Mike Lehr's Blog

Thanking employees periodically for doing their jobs generates a superior return on our time. It’s an effective cost-containment technique for our labor cost; the less employees like the culture the more money it will take to keep them. Consequently, no employee should go more than three to six months without an executive or senior manager thanking him for his work.

Moreover, Thank You’s power extends beyond the immediate employee. She will assuredly talk to other employees about her experience, thus producing a ripple effect. We are making the company’s grapevine work for us.

Here is a simple, direct thank you:

Hi, Tom. How are you? Listen, I just wanted to thank you for the work you’ve been doing for me. I appreciate it. You’ve really been helping us out.

Often, employees will respond with something like:

Well, I’m just doing my job.

To which we can respond with:

Perhaps, but I know that you don’t have to show up and you don’t have to apply your total effort. So, I’m thanking you for those things too.

Occasionally, I’ve heard executives and managers say:

• If they don’t like it, there’s the door!
• Why should I do this when their paycheck is our thanks?

First, employees are under no legal obligation to show up for work; we cannot sue them for not showing. We avoid headaches when they show. Second, every company issues paychecks; every company does not issue thank you’s. They give us a competitive edge in securing and keeping talent. Third, if money is the only way we show appreciation, then money will be the only thing that motivates them. Thank you’s allow us to develop and leverage personal connections. These build a team culture and make goals more achievable.

Looking at beauty as power is important in understanding and appreciating intuitive approaches because it dramatically expands the influences and solutions we see. However, as I mentioned in the A Blue Heron Instructs on Patience, we tend to be prejudiced toward action; therefore, we will often overlook beauty as power because it’s not an active force. Thus, it helps if we initially think of beauty as attractive because the verb “attract” implies some kind of active force.

For example, suppose we saw a metal ball rolling on a level table toward a wall. We might initially think that there was something about the ball that caused movement. However, suppose later we find out that a powerful magnet was implanted in the wall. Now, we begin to see the wall as the active force.

Another problem we tend to have is that we look at beauty very superficially, as something physically feminine. However, beauty can exist in anything, including intangible things. For instance, consider the movie A Beautiful Mind; also consider the attraction of beautiful ideas, prices, cars, paintings, formulae, advertisements, parks, scenery, etc. Anything that attracts us has some level of beauty in it; even power is beautiful to many.

So, if a car dealer stocks his showroom with a car that he knows is likely to attract us enough to buy it, who is really applying the active force: the buyer or the dealer? Similarly, when the Indians attracted General George Custer into the trap on Battle of Little Big Horn because he thought he had a beautiful opportunity to defeat them, who was playing the active force: Custer who rushed in or the Indians who created the attractive situation?

Once, a woman who had just joined a bank wanted to meet with me since I had experience working at a bank. After asking many questions, she apologized and said, “I just want to make sure I do a good job.” I responded, “Well, first, you have to realize that just doing a good job is no guarantee of keeping your job even if no one is being laid off. Focus more on the relationships you have with your co-workers and most importantly your boss.”

Influencing others is a form of power and as is being increasingly shown simply being good at what you do isn’t the best way to expand your power at work. Consider Schumpeter’s commentary, The Will to Power, of the September 11, 2010 issue of The Economist. He references Jeffrey Pfeffer’s book Paths to Power in which he claims attributes “such as the ability to project drive and self-confidence” as being more important. Note he said “ability to project” and not “have.”

How many times have we all heard someone (or ourselves) say, “Well, I just don’t play politics,” or “I’m not good at the politics”? Yes, the negative connotation of politics implies that these are positive attributes and gives us positive feelings for rationalizing bad experiences. On the other hand, politics is really about managing our interpersonal relationships. When they are ones we enjoy we call it teamwork; when they are ones we don’t we call it politics.

No matter what we call it, if we don’t do it well, we risk not only the diminishing of our power at work but our jobs.

In Robert Heinlein’s science fiction book, Starship Troopers, the instructor, Mr. Dubois says, “One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.” Automatically, a picture forms in my mind of a person who collects a garage full of tools and doesn’t fix anything or who collects a kitchen full of utensils and always orders out. There are many people who treat knowledge the same way; they collect it but never think about it or employ it.

Often I will begin certain seminars by declaring, “You won’t learn anything new, but if you’re like others, you’ll still find it helpful.” We are so preconditioned to view the stuffing of our minds as a benefit, that we have difficulty seeing how this could be true. So, I go on to say, “Most of what I will cover you already know; however, I will present it in a way that will encourage you to think about it differently and take action.”

I contend that rather than go out and collect more knowledge, if we just use even 20% of what we already know but don’t use, we would see substantial changes in our careers and lives. How many people collect business improvement books as though they were collecting stamps?

Intuitively, we know that we must consider the emotional aspect of knowledge. This appears in the form of motivation to think and employ that knowledge. Simply, learning something new shouldn’t be the benchmark of a worthwhile learning effort. Did it encourage us to look at things differently? Did it move us from inertia to action?

Now, that is real power.

Intuition’s most practical advantage to problem solving is the enhanced sphere of good solutions it offers. Generally, this sphere will produce five types of benefits. They will appear as solutions that can:

1. Address seemingly intractable problems
2. Save a tremendous amount of money
3. Reduce work and headaches to employ
4. Reach higher levels of effectiveness
5. Make objective- or scientific-based solutions better

Let’s look at some examples.

We can solve many customer service problems without necessarily solving them directly; we do it by listening, sympathizing and encouraging venting. We can save a tremendous amount of money on moral building efforts; we do it by employing our personal power to remember names, shake hands and extend “thank you’s” which don’t cost a cent. We can reduce the work and headaches involved in disciplinary efforts; we do it through the power of asking and of positive reinforcements. We can reach higher levels of effectiveness in change initiatives; we do it by organizing those emotionally adapt at change and by using compliments to encourage them. Any software rollout becomes better; we do it by selling the effort rather than commanding. Any training becomes better; we do it by influencing expectations beforehand and not just focusing on content and delivery during.

All these solutions employ emotional elements. Listening, sympathizing and venting encourage customers to feel better about a problem. Our personal power encourages employees to feel better about us at no cost. Asking and reinforcing encourages people to feel better about changing their behavior. Uniting emotionally similar people and complimenting them encourages them to feel better about change. Shaping how people feel about software and training encourages them to adopt the new practices.

In short, changing how people feel opens a vast, new sphere of solutions to the problems we face.