One of the concepts people read about in my book, Thank God It’s Monday, is quarterly celebrations. Occasionally, people will say, “Oh, we’re on your program,” to which I respond, “Really? I didn’t know that.” What they mean is that they read the book and tried to implement it themselves. However, their huddles don’t really function as true huddles, and their quarterly celebrations are nice and fun, but they miss the point.
The point is, each of these things is about aligning to the values, the behaviors and the outcomes of the organization, the right leading indicators, lagging indicators, and getting people to enjoy the ride. Because here’s the thing that motivates us most, having a feeling of accomplishment. There’s been tons of research about what makes people happy at work. It’s not the ping pong game over in Northside that’s going on at two o’clock. It’s not the fact that somebody brings doughnuts first thing in the morning. It’s the feeling of progress. But how does progress feel like? What is progress? And how do we break it down into small notable parts?
People can say “Yay, way to go, that’s fantastic,” because at the end of the day, we all want to go home feeling celebrated and accomplished. There are intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards. We must be thinking about both. The extrinsic are the, high fives and the here’s a balloon for you, here’s a pin, here’s a celebratory amount of money—those are extrinsic things.
Oftentimes, extrinsic things take away the spirit and the soul of people; they feel violated.
I always think about that when an organization says, “If you refer somebody, we will give you $5 or $100” and I’m thinking, I want my friend to have this, but I don’t want them to think I got this because I got some money—that feels creepy. That’s the same thing your people have going on. They want to do the right thing because their soul wants to do the right thing. But have we identified the right thing, and have we identified what it is that we’ll announce to them and to their teams, once that accomplishment has happened?
So, they receive that intrinsic reward, because that’s what keeps them intact. That’s what keeps them engaged. That’s what ensures that they stay with the organization. And that’s what fills their souls when they go home. They say to their spouse, “Honey, today, I was awesome.” And that’s what people want out of work.