recognition and appreciation

Recognition and appreciation. We often use these words interchangeably, and think of them as the same thing. But while they’re both important, there’s a big difference between them. For leaders who want their teams to thrive and organizations that want to create cultures of engagement, loyalty, and high performance, it’s important to understand the distinction...

Appreciation, on the other hand, is about acknowledging a person’s inherent value. The point isn’t their accomplishments. It’s their worth as a colleague and a human being.

In simple terms, recognition is about what people do; appreciation is about who they are...

Great leaders have to successfully focus on and cultivate both appreciation and recognition. And all of us benefit from understanding this distinction in business (and in life). Recognition is appropriate and necessary when it’s earned and deserved. Appreciation, however, is important all the time.

Mike Robbins

"Why Employees Need Both Recognition and Appreciation" Harvard Business Review. November 12, 2019

encourage a certain behavior

Hammers, buckets and earplugs. Suns Head Coach Monty Williams is bringing his metaphors to life in the Suns locker room and the players are listening and buying into his methods.

Williams has presented his team physical items to further his teachings and help his players remember his lessons going further. The Suns locker room is currently lined with large white buckets at the top of the lockers as a reminder to each player every day.

“We had the buckets made and we put 'Everything counts' on it,” Williams said. “It's just a metaphor, a symbol that the bucket is your career. Everything you do counts. Whether it's getting one more hour of sleep, getting a massage, getting your work in, video work, everything is important. Film study, talking to your teammates, communicating on defense. It all goes into that symbolic bucket.”

Following practice last week, one by one the players exited the locker room with hammers and earplugs to take home. The Suns are off to their hottest start since 2009 at 6-3 and are making national headlines, but Williams wants the team to stay focus and tune-out any outside noise.

“The earplugs were so guys would be selective on what they listened to,” Williams said. “You start hearing all [the talk], people sending me articles, delete, sending the articles, delete, send, delete. You see the stuff on TV and naturally you want to listen to that stuff. For us to really focus on the process, I just thought of a goofy idea to go out and buy earplugs and the hammer.”

Williams got the idea for the hammers from his time in San Antonio working with Head Coach Gregg Popovich in order to push the concept of continuing to pound the rock.

“The hammer was, we got to keep working,” Williams said. “If you've been in San Antonio, you have a familiarity with the Jacob Riis poem with the stone cutter. In San Antonio, we just talk about pounding the rock and that's basically what we do there. I wanted to bring some of that stuff here. The hammer was symbolic of the work that you've got to put in everyday and the earplugs were to just tune out all the nonsense because it doesn't mean anything.”

Williams admits that the idea behind gifting his players a hammer and earplugs may come off as goofy or corny, but that the information that is processed matters above all else.

“Coaches, we try to do anything to help our players remember or encourage a certain behavior or a certain atmosphere,” Williams said. “It's just an effort to try to keep this thing from being so monotonous and boring. I just care about our guys and we just try to do things to help them see that.”

Cody Cunningham

"Williams Goes Beyond the Clipboard in Teaching Lessons in Suns Locker Room"  Suns.com November 11, 2019

we had to trust

If Grameen was to work, we knew we had to trust our clients. From day one, we knew that there would be no room for policing in our system. We never knew that there would be no room for policing in our system. We never used courts to settle our repayments. We did not involve lawyers or any outsiders. Today, commercial banks assume that every borrower is going to run away with their money, so they tie their clients up in legal knots. Lawyers pore over their precious documents, making certain that no borrower will escape the reach of the bank. There are no legal instruments between the lenders and the borrowers. We were convinced that the bank should be built on human trust, not on meaningless paper contracts. Grameen would succeed or fail depending on the strength of our personal relationships. We may be accused of being naïve, but our experience with bad debt is less than 1 percent. And even when borrowers do default on a loan, we do not assume that they are malevolent. Instead, we assume that personal circumstances have prevented them from repaying the money. Bad loans present a constant reminder of the need to do more to help our clients succeed.

Muhammad Yunus

A Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. 1999. Public Affairs, New York. P.70

whenever you fall

Whenever you fall, pick up something…. Disappointment is my daily bread. I thrive on it.

Oswald T. Avery

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry. p.293

head pointed toward the sun

Prison and the authorities conspire to rob each man of his dignity. In and of itself, that assured that I would survive, for any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose because I will not part with it at any price or under any pressure. I never seriously considered the possibility that I would not emerge from prison one day. I never thought that a life sentence truly meant life and that I would die behind bars. Perhaps I was denying this prospect because it was too unpleasant to contemplate. But I always knew that someday I would once again feel the grass under my feet and walk in the sunshine as a free man.

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lay defeat and death.

Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Back Bay Books. 1995. p. 391