Everyone likes praise, as far as I am aware.
Praise and continuous improvement (CI) go hand in hand. For many people, making change happen isn’t a fun and glorious time. It is often a time for concern, frustration and trepidation.
Taking your team with you is a central strategy to making continuous improvement deliver results. For every one person that will drive continuous improvement out of sheer frustration and a desire to win, the other nine will need to follow your lead.
So, back to praise. I sit in many meetings where managers talk about giving bonuses to their staff, because of good ideas. Of course, implementing good ideas is the goal, but let’s stay with the cash incentive. Money can do funny things to people, so before you try and give financial rewards why not try these two options first?
- Saying ‘well done’.
- Creating a certificate for their wall.
Yes, certificates…
In my experience a poorly created certificate, with a silly sounding award title (e.g. ‘bestest scheduler implementer’) can do wonders. If you’ve read my book On Time Delivery, you’ll be familiar with the Big Brain Award (amongst others).
Certificates become a wanted thing in the organisations where they have been won and issued. They start conversations, they help gain momentum and lighten the process of change.
Ok, some people might hate certificates… but a lot don’t. Just throwing money at people can skew medium and longer term results. If you get money for good ideas, will you share them and develop them with your colleagues? Unlikely. That’s why I recommend trying the two above strategies first.
After all, it’s what Microsoft Paint was born to do!
(Or PowerPoint, as used for the above example.)
