Seeing the Goodness in PeopleIt never ceases to make me feel good to see the nice things that people do for each other in the work place. I guess you might call me an optimist but I do believe that most people are just plain good folks, there are the few exceptions that can give everyone else a bad name but, for the most part they seem to be in the minority.
I feel lucky that I'm in a business of positive feedback, I get to read really nice letters of sincere appreciation, perhaps that accounts for my bias to seeing the goodness in people.
Here I'll share one of the letters with you:
“On Friday, Rosalinda saw me walking with my cane, hands full, and offered to help me out. Even though she was only planning on going as far as the employee lounge, she walked with me all the way to my office carrying a bag for me. This was a selfless act that demonstrated service, teamwork and all the positive attributes associated with deserving praise."
By this I can see that this Rosalinda is a real caring and kind person. Little did Rosalinda know that this act of random kindness was to be "reported" the management!
One funny thing that I get asked about my system I produce (it encourages and captures this positive feedback) Can it collect negative feedback? I tell them "Sure it takes in what ever you put into it, but you really don't need a system for negative feedback that seems to find its way in no problem!”
Why is it so hard for the good stuff to get in?
Another funny story I’ll share with you:
I was referred to the “Complaint Department” of this company that had some strange policy that made absolutely no sense at all, I kept going around and around with the customer service person until finally she moved me on to a manager, this manager saw the error in their policy and went out of his way to get things straightened out for me, but we had to do this through the “Complaint Department” I asked do you have a “Praise” Department? The manager said “No he never heard of one there.” I replied “Don’t you think you could use one?” He laughed and said that would be something nice. I then told him about my system and asked him what he thought, he suggested I contact his manager, which I did, but first I sent an email to the manager explaining the superior service I had received, the manager kindly sent me an email back thanking me for taking the time to write and would make sure to pass the letter on to the employee. ( I did it that way to because my praise was real and I did not want it to get tied up with my solicitation.) I later contacted the manager again but this time telling them about the “Praise” department conversation I had and that I actually had a solution for them. He loved it!
Well what can I say, I’m capitalizing of the good things people have to say about each other and I’m proud of it!
Thanks for reading!
Steve Howard, President and Creator of PraiseStar" Your Portal for Praise /
http://www.employeepraise.com/Steve Howard has been in the Awards and Employee Recognition business for over 25 years. His current project is the PraiseStar Portal for Praise, a result from Steve's personal experiences in the Awards and Employee Recognition industry.
The PraiseStar™ Portal, Products & System are all designed specifically to encourage, capture and put to work for you your customers', managers' and co-workers' praises so that you can create self perpetuating leadership from within, help your employee training, education, compliance and other employee programs to be more successful.
