Communicating Rewards

It was a cold Saturday evening in October and I was winding down for the day. After a warm cup of tea, I snuggled within warm fleece blankets on the sofa and turned on the TV. As usual I would flip around all the channels before I can decide what program or movie I want to entertain myself with. While surfing the channels, I came upon a rerun of Los Premios MTV 2009. I paused there for a moment and suddenly the passion and excitement of the Latin music captivated my senses so I decided that I would watch the rerun as my entertainment for the evening.

I sat in the dark with low lights, big screen and surround sound. I was enjoying the music, the beautiful Latin artists, and presenters and of course the wonderful stage effects. I watched the award winners humbled by their win and some with teary eyes, thanked their fans. Of course the screaming audience was living every moment of the award ceremony. Suddenly I realized that all the Latin glamour, glitter, energy, and achievements of that MTV 2009 Award was reminding me of something special. It was a stark reminder of the annual incentive award program that I host to recognize the top sales men and women of the Latin America region for a large pharma company. That program was called Golden Circle.

As I watched the celebrated artists received their awards and made their speeches, I felt an emptiness that was profound – that emptiness reflected the fact that after four years of hosting the Golden Circle award program, it will no longer be under my wings since the company has undergone an acquisition. But it was one part of my job that brought me immense satisfaction – the planning for this event takes over nine months and its execution as always had to be flawless because for me, rewarding the men and women who are the drivers of the business was more than the compensation or the incentive trip – it was the black tie evening when they became superstars like those on the MTV scene. It was the night when they were celebrated, honored and photographed among their peers and loved ones. It was their night – their night to shine – to feel proud but more importantly to feel valued.

As a communications manager, my satisfaction was watching their faces light up and their eyes swelled with tears of joy as they are called upon the stage to receive their plaque and photographed. Over the years as I have done this program, it reinforced the fact that human beings value recognition and honor. It is what propels them to constantly give their best and to be defenders of their business. As a communicator, I say, it is not what you say, but how you say it, where you say it and the medium through which you say it that makes all the difference. Similarly, it is not what you do to reward your top performers, but how you reward them is what makes that reward so special and impacting.

Often I imagined the Golden Circle reward being only a cash prize and a congratulatory letter. That seems cold, distant and just okay in comparison to spending four days with senior management, a business workshop – a chance for the people in the field to have a chance to air their views and ask their questions and to crown it all, be treated like celebrities during the gala dinner and award ceremony. It is the how and the what that has the impact to these winners that leaves them eternally grateful for that moment. Their thanks are endless and upon returning to their homes, we get very emotional letters of how grateful they are for the special way in which they were treated and celebrated. For those winners, the award night was the greatest motivator of all! Would the cash prize and a congratulatory note create such profound reactions? I don’t think so.

As a communicator, I am a firm believer of the face to face communication because regardless of the growing social media, face to face communication will always play a key role in the motivational factor. After many decades, the most popular way of proposing marriage is still face to face. It still is, in my opinion, the most intimate and emotionally captivating way to do it. Face to face communication in many ways is time consuming we may say now that technology gives us the ability to communicate faster and with a wider reach; but depending on what we really want to achieve, sometimes, investing the time for face to face communication can provide more productive insights and build stronger relationships. It is the how and what factor.
(to be continued …)

The Power of Culture

Too may times we underestimate the role of culture and its impact on relationships, marriage and perhaps even more so in organizations - the latter being organizational culture.

Before reading any further, take a moment and think about a marriage or a relationship where two different cultures exist. Was it not a learning process for the people involved to understand each other, their perceptions, beliefs and values? It certainly is. I myself reflect as both my husband and I are from different cultural backgrounds and it is funny to look back upon the times when I tried understanding him from my terministic screens which obviously differed from his and so with time we began to understand different vocabulary, figurative expressions, behaviors (interpreting silence versus verbal responses) and so on. Not understanding the other’s body language or misinterpreting actions often leads to conflicts and the same goes for organizational culture.

Culture is a key element to harmony and success and I am prompted to write this piece as I experience the merger of two large companies. During the long transition process and working with so many different teams, interacting at different levels of the organization, I slowly begin to see that the organizational cultures of these companies are very different and I wonder when the two finally merge, what would be the culture that survives and would it be the best one for the future success of the new company. Obviously and more often, past mergers consistently shows that the culture of the acquiring company is the one that preserves but is it the smart thing or is it the easier solution?

Really, it is the easier solution because changing corporate culture is a tremendous job and it takes a lot of work but it can also bring great benefits - after all a corporation is its people and having people believing in a company’s vision and being able to associate with it at all levels, understanding how their role fits into and contributes to the vision is paramount to success.

A vision should never be seen only as some lovely statements to be displayed. Employees need to feel and see it in action from the top down. It needs to be part and parcel of their daily working lives and each objective that they own should be meshed into the company’s culture.

Every company has a formal and an informal culture and very often, as organizational consultants can relate to, it is the informal culture that really defines and tells what a company is. That is the real pulse of how employees feel and see the company they work with. I wonder how many organization have run diagnostics to assess the formal versus the informal culture. It is an interesting and worthwhile exercise for any company that truly wants to be successful and wants to see that its brand or culture is being lived and embraced by its people. It is what compels each individual to look for quality, to strive for flawless delivery, to seek effective and robust processes and to bring value each day in every way and hence create a strong and sustainable bottom line. It is strong corporate culture that sustains organizations amidst the ever changing dynamics of the external environment.

To really get a good understanding of organizational culture, it impact and its value, I suggest reading Corporate Culture - Illuminating the Black Hole by Jerome Want. But before you start reading, think of your organization’s culture and how it is perceived by the employees. Has it had impact on the success of the company? It is a culture that is highly talked about with pride? Does everyone know what the organizational culture is and does the leadership team exhibit the culture? What is your organization’s culture - Bureaucratic, Service, Political, Frozen, Predatory or New Age? Jerome Want does a great job at revealing the behaviors of these cultures and how they affect the success of a company.

Culture should never be underestimated. It drives the way we think and the way we behave!