Recognize the Effort, Not the Results

When teams start working on a problem, they are often given the freedom to choose their own solution path, and it may not be anything like you were anticipating. I learned many years ago every time I tried to predict what a team was going to do; I would be wrong. They typically beat anything I could come up with. So, I decided to stop trying to guess and shifted my focus to helping them accomplish as much as was possible during the short time of the Kaizen event. To do this, I had to come up with creative ways to encourage them. Some ways were silly, some were formal, but they always seemed to remember the recognition. Here are two examples:

Clapping helps, believe it or not

I set milestones during Kaizen events. When the team reached them, I encouraged the rest of the team members to clap in recognition for their efforts. A team would come back with their plan for the next steps of their work. They’d review it with the rest of the team and then get feedback on their approach. At the end of the review, I’d say, “Let’s show them how we feel about their efforts so far.” I’d start clapping for them and the rest of the team would join in. Those who were reviewing their plans started clapping, and you could see the pride in their faces for their efforts. As we did this more, the team would naturally clap for each other’s efforts. Sometimes we’d make fun of ourselves, but we didn’t stop clapping. It’s infectious! We came up with any number of reasons to clap for each other.

Little trinkets seem to matter

When awards are given, the money gets spent, but the symbol lives on and reminds us of what we did and how we felt. Here’s a little story about that:

As a consultant, I was always getting something – shirts, cups, paperweights, and other trinkets from my clients for the event. It was usually my suggestion to the sponsor to give the team something to remember the event by and make sure it wasn’t money. So, invariably, I’d receive a trinket too. Plus, I was paid for what I was doing, and was well fed. Not a bad deal. But I felt like I should do something for my team members too. I wanted to show my appreciation for their efforts. After a while, I came up with the idea of creating a special coin, which I call my “token of appreciation.” It’s gold colored and is given to team members who make it through the entire Kaizen event. On the last day of the Kaizen event, I greet each team member as they enter the room and hand them a coin and thank them personally for their efforts.

When I first started handing out coins, I was a little uncomfortable doing it, as it was new to me and to them. But I got all sorts of positive reactions to it. Some thanked me, some asked me if they were chocolate or real gold (they weren’t), but everyone seemed to appreciate my thinking of them. Then, one of my team members said, “This is my new lucky coin!” I thought he was just being kind. A few months later, I was walking through the factory and heard a forklift coming down an aisle in my direction. Stopping about 20 feet from me, the forklift driver called to me, “Adam, check it out, I still have my lucky coin!” I couldn’t believe it. He was holding up the coin proudly. It really mattered to him. It made my day, and over a year later, it still makes me smile when I think about it.

But wait, the story isn’t over. Over 9 months later, I was walking through the same plant, ran into the same team member, and he proudly showed me how much his lucky coin had worn down. I have been carrying a coin in my pocket since the first time I started handing them out, so my coin was pretty worn down too. We compared our two coins and he was proud that his coin was more worn than mine was. So simple, but so meaningful. I was going to find a new trinket to hand out for the future, but now I realize there’s no reason to. People like the idea of the coin, so why change? It’s the thought that counts.