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Montana writer Todd Wilkinson, who interviewed Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton for Fuel, has written for a number of prominent newspapers and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, the Christian Science Monitor and Audubon. "One on One" is a bimonthly Kiplinger Recommends feature provided by marketing and communications newsletter Fuel.Employee dystopia and turnover exact a tremendous toll on business performance in the U.S. -- to the tune of $5 trillion annually. In their critically acclaimed book The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance, renowned motivational consultants Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton set out to demystify the positive techniques that successful leaders use to inspire their employees. Drawing their conclusions from an unprecedented study of 200,000 managers and employees over a 10-year period, the authors found that, while salary is a factor in attracting and maintaining top-flight people, it is less important than having bosses who regularly dole out praise for doing good work. Gostick and Elton recently spoke with Fuel and shared their advice on how to improve employee morale and groom managers to win the trust of their direct reports.
Fuel: What is a "Carrot Culture"?
Elton: It is an environment you create in which managers understand that when you treat people with kindness, everyone turns out to be a big winner. If I were explaining the concept to your grandmother, I would tell her that nice bosses really do finish first. Bosses don't have to be cutthroat and brutal in pursuit of profit. Look at what happened at Enron and WorldCom. Did the leaders of those companies finish first? No, they ended up in jail. When you have a Carrot Culture, you have a team that people want to join. When your players are rewarded, they will stay with you long term.
Fuel: If recognition is such an inexpensive and powerful tool to improve employee satisfaction, why don't more managers use it?
Elton: Managers often tell us that they feel like they don't have enough time. That's the biggest excuse. They'll say they're already doing more with less and can't handle one more thing added to their list of duties. Secondly, they've all seen reward programs that have gone badly. Lastly, a lot of managers are afraid that if they do it wrong, it will be misinterpreted or come across as playing favorites and actually make matters worse. All of these concerns, however, can be overcome. If you do recognition right, the payoff is huge.
Gostick: A recent survey showed that one-third of managers don't believe in recognition. Not long ago, there was research done on why some managers embrace recognition and others reject it. One of the drivers for people willing to give out praise was the fact that they had a happy childhood and parents who gave them lots of positive reinforcement. It was natural for them to extend that kind of positive support system into their management roles. Whether we are a child or nearing retirement, our need to be recognized for our contributions never goes away.
Fuel: How do you deal with employees who are burned out, unmotivated or who just don't seem to care?
Gostick: I would say that 80% to 90% of people can give you a heck of a lot more [than they do], and it's a contradiction that any responsible manager must consider. You may have an employee who merely goes through the motions at work, yet when they leave at night, they can't wait to coach their son's Little League baseball team or get together with their friends in a book group or spend time with their family. They come alive. Everyone has a passion, and a good manager will not only recognize it, but tap into it.
Most employees don't know what the goals of their company are or how they fit into them. By inviting them to take part and recognizing a person's unique interests, you earn their trust and you are able to accelerate the forces that motivate them and make them happy.
Elton: When you have an office full of people who generally feel good, you create a [positive] environment. Recognition, when it's applied well, can absolutely transform people and the organizations they work for. I see it happen every day.
Fuel: Could you share an example of how to effectively bestow recognition?
Elton: I like the idea that every manager starts the morning with three quarters in the right pocket. The coins are there to remind you to consciously give three moments of recognition every day. When you do, you move a quarter into your left pocket. It is a simple technique for making positive change happen.
A Case Study: How Dining on Carrots Makes DHL Stronger
Few industries in the world are more aggressively competitive than the ones vying for express delivery of documents and business packages. DHL, among the largest courier companies in the world, is locked in a battle for market share with rivals FedEx and UPS.
Recently, DHL Vice President Joan Kelly asked Gostick and Elton to pay a visit to one of the company's hubs, in Scottsdale, Ariz., to help stem the turnover there. The pair were already in the process of helping DHL implement a companywide "Carrot Culture" program designed to motivate its 50,000 U.S. employees.
"We wanted the recognition culture to be infectious, for everybody to have it," Kelly explains in a case study cited in Gostick and Elton's book. "We want every employee to feel that ... they can be the difference between winning and losing."
DHL's trademarked slogan, "I'm on it!," was coined to reflect the company's willingness to overcome hurdles no matter what it takes. But as Gostick and Elton note, the words printed on posters that hang in every DHL facility would be meaningless if all employees didn't believe in them.
By instilling a program of recognition in which employees are enlisted to nominate coworkers who've made contributions to company goals -- and giving managers a mandate to act on those nominations -- DHL enjoyed a 28% reduction in turnover at the Scottsdale facility in the first six months. Today, DHL attributes its rising esprit de corps to its Carrot Culture.
To read more about customer and employee communications on the Fuel blog, click here.
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