: that happiness at work benefits organizations of all kinds.

Quotes:

William James, one of the founders of modern psychology, wrote in 1896, “The deepest principle of Human Nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

“Aside from pay, what motivates and engages you at work?” Fifty-nine percent replied, “Praise and recognition.”

In the context of the modern organization, giving and receiving thanks is a sophisticated form of communication in five ways:

1. Thanks identify the right behaviors.

2. Thanks are feedback.

3. Thanks break through social and emotional barriers.

4. Thanks create trust and social bonds.

5. Thanks feel good.

Study any annual list of an area’s best workplaces and you’ll find similarities— great working conditions, fair pay, work-life balance— and you’ll also find frequent descriptions of those intangible social factors such as support, a sense of mission, encouragement, optimism, and teamwork.

Those two words— recognizing and behaviors— are the foundation of a Positivity Dominated Workplace. Recognition matters because it reinforces the right actions, encouraging them to happen again and again, providing guidance, and adding social value. Behaviors matter because in a workplace, behavior trumps intention. Behavior, not intentions or even ideas, makes profits and achieves missions. The Positivity Dominated Workplace is first and last an active, achievement-oriented institution.

Chapter 3: Appreciation, Gratitude, and Employee Engagement

Summary: Management studies and social science create a progressive framework for understanding why giving and receiving appreciation is not only beneficial but vital to a well-functioning organization. Many sources, from Maslow’s famous hierarchy of psychological needs to McKinsey’s research about employee engagement, suggest a model for moving culture forward.

Quotes:

Gratitude is a bit more personal than appreciation— it means expressing thanks for a benefit one has received.

The mediocre manager likes to think that his or her employees should be grateful to have a job.

Let’s look at the aspects of appreciation that make it essential to culture management:

·      Thanks are motivating.

·      Thanks are humanizing.

·      Thanks are specific.

·      Thanks are empowering.

·      Thanks are powerful.

Seventy-one percent of Millennials reported meaningful work was among the three most important factors defining career success, while 30 percent believed it was the most critical factor.

Here are 14 beneficial effects of gratitude on the health of individuals and their workplaces:

1. Grateful people achieve more

2. Grateful people are better corporate citizens.

3. Grateful people are less likely to burn out.

4. Grateful people pay it forward.

5. Grateful people are more morally alert.

6. Giving creates a positive feedback loop.

7. Opportunity to give increases commitment to a company.

8. Givers are more engaged.

9. Gratefulness increases emotional well-being.

10. Grateful people get along better with others.

11. Grateful people are more resilient to trauma.

12. Grateful people sleep better.

13. Grateful people are physically healthier.

14. Grateful people are less depressed.

Engaged and productive employees are by definition empowered to achieve results.

Part 2— Understanding Social Recognition

Social recognition is a set of practices to manage company culture. Before planning a social recognition program, everyone involved needs to understand how it works and where it is going in the coming decade.

Chapter 4: Setting a Purpose and a Vision

Summary: Leadership means telling the world why a company exists— its purpose— and describing a vision for how that purpose will be achieved. Of course, this includes the strategy and tactics for delivering products and services to market. Critically, it also includes the way in which those results will be achieved— the underlying acceptable behaviors and environment to deliver on the business plan: in other words, the company’s culture. Strategically implemented recognition moves people toward that vision, and it is achieved through a social architecture that enables individuals to contribute to that progress through their work.

Quotes:

Many CEOs hope the senior team will extend culture by passing on what the boss says, or translating the boss’s values into their individual styles as they manage their departments. Soon, multiple executives are working within their own spheres of influence, and the cultural norms and imperatives the CEO feels are important become diluted further. Managers pursue different business drivers, different imperatives, different problems and opportunities. Social hierarchies complicate the picture: If the company has a go-go sales culture, then the sales representatives are the royalty. If it’s a product culture, the product managers are the princes and princesses of the realm. Different “tribes” tend to believe their culture is best, whatever the CEO urges.

“We need a Chief Culture Officer!” says the CEO, and the search is on to find someone who will spread the word about recognition, and talk about the culture, and arrange events and programs that promote the values.… Wait. There already is a Chief Culture Officer, and it’s the person the CEO sees in the mirror. If culture is that important— and it is— then the CEO has to promote it relentlessly. Otherwise it’s a “nice to have.”

Social architecture is to culture what a foundation, beams, and joists are to a building. Social architecture is found in a thousand small behaviors: communication, traditions, authority, privileges, and “ways of doing things.”

Three components of social architecture deserve special mention here: shared values, employee engagement, and united execution create a high-performance culture. Social recognition is the link connecting all three.

 Shared values, engaged employees, and united execution can be a daily reality with a strong, supportive, and inclusive social architecture. Strong social architecture, like the architecture of houses or cathedrals, is born of long thought and careful planning and deliberate work. And it requires specialized tools to come into being.

Chapter 5: The Evolution and Reinvention of Recognition

Summary: This chapter examines the breakthrough concepts that move recognition from a “nice to have” benefit to an invaluable practice fully integrated with global management systems. We’ll share a model of how recognition progresses from individual moments of appreciation and thanks to an enterprise-wide and socially empowered practice.

Quotes:

In purely psychological terms, motivation is an emotional state, and incentive is the stimulus that gives rise to that state.

“Organizations spend far too much time and energy on compensation and not nearly enough on recognition. People long to be a valued member of their organization and want to feel that it is a meritorious place— the latter because it helps them feel that it is worth being a valuable member of it. Both require recognition. Workers need to know that they are valued and they will feel better if they are working for a company that values its employees in a thorough and intelligent fashion."

Chapter 6: Social, Mobile, and 24/ 7

Summary: Workforce habits and employee behavior are changing faster today than at any time in the past. The impact of online social behavior, mobile technology, and a cultural shift toward 24/ 7 connectivity is changing interaction across geographies, generations, and hierarchies. We’ll show how recognition fits in this new work paradigm.

Quotes:

However the next generation (“ Generation Z”) might differ in its tastes and attitudes, we believe that the trend toward multigenerational workforces is a long-term business reality. In fact, as baby boomers postpone retirement and businesses find it profitable to retain the boomers’ experience with more flexible work arrangements, it’s likely that by 2020 large organizations will find four distinct cultural generations working together. Business leaders who create a culture that unifies such disparate cohorts will harness an incredible range of knowledge, wisdom, and talent.

Part 3— Putting Social Recognition into Practice

 

Acknowledging culture’s role in the workplace and social recognition’s role in culture management, Part 3 is a blueprint for putting recognition into practice following several essential principles. As part of implementing social recognition, Part 3 also described the key business impacts of recognition beyond managing culture.

Chapter 7: Building a Social Recognition Framework

Summary: This chapter outlines a step-by-step plan for implementing social recognition in your organization, with strategies and key practices that will improve your culture and results.

Quotes:

Commitment without alignment means wasted effort (and frustration). Alignment without commitment means wasted potential employee turnover). Recognition singles out great performance (commitment) that focuses on strategic goals (alignment).

A number of metrics should be monitored to judge the effectiveness of your recognition program. They include:

• ·      80 to 90 + percent of employees touched by the program (as nominators or recipients)
• ·      More than 60 percent of employees are regular participants, nominating others or receiving recognition at least six times a year
• ·      A six-month survey shows 90 percent of managers participating
• ·      A one-year survey confirms that 90 percent of employees agree “the program helps motivate sustained high performance”
• ·      Program reaches all geographic and demographic groups of the organization

Lack of recognition for a job well done is the second most common reason people quit (after compensation).

Here’s why that approach means lost opportunity: That particular group of people already wakes up every morning very motivated to do their jobs. It’s important to recognize high performers, but if you confine your recognition program to them, you create a very small winner’s circle— one already inhabited by engaged, motivated employees. Social recognition rewards that top 10 percent (and they will still get the lion’s share of the high-value awards). It also recognizes the 70 percent of people behind those top performers who carry the organization every day. These are the classic unsung heroes. They are the “Mighty Middle”— the people who dutifully attend to their tasks, are consistently polite on the phone, and reliably complete work on time. A broad improvement in company performance requires bringing these people into the winner’s circle.

Chapter 8: Driving ROI and Business Results

Summary: Any recognition program worthy of the name should deliver measurable return on investment. In addition to improving the bottom line, recognition advances key HR goals such as employment branding, becoming a great place for people to work, increasing employee engagement and energy, and boosting retention.

Quotes:

Turnover is a budget-killer for HR because the cost of replacing employees who quit ranges from 50 percent to 150 percent of a year’s salary. 4 For example, a company of 10,000 employees with annual salaries ranging between $ 30,000 and $ 150,000 and an 11 percent turnover rate spends more than $ 41 million in turnover costs! (See Figure 8.1.) Compare that to the cost of a recognition program set at 1 percent of payroll ($ 4 million). Even if a recognition program reduced turnover by just 20 percent, it would more than pay for itself— and that doesn’t include all the other benefits of recognition.

Data show that employee satisfaction is positively correlated with shareholder returns.

Chapter 9: How Social Recognition Impacts HR

Summary: Social recognition’s impact radiates outward to key executive concerns such as health and wellness, safety initiatives, change management, performance reviews, and predictive workforce analytics. We will show how to bolster each of these practices using the benefits of recognition, from the concrete (workforce analytics) to the ephemeral (employee goodwill).

This book represents the best thinking from the best-performing organizations on culture, employee engagement, and the simple human truths underlying successful management practices. We’ll share their wisdom in the text and in special comments we call “Expert Insights,” along with cautionary observations from companies that ignored these truths at great cost. The best practices presented here can help you and your organization leverage the power of thanks to create a culture of recognition that drives performance, profits, pride, and a best place to work.