May I have your attention?

Friends,

My wife has declared this week “State Employee Recognition Week.” Her request is that those inside and outside state government recognize the thousands of people who work on our roads and bridges, care for our foster care children, protect us from criminals, tend to the mentally ill, and work in hundreds of other ways to promote our quality of life. So, a few thoughts on recognition seem in order.

Recognition energizes people, whether they are employees, peers, volunteers, children, or even spouses. Now, here’s the challenge. Who hasn’t noticed that “familiarity breeds contempt,” or to be more kind, and more accurate: “familiarity breeds inattention?” In other words, when someone is often kind or smart or graceful, or tough or ignorant or dull; well, we just expect that from them. We assign them to those boxes in our minds: She’s smart. He’s tedious. She’s a hard worker. And that’s about it. Unless they do something wildly outside our expectations, their behavior routinely fulfills our historic expectations. We hardly notice them or their behavior.

This familiarity creates problems with our great folks, because we take them for granted, and fail to see their excellence. Familiarity also creates a problem with our challenging folks, because we continually expect them to mess up and don’t even see when they are marginally improving. Think about that last point. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to the stuff that matters to me these days: getting better as a dad, husband, leader, writer, son, guitar player, or runner, the vast majority of my improvement is just that: marginal. It’s darned hard to see where I’m getting better. Hard even for me to notice improvement. And especially hard for someone outside (who’s put me in their perceptual boxes) to see that change.

So, here’s the point: To be good at recognition, you’ve got to pay attention! You can’t say it to them, if you don’t see it from them. With your good folks, you gotta wake yourself up and say, “Hey, I haven’t told you this in a while, but you are awesome.” Most of us “recognize talent” when we hire someone, but then we soon take them for granted. We cease to recognize just how extraordinary they may be. And better than that general recognition, pay very specific attention. Perhaps the most valuable specific recognition comes when you are paying attention to and speaking about something they are working on. It is such a powerful motivator when I am working at something that doesn’t come naturally and someone says, “Wow, you’re really getting good at that.” That makes me want to get right in and work harder at it.

So, today re-cognize someone, literally: See them again, as for the first time. And pay close attention to their specific efforts to excel, so you can…

Lead with your best self.
Dan