Blanchard on recognition

Notes from Customer Mania
Ken Blanchard

• The real bread and butter for effective managers and leaders is the day-to-day monitoring and feedback of people’s performance.
• The key to developing people and creating great organizations is to accentuate the positive, that is to catch people doing things right.
• Focus on what you want people to do, not on what they did wrong. People want to know when they are performing well, and if they are not, they want to be helped back onto the right path.
• One caution about praising and recognition: don’t wait to acknowledge people’s efforts until they have done it exactly right; otherwise you might wait forever. Remember: Praise Progress.
• Have an Employee of the Moment program. If you see someone going the extra mile for an internal or external customer, recognize her on the spot.
• Praising makes people and relationships strong.
• People love to be caught doing something right. When it comes to catching people doing things right, and reinforcing the importance of your values, it doesn’t hurt saying it over and over and over again. How many of you are sick and tired of all the compliments you get at work? We can never get enough.