Let’s talk about what you might be overlooking for your team when it comes to boosting employee happiness.
If you’ve been following our series on leveraging Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in your workplace to make your employees happier, you may have already made strides supporting your team’s sleep and exercise habits, and taken steps to help folks feel secure in the workplace. Your team is on the way to thriving, but why does something still feel off? What more is needed? Consider that Esteem could be the missing (and more subtle) puzzle piece.
We’re not talking here about “self-esteem,” an internal sense of worth or accomplishment and whether yours or someone else’s is over- or under-inflated. No: when we talk about “esteem” we mean social approval, external validation, genuine appreciation. We might not want to admit we all need this, but of course we do.
Want to put it into practice? It can be as simple as having a “rose and thorn” (rose = good things, thorn = challenges) or two stars and a wish (stars = things that are going well, wish = something they want to improve or need support with) then check in at the beginning of certain meetings. Suddenly you’ve opened the door for cultivating peer recognition which provides the space teams need to provide each other with that appreciation, validation, and approval. Simple yet effective.
More than any of the levels of human needs we’ve examined, it’s far from clear how esteem ties to business objectives. And yet it’s hugely powerful as a motivator. Esteem strikes us as more individualistic but in reality nobody wants to be a cog in a machine. “Mattering at work” was a hot topic at the Davos forum this year; and it’s one of the five pillars from the U.S. Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being. So if your organization can learn to amplify it (and mean it), it also has the potential to turbocharge your success (and you’ll have happier people)!
Esteem is so powerful because it addresses our need to be seen, and to feel that we matter. Patrick Lencioni, in his book originally titled The Three Signs of a Miserable Job (and now called The Truth About Employee Engagement), calls out anonymity and irrelevance as the first two elements of job misery.
So, the big question is how do you show appreciation in your organization? How much do you personally notice and call out good things? How often do you give unprompted positive feedback or praise? It comes naturally to some people. For others, it’s a habit we have to create. And remember, we’re wired to notice the negative, so a good rule of thumb is to think that you can never give too much positive feedback. A recent Harvard Business Review article points out: “Only positive feedback can motivate people to continue doing what they’re doing well, and do it with more vigor, determination, and creativity.”
Make the commitment to add something like an “appreciation roundtable” to your next team gathering or offsite. Team members can share what they appreciate about each other. You can let people know in advance or make it spontaneous. Just remember, genuine, accurate, and specific recognition is key. Tailor the delivery to the individual—some thrive on public recognition, while others prefer one-on-one appreciation. Keep trying, and you’ll hit the mark.
Whether you have an already high-performing team, or one with some unresolved conflict, it’s always going to improve and strengthen relationships to support the esteem of your team. Let today be the launch of a steps towards a new emphasis on open, frequent, low-stakes, high-value esteem building!
| Do you have a wellness program? How can you support employees’ physical and mental health? Can you encourage your teams to rest and disconnect? INCITE can help you make it happen. Contact us for a conversation! |
