From Internalconsistency.com, these slides from a webinar highlight how employee recognition empowers employees to perform while management by exception only reinforces compliance. Motivate employees with frequent recognition to create a culture of engagement.

1. Recognition That Fuels
Empowerment
How Employee Recognition Reinforces
Performance & Creates Motivation
July 30, 2012
By Josh Kuehler
Internal Consistency, Inc.
www.InternalConsistency.com
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2. Objective
To lay out a synthesized argument that
supports employee recognition as a
performance management model – one that
yields higher performance while creating a
positive work environment.
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3. Approach
• Organizational Psychology perspective
– Organizational behavior
– Systems approach
• Scholar-Practitioner=Applying research
• Stats joke: In God we trust, all else must bring
data.
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4. Agenda
• Employee Empowerment
– 4 components
• Motivation
• Recognition
– Why
– How
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5. Empowerment vs. Engagement
• Engaged workforce
– Discretionary effort
– Emotional commitment to organization
• Empowered individuals
– Freedom to choose
– Effort is reinforced
Recognition  Empowerment  Engagement
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6. Do You Really Want
Empowerment?
• “You are now empowered- act
accordingly” and then nothing
happens
– Mgmt concludes “these people really
just want someone to tell them what
to do”
• Barrier to empowerment: When
managing others, the
reinforcement of control systems
– Sends the message “we really
don’t trust people”.
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7. Harnessing Empowerment
Sharing power with a view toward enhancing
employee motivation and investment in their
work.
(Zhang & Bartol, 2010)
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8. Components of Empowerment
• Meaningfulness
• Competence
• Autonomy
• Impact
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9. Meaningfulness
• Feeling that one’s work is personally
important.
– Help employees understand the importance of his/her
contribution to the organization1
• Role of Recognition:
– Highlighting the contribution
– Reinforce and emphasize meaning
1. (Zhang & Bartol, 2010)
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10. Impact
• Represents the degree to which one views
one’s behaviors as making a difference in
work outcomes1
– Opposite of learned helplessness
• Role of Recognition:
– Acknowledgement of the person’s role in determining
outcomes
1. (Zhang & Bartol, 2010)
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11. Autonomy
• Participation in decision making gives employees a
feeling of greater control over immediate work
situation and enhanced sense that his or her own
behaviors can make a difference in work results. 1
• Opposite of autonomy is supervision, a hygiene
factor.
• Role of Recognition:
– Highlights the person’s decision-making ability.
1. (Zhang & Bartol, 2010)
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12. Competence
• Self-efficacy, or belief in one’s ability to
successfully perform tasks.1
– Managers can express confidence in competence in high
performance.
• Congruent with Achievement; a motivator
• Role of Recognition:
– Fulfilling self-efficacy. Reinforcing the belief.
1. (Zhang & Bartol, 2010)
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13. What Lies Underneath
• True term is Psychological Empowerment.
• While the term is performance management,
it really should be called behavior
management.
– We forget that people are people and behave
(react) to events.
• The events in our environment shape us.
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14. Performance Mgmt Approaches
• Management by Exception: Fixing problems
• Recognition: Reinforcing successes
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15. Performance Mgmt Outcomes
• MBE and controlling techniques will get you
compliance.
– Rewarding following the rules
– Reduced risk taking
• Recognition techniques will get you drive.
– Directly rewarding discretionary effort
– Creates safe environment to explore alternatives
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16. So how does recognition really
affect a person?
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17. A Psychological Perspective
1. Herzburg’s 2 factor theory
2. Self-fulfilling prophecy
3. Applying Strengths
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18. Herzberg’s Model
Hygiene: Lead to Motivator: Lead to
dissatisfaction satisfaction
• Company policy • Achievement
• Supervision • Recognition
• Relationship w/ supervisor • Work itself
• Work conditions • Responsibility
Tame these factors Flame these factors
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19. 19

20. Locus of Motivation
• Extrinsic motivation: Financial, If-then
• Intrinsic motivation: For the sake of doing it
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21. Intangibles are Intrinsic
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22. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Going toward what we want
– Competence
• If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll
end up somewhere else” – Yogi Berra
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23. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Going toward what we want; not away from
what we don’t want.
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24. Strengths-Based
• Romanticizing Rudy • Positive Psychology
– Overcoming obstacles – Applying strengths
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25. Focusing on Strengths
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26. Role of Recognition
• Mgr recognition is a booster shot
– 77% to 91% when high favorable opinion
– 33% to 52% when low favorable opinion
(Towers Perrin, 2010)
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27. So how can we make giving
recognition easier?
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28. Meaningful Recognition
• ARC:
– Action: Here is what was done (behavior)
– Result: Here is what happened because
– Consequence: Here is why that is important
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29. Performance Feedback
• Conversational structures:
– Start, Stop, Continue
– Liked Best: “when you …”
– Next time: “how can we …”
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30. Example Recognition Program
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31. Putting it all together
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32. Reinforcing Performance
• If they receive no support or no
reinforcement, the empowerment cycle
breaks and employees feel misled.
• When system reinforce individual
empowerment, the process can be
regenerative and dynamic
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33. Small Shifts, Consistently
Best Buy has already had success in connecting
improved employee-engagement scores to
store performance: it found that for every
10th of a point it boosted the former, its
stores saw a $100,000 increase in operating
income.” — CFO Magazine, June 1, 2007
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34. Characteristics of Empowered
Employee
• Have sense of self-determination (autonomy)
– free to choose how to do their work; not micromanaged
• Have a sense of meaning
– feel their work is important to them; they care about what
they are doing
• Have a sense of competence
– Confident about their ability to do their work well
• Have a sense of impact
– Believe they have influence on their work unit; others
listen to their ideas
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35. Conclusion
• Going toward what you want is more effective
than going away from what you don’t want
• “Ascension” approach
• External motivation is short term
• Recognition calls attention to competence
• Consistently applied will transform
environment into encouragement & support
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36. Resources
•Gallup, Inc. (2010). Employee engagement: What‘s your engagement ratio
•Goldsmith, M. (2007). Do you have any suggestions to help me do a better job of
providing positive recognition?, Harvard Business Review.
http://blogs.hbr.org/goldsmith/2007/09/how_do_i_provide_meaningful_re_1.html
•Herzberg, F. (1987). One more time: How do you motivate employees, Harvard
Business Review, 5- 16.
•Towers Perrin. (2010). Turbocharging employee engagement: The power of
recognition from managers. Part 1- the engagement engine.
•Zhang, X., and Bartol, K. (2010). Linking empowering leadership and employee
creativity: The influence of psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, and
creative process engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 107-128.
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37. Contact: Joshua Kuehler
Email:
Josh@internalconsistency.com
Phone: 1-888-481-4741
Twitter: @I_Consistency
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