Fear or Excitement: Employee Attitude Closely Tied to Company Success

Recognize This: Stamping out fear of failure will help your company flourish.

Richard Branson, serial entrepreneur, and head of Virgin Brands, attributes his success to the people on his team. There’s a reason he’s one of the world’s wealthiest people – entirely self-made. Perhaps we should listen to his advice: 

“A successful business isn't the product or service it sells, its supply chain or its corporate culture: It is a group of people bound together by a common purpose and vision.”

What binds the “group of people” in your organization together? A mutual desire to continue getting a pay cheque and (for my American colleagues) health care? Or a mutual belief in the goals of the company and the value of that vision in the marketplace?

Casting the vision all can believe in and work hard to achieve is just the first step. How do you keep people bought in over the long-term? How do ensure people don’t lose sight of that vision? Again, from the master:

“Rather than focusing on mistakes, a leader needs to catch someone doing something right every day. If this culture of fostering employee development through praise and recognition starts at the top, it will go far toward stamping out the employee fear of failure that can stunt a business, particularly in its early days.”

Branson will be first to admit failures in his business ventures. But he will never lay the blame at the feet of his employees.

What’s the atmosphere where you work, especially as we finally begin to move out from under the lingering effects of the recession? Fearful of stepping out on a limb with a new idea or approach? Or excited to offer new ideas that might lead somewhere very intriguing?

There's still time to join me for the complimentary IHR Rewards & Recognition virtual conference and attend today's session at 12:30 (Eastern) in which I'll be presenting with Betsy Walker from Quintiles, a Globoforce customer, on The New R&R: Increasing Retention Using the Power of Recognition.

Overcoming Confusion, Fear and Complacency to Engage Employees

Recognize This: Intent without action is more than worthless – it could actually contribute to additional disengagement.

Wrapping up our week-long look at the Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study on employee engagement attitudes in the board room, the greatest challenge is the same is in many initiatives – taking action.

“Strong opinions might not translate into visible action. A sizeable discrepancy exists between what companies say about the perils of disengagement and how far they will actually go to confront the problem.”

The lack of action is likely due to three reasons:

1) Confusion – too much advice from too many sources on what to tackle first, making it easier to choose to do nothing.

2) Fear – concern that the “wrong” action might be taken, making engagement worse.

3) Complacency –it’s easier to stick your head in the sand and hope it all goes away. After all, it’s not really that bad, right?

Let me make it simple for you. Employee engagement boils down to this: does the employee understand their role in the organization, realize the importance of that role to company success, and desire to contribute their all achieve that success?

Strategic employee recognition is a powerful tool for engaging employees because it communicates clearly, frequently, specifically and in a timely way to all employees, individually: what they are doing that is being done well, what is valued and appreciated by the organization, in a way that encourages the employee to want to repeat it.

And our customers have proven time and again that doing so can increase employee engagement by double digits in just 12 months. It really is that easy. Say “thank you” – specifically, meaningfully and often – and people will be more engaged with you, their team and the company as a whole.

Links to all posts on Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study:
Part 1: C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement
Part 2: The Board Must Care about Employee Engagement for Improvement to Be Seen
Part 3: Many Managers Won’t Act on Engagement Unless Empowered by the C-Suite
Part 4: Who’s the Bigger Problem: GenY or Long-Serving Staff?

Who’s the Bigger Problem: GenY or Long-Serving Staff?

Recognize This: All employees – regardless of generation or length of service – need reasons to engage with your company and strategic objectives.

Which demographic poses the greatest challenge to raising engagement levels in your organization: GenY (new) employees or “lifers” (those who have been with the organization for many years)?

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study we’ve been looking at all week, the C-suite seems to have drunk the Kool-aid on GenY, believing them hardest to engage. But other senior staff believe long-serving staff are the greater challenge:

“Long-serving staff pose the greatest engagement challenge. Respondents believe overwhelmingly that it is hardest to raise the engagement levels of ‘experienced and long-serving staff’. Again, however, C-suite executives reach a different conclusion from those below them. Only 27% of CEOs believe that this group presents the greatest challenge in raising engagement levels, as opposed to 57% of senior vice-presidents, heads of departments or business units. The C-suite is more likely than others to say that the under-25s represent the most problematic group of employees, in line with the current management orthodoxy surrounding Generation Y.”

As I’ve said before, GenY styles and expectations are really no different than those who preceded them – a desire to know that the work they are doing is correct, useful and meeting the requirements. Like all “new” employees, they’re often trying to “prove” themselves and their value to the organization.

For some long-serving staff, however, it can be easy to fall into a rut, even if that rut is a productive one. Once complacency settles in, how engaged are you really with your work, the customer or the company’s goals?

Of course these are broad brush strokes. I’m being overly simplistic, I know. I’m curious, though. Who do you side with? Is the C-Suite right that GenY are harder to engage? Or are the vice presidents and business heads correct that long-serving staff are more challenging?

Links to all posts on Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study:
Part 1: C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement
Part 2: The Board Must Care about Employee Engagement for Improvement to Be Seen
Part 3: Many Managers Won’t Act on Engagement Unless Empowered by the C-Suite

Many Managers Won’t Act on Engagement Unless Empowered by the C-Suite

Recognize This: People quit bosses, not companies.

That oft-quoted truism was proven once again in the Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup 2010 study on employee engagement we’ve been looking at this week. Another key conclusion:

“Middle managers are not deemed responsible for employee engagement. The low proportion (13%) of C-suite executives who believe that line managers and middle managers are ‘chiefly responsible’ for staff engagement is unlikely to boost the people-management skills of such managers. If they are not considered responsible no matter how good or bad they are, why should they try? The potential negative repercussions could be significant, since around two in five of those not in the C-suite believe the ‘motivational ability of one’s line manager’ (the most selected survey option) to be a considerable contributor to employee motivation.”

Yes, executives are responsible for setting the vision and goals for employee engagement, but managers are responsible for executing that vision. As I wrote about last month, “managers act as coaches to facilitate their team members’ engagement journeys.”

Until executives are willing to admit that managers – and their daily actions that have repercussions on their staff engagement levels – are the linchpin in engagement (and they certainly don’t seem to now), many managers won’t feel compelled to step up.

That’s why we encourage defined KPIs for managers for employee recognition activity – a proven means of increasing employee engagement by double digits.

How do you ensure managers understand their responsibilities for the engagement of those who work for them?

Links to all posts on Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study:
Part 1: C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement
Part 2: The Board Must Care about Employee Engagement for Improvement to Be Seen

The Board Must Care about Employee Engagement for Improvement

Recognize This: If employee engagement isn’t a board-level concern, it’s not really an important initiative.

Many say the follow-through is the most important part of the golf swing. The same is true in critical corporate initiatives.

Continuing our look at the key findings of the Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study on employee engagement views from the boardroom, consider this question: If engagement isn’t a board-level concern, is it really an important initiative in the company?

In our book Winning with a Culture of Recognition, we address this quite clearly. “Securing executive sponsorship” is one of our five tenets of Strategic Recognition, and “Start the Tempo at the Top” is one of the 10 tactics underpinning those five tenets. If your executive team does not believe employee engagement is a problem to be solved, or at the very least, a desirable area to invest time, measurement and efforts at continual improvement, then there is little hope of success.

A key conclusion of the Economist study is:

“A significant mismatch exists between words and deeds on engagement. There are clear inconsistencies in our survey findings, which suggest that words come more easily than concrete actions. For example, 84% of survey respondents say that ‘disengaged employees’ are one of the three biggest threats facing their business. Yet it appears that little is done to identify, support or even ‘weed out’ unengaged staff. For example, only 12% of respondents report that their companies ‘regularly and often’ tackle staff with ‘continually low engagement’. Even according to C-suite executives alone, engagement is discussed ‘occasionally’, ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ at board level in 43% of companies.”

Only 12% tackle those with continual low engagement? Barely more than half address engagement at the board level? How can you claim that disengagement is “one of the three biggest threats” if you don’t invest the energy and focus at the most senior level?

Keep in mind the causation found by Gallup – engaged employees generate financial success, not the other way around. I’d think company boards would be quite interested in any *guaranteed* means of generating financial success, wouldn’t you?

Links to all posts on Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study:
Part 1: C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement

C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement

Recognize This: If you can’t acknowledge you have a problem in the first place, you have no hope of solving it.

The Economist Intelligence Unit and HayGroup came out with very interesting research late last year: Re-engaging with Engagement: Views from the boardroom on employee engagement. This week, we’ll look at some of major conclusions of the report and how they impact you.

“The C-suite displays a consistently 'rose-tinted' view of engagement that is not shared lower down the ranks. One important revelation from our survey is the huge disparity between the views of many in the C-suite and those of less senior directors, including just a single rung below board level. For example, 47% of C-suite executives believe that they themselves have determined levels of employee engagement, a view shared by only 16% of senior directors outside the C-suite. More than one in five in the C-suite believe that employees are ‘much more engaged’ than those in rival firms, compared with only 7% of respondents outside the C-suite.”

I see two key problems here:
1) If you’re not willing to acknowledge the problem, you have no hope of solving it.
2) Reality of a situation may be best assessed by those closest to the workers and the work being done.

What’s the reality in your organization? Does the CEO truly lead engagement efforts? Do the actions of the C-suite ultimately determine how engaged employees really are? Do you think the employees in your company are “much more engaged” than those in rival firms? What’s the “reality” from your level within the organization?

Who’s Responsible for Employee Engagement

Recognize This: No one is responsible for your engagement but you, but others can certainly influence your desire to engage.

Are you engaged at work? Are the people on your team? Are the employees generally at your company?

Who’s responsible for engagement at your company? More and more “employee engagement” is being added to job descriptions/responsibilities for HR professionals and sometimes to line managers. There are even very high level titles such as Senior Vice President for Employee Engagement at numerous companies.

Is this right? Is this fair? The right answer is “maybe.”

BlessingWhite’s latest employee engagement study summarized this well:

“Individuals must own their own engagement. If they do not know what’s most important to them, they will not find it in your workplace (or potentially any other).

“Managers can’t make employees engaged. They can act as coaches to facilitate their team members’ engagement journeys.

“Executives must set the direction that your workforce aligns to, communicate that direction to ensure a clear line of sight throughout your organization, and create a culture that fuels engagement and business results.”

There’s a clear progression here. If executives don’t buy into engagement and promote it directly, managers can’t coach within an appropriate culture for engagement. Without that culture and coaching from managers, individuals are less likely to want to engage.

Where does your executive team stand on employee engagement? Are you like Sisyphus, pushing a rock up a hill you will never summit? Or are they at the top of the hill, pulling the rock up for you?

Sacrificing Company Culture Puts Market Share at Risk

Recognize This: Commitment to your company culture cannot rise and fall with economy.

During the recession, many companies took harsh actions they likely had no choice but to do. But many others took similar actions out of fear or even greed.

Those who were able to stay the course, however, are now working from a much stronger economic position today. For example, Panera Bread’s Executive Chairman and Founder Ronald Shaich explained their approach:

“We've continued to invest in labor in our cafés and the quality of our people. We've invested in the quality of the food. When everybody pulled back and we did more, the difference between us and our competitors went up. And we've been taking market share. We had near double-digit [same-store sales] for over a year now. The stock has tripled in the recession.”

By staying the course in its commitment to its culture – the behaviors and actions that make the company work – Panera Bread is now taking the lead in its industry, even through a recession. This is not surprising, based on research I’ve written about before:

“With extreme downsizes (in workforce) in the long term, companies really do suffer relative to competitors in the same industry facing the same sets of economic conditions. Extreme downsizers are companies that cut their workforce by more than 20 percent. … Most of them lag their industry for as long as nine years after a recession.”

Can you afford to lose market position for 9 years? Did your company take drastic (or even moderate) actions in the recession? What effects are you seeing in your colleagues? Do you see any improvement as the economy improves or are the effects lingering?

How to *Manage* a Culture of Recognition

Recognize This: It’s possible to proactively manage a company culture with a little directed effort.

Once you’ve created a company culture, how do you manage it?

As we explain in Winning with a Culture of Recognition:

“Culture management is the direction of behavioral choices based on values. It is a clear communication, training, and reward system, and recognition is one of its tools. In fact, culture management is implicit in every organization. The relevant question is, will culture management be deliberate, measurable, and globally directed toward shared, transparent values? Or will it be haphazard, unmeasured, and individually directed toward vague or hidden agendas?”

There’s three key elements to managing your culture implicit in the above:

1. Directing – Managing culture is a proactive endeavor. You can choose to sit back and let a culture develop, or you can proactively create the culture you want that you think employees will choose to engage in and be most productive under.

2. Behavioral Choices – If you choose the pro-active route, you must make an investment of time and energy to notice, acknowledge and appreciate the behaviors of employees that reinforce the culture. You can’t do this once a year (or even once a month). You must do it in the moment so the behavior and the recognition are closely associated in the mind of the employee.

3. Based on Values – What behavioral choices do you reinforce? Those that reflect the values that you’ve already determined to be important to the success of your company. Again, recognition of employees when they demonstrate those values in their daily work is the best method to bring the values to life in a meaningful way.

Are you proactively managing the culture in your company? Is anyone? Or is the culture something that “just is” or “just happens?”

How to *Create* a Culture of Recognition

Recognize This: A culture reflects a process that has become a habit.

Now that we understand what a company culture is, how do you do it?

Patty Azzarello in TLNT offered this tip:

“Say thank you. Creating a culture of recognition is a very powerful thing. Make sure you have ways of knowing when good things happen, and personally thank people. Make recognition and appreciation a process and a habit.”

You need both.

Process: A system that both makes giving recognition easy and ensures that it happens. This process could be formal or informal, but it must become as much a part of “the way things are done around here” as product development or customer service.

Habit: This speaks to encouraging an attitude of recognition – an approach to every day at work where people stop, look around, notice what others are doing and take the time to say “thanks.” Habits take time to form and require encouragement as they settle in place. Managers are responsible for making sure “process” becomes “habit.”

Once that happens, your culture of recognition is firmly in place.

What kind of culture do you have in your organization? A culture of recognition? A culture of intimidation? A culture of cooperation?

Stop Killing Passion at Work!

Recognize This: You always have the power of recognition.

Last month I received an email from an HR director I’ve corresponded with in the past (full disclosure: this person is not a client of Globoforce). Her role is head of employee engagement and the recognition and reward program. Her email to me was full of anguish over an attempt of recognition that was rejected.

She had nominated a colleague for a prestigious honor within the company. This colleague had demonstrated passion, knowledge, excitement and general excellence in completing a certain project far above and beyond expectations. But because the project was technically within the colleague’s job description, the recognition nomination was denied. The person had been “just doing their job.”

My advice to this person, who simply wanted to be sure her colleague was properly recognized for her efforts, was:

While you may not be able to recognize her through official channels, you do retain the power of recognition. I would recommend you:

1) Write a personal letter to the colleague, one she can keep and take with her wherever her career may take her in the future, expressing how much your colleague did to help you and how greatly you appreciate it.

2) If her boss is someone other than the person who denied the recognition nomination, send your colleague the above letter in an email, copying the boss so the boss will also know the tremendous asset your colleague is to the team.

3) However you can, help this colleague in her career by telling her colleagues and superiors what a wonderful and innovative asset she is.

What additional advice would you have given to ensure the fire of passion for the work wasn’t doused in this conscientious employee (both the one being nominated for recognition and the one trying to give it)?

Your CEO is "OUTTA HERE!" Too

Recognize This: Even senior executives need appreciation.

Picture the members of your C-Suite in your mind. How many of them do you think are in it for the long-haul? Can you imagine any of them leaving?

Apparently, they can. According to recent research from ExecuNet and Finnegan/MacKenzie:

“Executives’ collective satisfaction with their current leadership role and employer is demonstrably lower than their steady commitment to carry out the core and ever-evolving responsibilities of their job… Nearly any executive can be hired away at any time. If opportunity knocks, executives will take the risk to pursue it, even in an economic cycle like this.”

Just how many would consider leaving?

“92% of CEOs and 94% of all other management respondents say a leader can be engaged in their work and with their employer but still open to considering new career opportunities with other organizations.”

Why would they consider leaving? The research delves into possibilities, but money isn’t a leading factor. I suggest another reason – even your senior executives need to be appreciated for the work they do. Even those in the ivory tower need to know that those who work for them appreciate their efforts and recognize how hard they are working.

Are you in a senior leadership position? When was the last time someone thanked you for what you do? When was the last time you felt you and your efforts were truly appreciated?

If you’re not in senior leadership, would it feel odd to you to recognize someone above you? Why? Have you ever done that? Share your story.

CEO Sponsorship of Recognition Necessary for Success

In my last post, I discussed the critical importance of the CEO living and demonstrating the same values he or she is encouraging for the company. The Conference Board took this a step further in an article on “Leadership as Performance Art.”

“At some point, leaders of growing midsize companies realize that they are shapers of a corporate culture in which their every decision, every word and gesture are carefully scrutinized for meaning – and consistency with corporate values. Darden Restaurants’ [CEO Clarence] Otis told The New York Times that what surprised him most about his rise through a series of leadership posts was ‘how amplified everything you say or do is.’ You have to be very intentional about what you say and do, he added. Otherwise, it becomes a ‘directive,’ even when you don’t mean it to be.”

Of course employees, at all levels, look to the CEO for guidance, even if in just what kinds of behavior are acceptable. One would hope the CEO in question is more like Warren Buffet and less like Dennis Kozlowski. It’s incumbent on the CEO to set the tone of expectation throughout the organization.

That’s why one of our tenets of strategic recognition is to ensure executive sponsorship of the program. If you’re goal is to create a culture of recognition through which you can actively manage the social architecture of your organization, then the CEO must be fully on board with the effort – to the point where he or she is also actively and frequently recognizing employees for demonstrating company values in their daily work.

What example is your CEO setting in your organization? Do you see employees across the company emulating the CEO, for better or for worse?

CEO Values Critical to Employee Loyalty and Motivation

Let me ask you a question. How well do your senior leaders model the behaviors they request of their teams?

SmartBrief on Leadership recently asked just that question in a poll on their site (results at right). Sadly, less than 10% answered, “all the time.” The greatest percentage, 40%, said, “most of the time, but have their moments when they don’t.” And the next greatest answer at 32% said, “sometimes, when it’s easy to walk the talk.”

It’s that slippage – those “moments when they don’t,” those “when it’s easy” efforts – that’s killing employee loyalty and motivation according to research reported in Knowledge@W.P.Carey (the School of Business at Arizona State University):

“Mid-level managers are likely to rally around their company only if their CEO truly values the interests of the organization and is not motivated primarily by self-interest, according to the study by W. P. Carey School of Business Management Professor Anne S. Tsui, Ping Ping Fu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Jun Liu of Renmin University of China, and Lan Li of Chinese Entrepreneur Survey System. …

“In companies in which chief executives with transformational leadership behaviors valued above all the interests of the company and people -- both inside and outside -- middle managers demonstrated strong commitment to the companies and said they were unlikely to look for jobs elsewhere. But where transformational CEOs placed the highest values on personal fulfillment, the middle managers below them were less committed to the firm and more likely to seek positions outside the company.”

I’ve written before about the need to help employees align their personal values with the company values, and this never more true or necessary than in the CEO spot. A CEO who leads the company from a place of transparency, directed by his or her own personal values to the extent that those values permeate the organization to guide and direct its success as well, is the CEO whose team will remain the most loyal, most motivated and most productive in delivering what the CEO expects and needs for company success.

I’m lucky enough to have spent the last 10 years of my career working for such a CEO, Eric Mosley, who is also the co-author of our recent book, Winning with a Culture of Recognition. Eric built Globoforce on the same principles and best practices we share with our clients – frequently, timely, specific and meaningful recognition and appreciation of people when they demonstrate our company values and contribute to our success.

What about you? Does your CEO lead from a place of honest, consistent alignment of personal values with the values of your organization? How does that affect your loyalty to the organization?

Why CEOs MUST Lead Strategic Recognition Efforts

Have you ever worked for a bad boss? If you have, how’s your heart doing?

A recent report in the McKinsey Quarterly showed:

“For more than 75 percent of employees, dealing with their immediate boss is the most stressful part of the job. … Those with bad bosses suffered 20 to 40 percent more heart attacks than those with good bosses.”

The good news is, the report goes on to say, the bosses at the top matter the most because their subordinates monitor and replicate how they behave:

“The ripple effects of this CEO’s style are consistent with findings from peer-reviewed studies showing that senior executives’ actions can reverberate throughout organizations, ultimately undermining or bolstering their cultures and performance levels.”

This is a concept we discuss in detail in our new book Winning with a Culture of Recognition – that the CEO support of and direct involvement with a strategic recognition program is critical for adoption and success.

What do the best bosses do? They remove obstacles for employees (returning to the McKinsey report):

“The best bosses also boost performance by watching their people’s backs: making it safe for them to learn, act, and take intelligent risks; shielding them from unnecessary distractions and external idiocy of every stripe; and doing hundreds more little things that help them achieve one small win after another—and feel pride and dignity along the way.”

“Feel pride and dignity” – what a powerful phrase. That goes for projects that fail as well as those that succeed. Because unless you’re willing to fail on occasion, you’re not willing to try. And if you’re not willing to try, you’ll never succeed.

So, how do good bosses ensure employees “feel pride and dignity?”

“The late Robert Townsend, CEO of Avis and author of the masterpiece Up the Organization, called the phrase ‘thank you’ a ‘really neglected form of compensation.’ … Conveying this attitude is especially crucial when the stench of failure fills the air—precisely the time when people most need support from the boss and one another. Bosses with the will and the skill to provide that kind of support set the stage for learning from fiascos. Unfortunately, too many bosses have the opposite response and use such occasions to conduct ‘blamestorms’ or ‘circular fire squads,’ where the goal is to point fingers, humiliate the guilty, and throw a few overboard.”

What’s your management style? Express appreciation whether the project succeeds or fails? Or initiate “blamestorms?” Beware: your subordinates are watching and emulating everything you do.


Be sure to check out our new book "Winning with a Culture of Recognition," available on Amazon for pre-order now!

BlogTalk Radio: The Difference between Compensation & Rewards (and bringing them together)

Last week I had the pleasure of participating in my first BlogTalk Radio show. Hosted by Paul Hebert of i2i, I joined a panel of fellow Compensation Café bloggers to discuss “Compensation & Rewards: What’s the Difference?”

I truly enjoyed the experience. It’s not often that you get people from the compensation side of the table and those from recognition and incentives on the same conversation. It quickly became apparent that those versed in compensation (the “spreadsheet jockeys” as Ann Bares referred to herself and fellow compensation colleagues) and those focused on recognition and incentives rarely collaborate.

Why is this? We dove into a couple of main reasons:

1) Compensation consultants look after the employee’s financial contract (competitive, appropriate, etc.). Those of us on the other side (in recognition and incentives) look after the psychological contract (reinforcing the right values and attitudes, feeding psychic income needs, creating an engaged environment).

2) Measurement – We know how to measure compensation. People aren’t so comfortable measuring the social or psychological aspects. Are they culturally aligned? How do we measure that?

That’s why we focus so strongly on measurement of recognition and reporting on the bottom-line impact. One problem has long been the technology available to make this possible. But now, technology is stepping up, allowing us to record and celebrate recognition with the same degree of depth as compensation.

And this is driving the convergence of what senior leaders are looking for – Total Rewards. As I said on the show, compensation constructs the building, but recognition adds the decorative “flair.” Both are necessary for creating a workplace people feel safe working in and want to come to and engage in.

Check out Paul’s summary of the show, and listen in to the entire show (just over an hour). Let me know your thoughts on the convergence between compensation and rewards.

Become the Hired Help to Get the Results You Want

I like Seth Godin. I like his approach to the work world. I particularly admire his ability to write short, tight, pithy blog posts that never fail to make me think. A recent post of his has been running through the back of my mind for weeks now. The gist of the post:

“My boss (when I had a job) worked for me. … His job was to figure out how to best give me access to the people, systems and resources that would allow me to do my job the best possible way. … What happens if you say to the people you hired, ‘I work for you, what’s next on my agenda to support you and help make your numbers go up?’”

This speaks directly to the intrinsic motivator autonomy that Dan Pink and others tell us is so powerful. People want the autonomy to do good work. But managers so often excel at not removing roadblocks, if not actively creating them. I’m reminded of a job very early in my career. Several of us shared a single calculator. Work would slow as we anxiously waited our turn to check our numbers with the calculator. Think how much more productive we would all have been for an incredibly small investment in a few cheap calculators.

Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies, sees this as so important, he considers it a management philosophy:

“Employees First, Customers Second is a management approach. It is a philosophy, a set of ideas, a way of looking at strategy and competitive advantage. … The whole intent is to do everything we can to enable those employees to create the most possible value.”

How do you put employees first? How do you know what barriers to remove or tools to provide? How do you figure out how to “work for your employees?” Steve Hannah, CEO of the satirical newspaper The Onion, offers these guidelines.

“I am the hired help. The creatives are absolutely the center of gravity. … Never, ever do anything to deprive a human being of their dignity in work, in life. Always praise in public and criticize in private. … Listen to the people below you because they are on the front lines.”

Do you not only listen, but then act upon the suggestions of your people on the front lines? Do you offer praise when they deserve it? Do you see yourself as the hired help to make the “creatives” in your organization as successful as they can be? Until you do, you will not achieve the bottom-line results you want.

CEO as Culture Setter * Putting Employees First

In a paean of praise to Bill Greehey, former CEO of Valero Energy and current CEO of NuStar, Dan Hilbert (who worked for Greehey at Valero) describes Greehey’s leadership model that drove Valero to the third-fastest growth rate in American history and increase the value of NuStar from $500 million to $3 billion in three years. The model is simple:

1. Take care of your employees.
2. Demand that employees take care of the community.
3. The community takes care of the company.

How did Greehey take care of his employees? One way was through direct, person-to-person thank-yous for hard work and encouragement for his subordinates to do the same throughout the company. Hilbert also describes the extreme and costly outpouring to take care of employees in the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. Greehey also operates under a no-layoff policy.

This is a perfect example of the importance of putting employees (not shareholders) first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of you, your customers, your community and your shareholders.

The story of a personal thank you is particularly telling -- we all need and indeed crave appreciation and recognition of our efforts. But instilling such a culture of recognition must start at the top -- and be emphatically and consistently demonstrated by the CEO and then encouraged in his direct reports, and so on down the line.

Though I haven’t had a chance to see the American version “Undercover Boss,” I couldn’t agree more with this statement from Professor Michelle L. Buck, director of leadership initiatives at the Kellogg School of Management, when asked her opinion of the show and CEO experiences on them:

“A CEO or top executive won't be able to go undercover or even do a walkaround to meet all employees. But they can institute and create the organizational culture where the top leader has to be the role model. They have to walk the talk, and this has to cascade throughout the organization.”

Whether or not CEOs are actively trying to cascade their desired culture through the organization, they are doing so. Everyone looks to the top to know how they should act. What is being demonstrated or what cultural tone is being set by your CEO?

Results Last Philosophy for Greatest Success

What’s your philosophy of leadership? Hands off? Micro-management? Numbers-based (just deliver the results)? People-based (keep employees happy)? Some combination of the above?

When asked that question in a recent New York Times “Corner Office” column, the CEO and chairman of Saks, Stephen Sadove, had this to say:

“I have a very simple model to run a company. It starts with leadership at the top, which drives a culture. Culture drives innovation and whatever else you’re trying to drive within a company — innovation, execution, whatever it’s going to be. And that then drives results.

“When I talk to Wall Street, people really want to know your results, what are your strategies, what are the issues, what it is that you’re doing to drive your business. They’re focused on the bottom line. Never do you get people asking about the culture, about leadership, about the people in the organization. Yet, it’s the reverse, because it’s the people, the leadership, the culture and the ideas that are ultimately driving the numbers and the results. So it’s a flip.

“What I try to teach people is, don’t ask the first question in terms of numbers. Let’s talk about the people, let’s talk about the culture, let’s talk about the ideas and the innovation.”

I greatly appreciate Mr. Sadove’s philosophy, summarized as:

Leadership --> Culture --> Strategic Objectives --> People --> Results

When you focus first on your leadership, what kind of culture they are passively allowing or actively encouraging to develop, the strategic objectives you’ve identified for your organization, the people executing on those objectives within that culture, THEN you will get the results you need – and perhaps more. But if you focus first and most intently on the results, as Wall Street tends to, you may achieve a short-term objective but lose any sustainability to continue those trends in the long-term.

I wrote a couple of years ago about a finding from the Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement 85% of a company’s assets are in “intangibles.” If, as is standard, Wall Street firms are valuing companies based only on tangibles, then much of the picture is being ignored.

What’s your philosophy?

Join Me at SHRM * 2 Sessions on CEO Role & Measuring Recognition

Join me at SHRM's 2010 Annual Conference and Exposition in San Diego, June 27-30, 2010. I'll be leading two sessions:

In “The CEO’s New Role in Recognition,” Monday, 28 June, from 4:00-5:15, I will demonstrate to HR leaders how strategic employee recognition — when championed by the CEO — can transform a company’s culture, ignite motivation, and positively impact an organization’s workforce and business performance.

I will also discuss:

* Why today’s employee recognition programs require the support and attention of CEOs to be truly strategic and effective.
* How to generate executive support for employee recognition programs by demonstrating the short and long-term impact on employee and business performance.
* What actionable steps every HR leader should take today to foster a culture of appreciation across their company.

In Wednesday's Mega Session, “Measuring Recognition for Maximum Business Success,” 30 June, from 10:00-11:15 a.m., I'll share best practices for measuring recognition for maximum business success. This session will help HR leaders build a business case for strategic recognition by demonstrating how the program can be measured against corporate goals.

I will also discuss:

* Why employee recognition is on the path to become the must-have HR program of the 21st century due to its measurable impact on key employee and business metrics.
* How forward-thinking HR leaders are applying best practices to measure recognition by reaching the vast majority of their workforce with awards tied to core values and strategic objectives.
* What new technologies and trends are elevating employee recognition and how HR leaders can leverage them to make a quantifiable impact on employee engagement.

If you're at SHRM, please do introduce yourself. I look forward to meeting you.