Saturday, January 15, 2011

Instill Acknowledgment Into the Corporate Culture


Normally, I encourage and promote the use of heartfelt and spontaneous acknowledgments. Now I want to talk about the possibility of instituting and practicing a more formal process of recognition simultaneously.

I recently held a webinar with about 60 project managers from Finland. I had been told before the webinar that they didn't believe acknowledgement even existed in their culture. Shortly after this webinar, though, I received an enthusiastic e-mail from Dean Pattrick, PMP, telling me about an internal program introduced at Nokia in Finland. It's called the Peer-to-Peer Recognition Award.

Below is a copy of the certificate he and the company's human resources department put together to recognize achievement in one of the company's four core values, Achieving Together.

Nokia.jpg"So I filled in this certificate for eight people and the response I got from each of them was jaw-dropping," Mr. Pattrick wrote.

Remember, acknowledgment supposedly doesn't even exist in Mr. Pattrick's culture. Yet people were thrilled and delighted with the recognition certificates and the heartfelt comments.

He achieved these results because acknowledgment is a human need, especially at work.

Many companies are starting to institute formal practices like Nokia's and I wholeheartedly applaud them. I also acknowledge Mr. Pattrick for putting this practice into action.

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