5 Habits To Maximize The Effect Of Recognition

Unlike pay and other financial rewards, being praised and recognized is an expression of care, and this—and not money—affects the hearts in people. Here are five habits leaders must develop in order to maximize the effect of recognition and thereby derive its greatest benefits.

Ulrich Pidun, Sebastian Stange

In most firms, incentives are tied to company or business unit performance. The consequences of large investment decisions typically take too long to materialize to have an impact on an executive’s bonus or promotion. This can lead to moral hazard, especially when managers expect to move on after a couple of years in a position.

We recommend tying personal targets and incentives to the success of … [ Read more ]

Liz Wiseman

People generally need two types of information to achieve top performance. The first is clear direction: What is the target, and why is it important? (In other words, the What’s Important Now) The second is performance feedback: Am I hitting the target? Am I doing it right?

To avoid hiring bias, orgs need cybervetting rules

Organizations need to develop and implement clearly defined rules regarding how they use online information about job candidates, a new paper on cybervetting says.

Rethink Your Employee Value Proposition

A lot of leaders believe that the formula for attracting and keeping talent is simple: Just ask people what they want and give it to them. The problem is, that approach tends to address only the material aspects of jobs that are top of employees’ minds at the moment, like pay or flexibility. And those offerings are easy for rivals to imitate and have the … [ Read more ]

Scott Galloway’s Section 4: Business Education At A Fraction Of The Cost Of An MBA

Section 4, a growing online platform for business education founded by Scott Galloway and working with top business professors and practitioners, distills MBA-quality courses into two- to three-week sprints in topics such as Product Positioning, Brand Strategy, Data & Analytics, Customer-Centered Innovation and more. Sprints are designed to be short, intense, and instantly applicable. They deliver the content at a fraction of the cost of … [ Read more ]

Sally Helgesen, Fred Kofman

The exclusive focus on monetary rewards inevitably leaves organizations fighting a fierce but losing struggle to balance individual and team results. Rewarding high performers serves the imperatives of accountability and excellence but can undermine alignment and cooperation among team members. Yet basing pay on team results in order to incentivize collaboration often ends up inadvertently rewarding subpar individual performance and penalizing individual excellence. Neither approach … [ Read more ]

Inclusion Isn’t Just Nice. It’s Necessary.

Improving employees’ experience of inclusion in the workplace is one of the most actionable levers companies have to attract and retain talent. When done right, inclusion can slash attrition risk in half.

In today’s fiercely competitive environment, inclusion is akin to a hidden superpower, so why do so few companies view it as a business necessity? The answer is simple: workplace inclusion is hard to define, … [ Read more ]

J.T. O’Donnell

We think that we made it easier 20-something years ago when Monster started posting jobs. It makes it easier for the employer, it doesn’t make it easier for the job seeker. You’re not getting rejected, you’re just never getting past the technology.

How to Work Out What Your Employees Really Want

In this INSEAD Knowledge podcast, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour Mark Mortensen proposes a more holistic approach to understanding employees’ needs, while offering practical solutions to ensure that they remain fully invested in their organisation and its goals.

Bill Schaninger

When people claim they have survey fatigue, they’re not tired of you asking them. They’re upset about you not doing anything with it.

Stop Overcomplicating It: The Simple Guidebook to Upping Your Management Game

Russ Laraway’s book When They Win, You Win, weaves together tons of existing management studies from top-notch sources like Gallup, his own primary research, as well as thoughtful stories from his own decades-long career.

From the Marines to software to VC, Laraway has spotted a pattern that frequently crops up and muddies the waters for managers everywhere. “People have become far too focused on all the … [ Read more ]

Joe McCollum

In a traditional hierarchical organization, it is not unusual to see seven, eight, or even nine layers of management. In agile, that effectively goes down to three. It is a radical shift, as middle managers don’t exist in the agile model, but the middle-management function remains, albeit in a different form. The role of middle management absolutely continues to be done, just not any longer … [ Read more ]

Russ Laraway

Everything else you’re doing to affect engagement is worth less than half of whatever you’re doing to make your managers great.

A Better Way to Recognize Your Employees

Although most great managers want to recognize their people, the challenge, which has only been made more difficult in the hybrid world, is finding meaningful things to recognize them for. The limitation to our typical approach to praise is that we can only recognize what we see, observe, or learn about from others and our recognition focuses on what we appreciate, which is not always … [ Read more ]

Christopher Littlefield

There are limitations to our typical approach to praise. We can only recognize what we see, observe, or learn about from others and our recognition focuses on what we appreciate, which is not always what others want to be appreciated for.

Selina Lo

In my company, there is a rule that all new managers need to know: that it’s not a given that their people [under them] will be paid less than they are. That’s part of becoming a manager—that you really have to enjoy enabling people. I want people who are good managers to be managers. I don’t want people to become managers just because they feel … [ Read more ]

The Secret to Happiness at Work

Your job doesn’t have to represent the most prestigious use of your potential. It just needs to be rewarding.

Why People Crave Feedback—and Why We’re Afraid to Give It

How am I doing? Research by Francesca Gino and colleagues shows just how badly employees want to know. Is it time for managers to get over their discomfort and get the conversation going at work?