One habit that can limit an executive's success is failing to give proper recognition to others. In withholding your recognition of another person's contribution to a team's success, you are not only sowing injustice and treating people unfairly, but you are depriving people of the emotional payoff that comes with success. They cannot revel in the success or accept congratulations when you have choked off that option. Instead, they feel forgotten, ignored, pushed to the side. And they resent you for it. If you really want to tick people off, ignore their contributions.
In depriving people of recognition, you are depriving them of closure. And we all need closure in any interpersonal transaction. Closure comes in many formsfrom the emotional complexity of paying our last respects to loved ones to something as pro forma as saying, "You're welcome when someone else says, "Thank you. Either way, we look for closure.
Recognition is all about closure. It's the beautiful ribbon wrapped around the precious gift of success you and your team have created. When you fail to provide that recognition, you cheapen the gift. You have the success but none of the afterglow.
This happens at work and at home.
In training programs, I ask participants, "How many of you think you need to do a better job of recognizing others for their great work? without fail, eight out of ten people raise their hands.
When I ask them why they fail at recognition, the answers say more about the people responding than the people not recognized. "I just got too busy, "I just expected everyone to do great work, "I never realized how important it was to them, "I was never recognized for my workwhy should they be?
Note the constant use of the first person singular pronoun. It's a hallmark of successful people; they become great achievers because of their intense focus on themselves. My career, my performance, my progress, my needs. But there's a difference between being an achiever and a leader. Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.
One of my clients taught me a wonderful technique for improving in the area of providing recognition.
1. He first made a list of all the important groups of people in his life (friends, family, direct reports, customers, etc.)
2. He then wrote down the names of every important person in each group.
3. Twice a week, on Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon, he reviewed the list of names and asked himself, "Did someone on this page do something that I should recognize?
4. If the answer was "yes he gave them some very quick recognition, either by phone, email, voice mail or a note. If the answer was "no he did nothing. He didn't want to be a phony.
Within one year this executive's reputation for providing positive recognition improved from poor to excellent. He was amazed at how little time this took.
Of all the interpersonal slights we make in our professional or private lives, not providing recognition is one of those that endures most deeply in the minds of the slighted.
Excerpted from What Got You Here Won't Get You There, 2007.
Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive, measurable change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams. His latest book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, won the Harold Longman Award for best business book of 2007. Marshall invites you to visit his library (MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com) for articles and resources you can use.
