I have to make a confession: I am a business romantic. Guilty as charged. Inspired by various new management ideas and paradigms, I all of a sudden found myself on a quest for creating the kind of corporate and team culture everyone wishes for.
Appreciation
One essential part of that culture that I seek – and a deep human need – is appreciation. Now, big business deals, project milestones and alike are mostly recognized and celebrated in a top-down manner by management teams, given that they closely relate to performance management. What seems to me is often neglected, overlooked and forgotten are the various smaller contributions within projects and teams; that one idea that saved the day, the selfless backup the one colleague provided to another that struggled with a task, that insighful read shared within one’s community of practice or simply the morale booster and positive energy that that one team member shares with the tribe. Furthermore, we tend to focus far to much on the negative experiences and almost fully neglect all the positive ones! I feel that we need to create organizations that strive to more systematically recognize these kind of contributions and express their appreciation for them in order to create environments where people can thrive.
Creating a steady conversation through a new organizational practice and symbol
I would like see to a continuous conversation and exchange emerge within an organization about how people can work together, provide support to each other and what can be co-created together that creates energy and strengthens its inner ties.
The discovery of the ‘Order of the Elephant’ by Alexander Kjerulf has been a revelation to me in this respect; a toy is shared as a weekly rotating trophy is given to colleagues as a gesture of appreciation. What a simple, playful and cordial idea!
Building on this great idea, I combined this organizational practice with a new symbol that serves its underlying message even stronger:
The giraffe is the landborne animal with the biggest heart, which not only make it the perfect heraldic animal and ambassador for this award, its also triggers conversations about the contributions of the holder of this trophy. Imagine the curiosity that a 1.7m tall (or even taller) toy giraffe would spark amongst visitor in a grey corporate open space office or cubicle farm and what effect such an award would make on his recipient. It would trigger at least a smile …
Pass it on every week as a gesture of appreciation
The giraffe’s golden tag resembles intentionally a medal and sets the respective context for the award:
“The giraffe is the landborne animal with the biggest heart: The perfect symbol for the culture of recognition that we want to create.
This award has been given to you by a colleague, who herewith would like to express his appreciation for something you did. – Keep it for a while and tell people who notice the trophy about why you got it.
If you would like to reward a colleague of yours, who helped you, feel free to pass it on.”
Optionally, one might even consider creating a ‘hall of fame’ (e.g. as an intranet site) that lists all the recipients of this award and counter organizational oblivion.
If that speaks to you, feel free to promote this and give it a try in your organization !
Let me know your thoughts on this and share your experiences with me !
Thank you
Such a food-for-thought post on a new approach to establishing a culture of recognition requires a tribute to the various authors that were a source of inspiration for this:
Shawn Anchor (‘The Happiness Advantage’), Alexander Kjerulf (‘Happy Hour is 9 to 5’), Charles Duhigg (‘The Power of Habit’), Marshall B. Rosenberg (‘Non-violent Communication’), Tony Hsieh (‘Delivering Happiness’) and many others.
This idea is clearly standing on the shoulders of giants.
Giraffe Award 