What even is recognition?

Do you feel valued? Do you know what would make you feel valued? Are you communicating this?

My inspiration for this article is two fold:

• I was asked some time ago to write some thoughts on how to manage/motivate senior individual contributors.
• I recently recalled an interesting discussion I had with my previous team where there was a shared realisation that everyone had been thinking about recognition in a very limited way.

Managers seeing employee satisfaction results that say people don’t feel valued while simultaneously having team members that say they don’t “like recognition”.

f you are one of the people who say you don’t like, don’t need or don’t care about recognition then with all due respect …I call BS.

I’m not saying you are lying to other people (although you might be) but I would hazard a guess you are lying to yourself.

The realisation I mention above came about in a team meeting when I asked everyone who had stated that they don’t need recognition (as part of a getting to know each other exercise), how they would feel if:

• A stakeholder shared a project they had a key role in without acknowledging their part in it.
• A manager took credit for their work.
• They received a performance rating lower than they felt they deserved.
• They didn’t receive a promotion they had been working towards.

Sometimes we can only spot recognition in its absence.

And actually I would go so far as to say, sometimes the recognition that is important to us changes over time based on what it is we are lacking.

It’s important for us, then, to check in regularly with ourselves and with our teams about what recognition is important and motivating (or demotivating) to them so that we aren’t losing sight of that. Because if you look at recognition holistically I believe you will see it is key to motivating and managing all but in particular, with nuance, high performers and senior team members.

Types of recognition:

1. Thanks

This is an obvious one, but that doesn’t mean we do it enough. Explicitly showing gratitude and providing positive feedback are things we shouldn’t take for granted. That being said — when people say they don’t need recognition this may be one of…