Two words that will motivate anyone

Ahoy,

A few years back, I had a boss that said to me “well done” and “good work” a few times.

To this day I still refer to them as the best boss I’ve ever worked for.

Of course it wasn’t just the small comments that made them a great person to work for, but it perfectly help summarise the kind of workplace they tried (and succeeded) to build.

So today we are carrying the theme over slightly from Wednesday’s email.

Today, we’re all about that positivity.

Specifically, we’re all about creating an environment that makes people feel happy to be there, be more productive and want to be part of the team.

So I’m setting you a challenge this week.

The challenge should be easy (if it’s not, I’m scared there may be bigger problems we need to dive into!)

The challenge is this:

Say “Good work” every time someone in your team meets or exceeds the standard.

See why I said we may have bigger problems if you cant do this…

Lets talk a bit about why I’m setting this as a challenge.

If it meets the standard

Firstly lets go over when I want you to do this.

I want you do do this when someone meets or exceeds the standard.

They don’t have to exceed it, just achieve what they set out to achieve.

The thing is, as leaders we have a tendency to only ever acknowledge the really great performances. Because of that people that are performing perfectly fine, go completely unnoticed.

What does this lead to?

• Feeling under valued

• Feeling unappreciated

• Feeling unmotivated

And eventually, they’ll want to move on.

It makes sense why we do this.

We think, if we reward the exceptional team members then everyone will aspire to work extra hard to be like them…

What actually happens though, is that the people that aren’t being recognised for their work start to think:

“I always work hard yet nothing good ever comes from it so I may as well not work so hard…”

And so you end up with a very small minority working very hard and producing great results and the majority slowly easing off the throttle.

Budge just a little to raise the standard

Now I’m not saying that every time someone does the bare minimum you should parade them around the city like some kind of Roman war hero!

All I’m saying is say “Good work”. Of course you can save your big recognitions for the really amazing things, but just don’t forget about the day to day work that holds your team together.

Just because it’s expected, that doesn’t make it not good work.

Weirdly though the bar will start to be raised…

Why?

Suddenly people see their work being acknowledged…

The feel like a useful member of the team…

They feel valued…

And what do you see as a result of that?

Innately people want to feel valued. It improves happiness and improves motivation. Both of these things lead to a better work place and greater results. You’ll see more people pushing the standard because now they are proud of the work they’re producing.

Really this all comes down to making people feel valued.

As a leader it is your responsibility to make sure people are happy to be part of the team and that starts with truly valuing them.

And that starts by saying “Good work”.

I really hope you got something out of this weeks newsletter.

Make sure you share it with fellow leaders so we can make the workplace a happier place to be.

As always feel free to get in touch through X (Twitter) using the link below.

Have a great day.

Reece