‘Tis the season for Appreciation. O.C. Tanner, shared some research last year in their 10-year, 200,000 person study that focused on employee engagement, retention and results that shared some strikingly sad facts on Appreciation. As leaders, we sometimes miss the depths that the role appreciation really has in the workplace. In this study, 79% of people in the United States leave their jobs because they don’t feel appreciated. In fact, they found that 69% of North Americans surveyed don’t even hear one word of recognition during an entire year at work, that is just crazy.
So you can see why appreciation is so important for people to feel great about themselves, and it just shifts everything. I really believe that as a leader, sharing your appreciation is an obligation, it’s a responsibility. Leaders have to be in integrity to communicate with other people, how much and what you really appreciate about them.
Appreciation vs. Recognition
Now, what I want to do is I want to kind of make a distinction between recognition and appreciation.
Recognition is…
“Hey, you did a good job”,
As an employee, having some Tell me, “Hey, good job,” doesn’t really engage me. It doesn’t make me feel any better. What really makes people feel better and what my challenge for you all is to go out there and not just recognize but actually Appreciate.
How to Share Your Appreciation
It’s now December I just think that, yes, people will be sharing wine and giving out scotch and soda and candy. Everyone’s giving away candy, and mistletoe and all that kind of really great stuff. I am going to challenge you, and I’m going to say that the most important thing that you can do for your folks for your peeps for your team members is, is actually share your appreciation for who they are.
So, find something that you just admire about another person. Make it a specific behavior, trait or action that person does that you really admire. For example, I appreciate your commitment. I appreciate your perseverance, I appreciate how you look at at a task and it’s really difficult in the beginning and then you power through it, I appreciate your creativity, and I appreciate your humor and your ambition. That is full appreciation.
My Example of Appreciation:
Justine, has been with me for two years now, and what I appreciate about her is she just digs in and she just you know, grabs the bull by the horns and she nails it in everything I’m throwing at her that she’s never, ever done before. Justine, I really appreciate your dedication to me for dedication to yourself, your husband to your daughters and to this whole world of leadership development, I really appreciate you, we could not have done what we’ve done over the last two years without you and I just really appreciate who you are and how far you’ve come in your journey coming from the Navy to being a leadership enthusiastic.
A Special Tool for You
You can download and print our appreciation mindmap to help you formulate and share your appreciation with your team. We challenge you this month to share your appreciation with your team as much as you can, and if you share your appreciation online, we ask that you please use the hashtag #appreciationchallenge so that we can see the impact we are making!
To learn how you can strengthen your team some more, book a Free Consultation
Transcript:
Hi, it’s Mitch Simon. It’s December, and it’s the beginning of December, and I just lead a two-day retreat. Where it was it was obvious that one of the most important things that the people in the retreat desired, wanted was appreciation.
In fact, one of the questions I asked before the retreat was, “is there, what are some of the emotional things that you’d want to get out of being on this team at this company?” It’s a company in San Diego, and what was amazing was six people answered and five out of the six said, appreciation. I mean, I didn’t even say choose from those above. But those people basically said appreciation, that’s what I want is appreciation.
And this is a perfect time to talk about appreciation. I know personally, I was off for Thanksgiving, which was the first time I was off for a couple of days. And I just took a couple of days to just kind of look around, stop and think about how much I appreciate. I appreciate having you as an audience. I appreciate everything that you guys stand for because you’re watching these videos and you want to be better. And we appreciate my boys and appreciate my girlfriend, I appreciate Justine, who works so hard to make this, this available for you and to make my company available for you.
So it’s time to really stop and appreciate it. So the question is, is like how do you do it? So So first, let’s start with some statistics. Now, it’s amazing that 79% 79% of people in the United States leave their jobs because they don’t feel appreciated. In fact, what’s the number is 69 69% Believe it or not 69% of people don’t hear one word of appreciation during an entire year at work. Yes, 69 people surveyed basically said they’ve never heard one word of appreciation during their year at work that is just that’s just crazy. So you can see why appreciation is so important for people to feel great about themselves, and it just shifts everything.
I mean, I really believe that it’s an obligation, it’s a responsibility. Because it’s just its integrity too, to communicate with other people, how much you really appreciate about them.
Now, what I want to do is I want to kind of make a distinction between recognition and appreciation.
So recognition is you know, “hey, you did a good job, see a high five.” And, you know, we come to work to do work and we come to work to do a good job. So having someone tell me, you know, “Hey, good job,” it doesn’t really engage me. It doesn’t make me feel any better. What really makes me feel better? What really makes people feel better? And what my challenge for you all is to go out there and not just recognize but actually appreciate.
Now, what does that mean to fully appreciate a human being is to basically share those attributes of that human being that you appreciate, right. I appreciate your commitment. I appreciate your, your perseverance, I appreciate how you look at at a task and it’s really difficult in the beginning and then you power through it, you appreciate your creativity, and I appreciate your humor and your ambition. That is full appreciation.
So how does it really work?
So what I want you to do is it’s December I just think that, yes, people will be sharing wine and giving out scotch and soda and candy. Everyone’s giving away candy, and mistletoe and all that kind of really great stuff. I am going to challenge you, I’m going to say that the most important thing that you can do for your folks for your peeps for your team members is, is actually share your appreciation for who they are. So I’ll begin.
Justine, she has been with me for two years now, and what I appreciate about her is she just, she just digs in and she just you know, grabs the bull by the horns and she nails it in everything I’m throwing at her that she’s never, ever done before. Justine, I really appreciate your dedication to me for dedication to yourself, your husband to your daughters to this whole world of leadership development, I really appreciate you, we could not have done what we’ve done over the last two years without you. And I just really appreciate who you are and how far you’ve come in your journey coming from the Navy to being a leadership enthusiast.
So yeah, that’s how it goes.
How does it work? So, find something that you just admire about another person, whether it’s your boss or a teammate, and, and just share like, okay, you know, I love how you’re committed. I love how you come to work every day smiling and, and passionate, and I love how much empathy and caring compassion that you have for the people on the team. I love how you are always thinking about making sure that everyone’s on the same page and everyone is satisfied and everyone connected. Those are the things that that are just going to basically, I think it’s gonna it’s interesting how much it actually gives you as the appreciator. I think almost it’s more for you as the appreciator than the appreciatee if those are even words I don’t even though their words.
Now what we have extra special coming to you because we’ve got the technology, we actually created an appreciation mindmap yeah, appreciation mindmap. So this is something that you can you can take in. There’s a lot of spaces for lots of people to appreciate down here. And what we’re asking you to do is write down what is it I appreciate about this person, what characteristic that they have and actually did the value that they live by? Why do you appreciate them and what is the impact?
So appreciation is a trait, but it’s also the impact. So you know, when you persevere, when you try new things, Justine, when you dive in, you know, the impact you have is, you know, on me making it possible for me to actually do these things to go out there and do live videos. In addition to the work, because I’ve been working just crazy hours, she’s really freed me up to have the impact. It’s because of Justine, that I can actually have more impact than I can in my one-on-one with my teamwork. And the impact we’re having is really changing people’s lives. So Justine, you are helping me change people’s lives now.
That’s how it goes. It’s not that hard. So we’re giving you this challenge. We’d love to see you download this and, and share your appreciation for the people in your life.
I’m Mitch Simon, with The Simon Leadership Alliance I really appreciate you watching. I appreciate you taking the time and appreciate thinking about how appreciation might impact you and how it might impact the people in your life. And it’s just been a great year. Thank you so much, and we’ll see you next time.
