Side Mirror: "See it. Say it. Appreciate it!" with Debra Corey

Debra Corey is a highly experienced and award-winning HR consultant, world-class speaker, and five-time best-selling author who has been named as one of the top 101 global employee engagement influencers. After over 20 years working for global companies, she now ‘pays it forward’ by inspiring and helping others develop and deliver people and culture strategies and initiatives, and helps leaders and managers support their people to truly drive employee engagement. 

Her most recent book is all about helping managers to leverage the benefits that come from recognising our people. It's called See it, Say it, Appreciate it!", and Debra and I met virtually recently to discuss it.

Buy Debra's Book: See it. Say it. Appreciate it!
Connect with Debra on LinkedIn: Debra Corey
Website: Debcohr.com

I'm delighted to have this opportunity to introduce Debra to you and to give you a flavour of what's included in her highly persuasive and practical book. As always, I look forward to hearing what resonates with you.

Thank you to our sponsors: 

ASKE Consulting

Email: hello@askeconsulting.co.uk

Aquilae

Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk

Episode Directory on Instagram @careerviewmirror  

If you enjoy listening to our guests career stories, please follow CAREER-VIEW MIRROR in your podcast app. 

Episode recorded on 25 September 2023.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

I am sitting in lovely Siesta Key Florida. I'm coming from Bangkok in Thailand, Prague and

Andy: 0:06

the Czech Republic, Cairo in Egypt, Auckland, New Zealand, London, England. Welcome to Career-view Mirror, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own on your host, Andy follows Hello, listeners, and welcome to this side mirror episode of Career-view Mirror. If you're a regular listener, thank you and welcome back, you'll be aware that most of our episodes feature interviews with people with a link to the automotive industry who kindly share their life and career journeys with us. We celebrate their careers, listen to their stories, and learn from their experiences. We also publish these side mirror episodes in which we introduce guests or topics related to careers or developing ourselves, or people we lead parent or mentor that we hope you'll find valuable. For this episode I'm joined by Debra Corey. Debra is a highly experienced and award winning HR consultant, world class speaker and five Times best selling author who's been named as one of the top 101 global employee engagement influencers after over 20 years working for global companies, she now pays it forward by inspiring and helping others develop and deliver people and culture strategies and initiatives and helps leaders and managers support their people to truly drive employee engagement. Her most recent book is all about helping managers to leverage the benefits that come from recognising our people. It's called See it, Say it, Appreciate it. And Debra and I met virtually recently to discuss it. I'm delighted to have this opportunity to introduce Debra to you and to give you a flavour of what's included in her highly persuasive and practical book. As always, I look forward to hearing what resonates with you. Hello, Debra, and welcome. Where are you coming to us from today?

Debra Corey: 2:11

I'm joining you from the sunny Midlands,

Andy: 2:14

the Midlands in the United Kingdom, I can tell a little bit from your accent. That's not where you were at. They have quite a distinctive accent in that part of the country and yours is not. Yours is not coming from there. So where did life start for you?

Debra Corey: 2:27

So yeah, so I was born in the US Believe it or not. I've been over in the UK for gosh, over 20 years, but I still sound completely American. Although when I go back to the US they think I've got a little bit of a British accent which I find amusing.

Andy: 2:42

I was going to say that they I imagine they think you talk like the queen when you go over go back home. But this isn't a This isn't an episode about your life story. Fascinating though it will be to delve into that I particularly want to talk to you about See it, Say it, Appreciate it that book but not your first book, isn't it? No,

Debra Corey: 3:03

it's my fifth book. And it's funny because normally I only write a book every year, maybe every two years. But I wrote a book called Appreciate It for HR people on how to design and develop recognition programmes. And then they wanted me to go in and talk to their managers about appreciation. And I thought no, no, I have to write something specifically for managers. And that's where See it Say it Appreciate it came from.

Andy: 3:26

Right so specifically for managers. And I have to say I love it. There's a quote I just want to start with to help get everybody's attention who's listening. I'm going to quote from the book it says A study shows that 79% of employees would work harder if they felt their efforts were being recognised and research done by Shawn Achor shows that employee productivity can increase by 30% When employees receive just one piece of praise a day now i i love that as far as I'm concerned that sounds like free money. And I'm I'm in it I'm not in it for the money. Believe it or not, I'm in it for the people. I'm absolutely passionate about enabling fulfilling performance. I do however, recognise that businesses have to make money and if we can identify to listeners and to decision makers and CFOs managers that actually this is great for productivity and great for return on investment, then that's going to help keep everybody interested. And I

Debra Corey: 4:24

you know, I love that you I love that you picked up on that. Because I know that when I do talks with managers about appreciation for the right reasons. It's focused on the people but also the business. So I actually have an entire chapter of the book called The super powers of appreciation, because every time I do a workshop with managers, there's always one or two in the back of the room saying to me Yeah, but what does it really do? So that's why an entire chapter is of the 10 superpowers of appreciation and hopefully one of them will resonate at least one will resonate with everybody

Andy: 4:59

I'm sure and we'll come on to that in a second, you talk about igniting those superpowers. And I just wanted to give my own take on the book, I liked it, I think it's really helpful, I think I can really imagine it sitting in, you know, it shouldn't be far away from a manager who wants to really lean in and get better at this. And he's very much intentional about growing their people. It's a very clear structure, it's not a huge book, it's not an overwhelming book to read. The language is really simple, concise, you give a heads up of what to expect from every chapter. And then there's a call to action at the end. So it's super practical. There's lots of data in there about the impact of recognition on individuals, and business performance. And there's plenty of references to supporting research. So when I said a study says, I can go to the back and find out exactly what that study was. So it's well researched. And you offer really practical examples to help managers get started. And a lot of those are drawn from your own considerable professional experience that you've got yourself. So there's my little nutshell, I think it's a really good book and a very useful tool. So let's get on to the superpowers and you talk about igniting the superpower through recognition. So what are some examples of those?

Debra Corey: 6:09

Well, it's interesting, if you just sort of take a step back and think about, you know, what does recognition and appreciation do? I mean, it does so many different things, it can drive employee engagement, and motivation. You know, we all want people who are engaged because I wrote another book on employee engagement. And there's lots of data behind that, that talks about how people who are engaged are more productive, pure in jobs, where it involves safety, better safety, better customer service. So definitely higher employee engagement, things like happiness. I love this one, because the science behind appreciation is that when someone recognises you and shows appreciation, happiness, chemicals are released. I don't know if you know that. But so things like oxytocin, serotonin, which are all the chemicals that are released when you eat chocolate, so think about how great you feel when you eat chocolate, those are the same chemicals. And there's, there's no calories of that. And think about how much better your perform when those happiness chemicals are out. So relating to performance, things like productivity, business results, even things like lower burnout. Because if you're always walking around looking over your shoulder worrying if you're getting things right, because you're not being recognised, you're gonna get burnout. So it can help burn out well being those types of things as well. So those are just a couple examples of the the superpowers I always joke and say that, you know, recognition is like giving you that superhero cape, and giving you those superpowers to do things better than you know, you might not have dreamed that

Andy: 7:37

I like that image, I can imagine the spring in your step you could have. that you get, I love now, the psychological chocolate, that is calling it psychological chocolate of recognition. And you give you know, 10 different areas where recognition helps, and one that resonated with me. And I'm just again, going to quote from your book feedback through recognition, quiets the negatives that take up so much of our employees, thoughts and time, helping them know that they're on the right track that what they do matters and is truly making a difference. And I love that because I know and I preach this myself, if you like that if we're not giving feedback, then people who are trying new stuff, they start to slow down, they start to self evaluate that am I doing this right? Was this okay? Did they like that, and they just get slower and slower and slower. Whereas if we come in and say point out where they're doing well, then that speeds them. It's like spinning a wheel really, when they used to have a hoop and a stick, you're just giving it another spin and off it goes and people can carry on faster. So that resonated with me. What's holding managers back then Debra from this seems like a, you know, it's such a great thing to do. It's got only upside, what's holding managers back from doing it.

Debra Corey: 8:52

Yeah, it's interesting. I think one of them is not understanding that it can make a difference, you know, and again, that's why I share all the differences that it can made. So we think, Well, you know, why bother, they already know that they're doing a good job, or, you know, I already say things to them, or that's part of their job. So I think part of it is just awareness. And anytime I write a book, it's first of all, it's about awareness, helping you understand on you know why it's important, then I think people don't know how to do it. So it sounds like a great thing. But I go into companies quite often and do workshops. And there's always people in the room again, who are just like, I'd love to, but I don't know how to. And that's where the whole idea of See it, Say it, Appreciate it came from so helping people understand. First of all, what are the moments I call the moments that matter? What are the moments that matter that you should be showing appreciation to so being able to see it, and then having the tools to say it and show appreciation? And then things like time? People think they don't have time, which I always challenge people because, you know, how long does it take? And it goes back to what you said if they're three times more productive. The two minutes it'll take to show a proof creation is going to, you know, have a huge, huge impact. And then I guess the last one is money. People think it costs money to recognise people and show appreciation. And sometimes it can be as simple as just a few words, I did a workshop with a hotel chain. We're going around and one of the managers general managers said that, she said, you're all gonna laugh at me. But one of the ways I show appreciation is that when I go around, I use people's names. And everyone did laugh at her that like, that's not appreciation she has no because it shows people that I care enough about them, I value them enough that I take the time to know their name. So I think in the book I wrote, sometimes it's as simple as a name.

Andy: 10:39

Yeah. And you give lots of practice. What I also like about the book is that you help people to make the connection between the concept and the reality you you hold our hands if you like to say okay, so if you're on board with the idea of wanting to do this, here are some examples of how you can use it. Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by ASKE Consulting who are experts in executive search, resourcing solutions and talent management across all sectors of the automotive industry in the UK and Europe. I've known them for almost 20 years and I can think of no more fitting sponsor for Career-view Mirror there, the business we go to at Aquilae When we're looking for talent for our clients and for projects that we're working on, ASKE was founded by Andrew Macmillan, whose own automotive career includes board level positions with car brands and leasing companies. All ASKE consultants have extensive client side experience, which means they bring valuable insight and perspective for both their employer and candidate customers. My earliest experience of working with Andrew was back in 2004, when he helped me hire regional managers from my leasing Sales Team at Alphabet. More recently, when Aquilae was helping a US client to establish a car subscription business, ASKE consulting was alongside us helping us to develop our people strategy, and to identify and bring onboard suitable talent. Clients we've referred to ask I've had an equally positive experience. Andrew and the team at ASKE are genuinely interested in the long term outcomes for you and the people they place with you. They even offer the reassurance of a two year performance guarantee, which means they have skin in the game when working with you. If you're keen to secure the most talented and high potential people to accelerate your business and gain competitive advantage, do get in touch with them and let them know I sent you. You can email Andrew and the team at hello@askeconsulting.co.uk or check out their website for more details and more client feedback at www.askeconsulting.co.uk. ASKE is spelt A S K E You'll find these contact details in the show notes for this episode. Okay, let's get back to our episode. You've mentioned we've mentioned it a couple of times now this title of See it, Say it, Appreciate it. Let's say a little bit about that where it comes from and what you know what it means. Yeah,

Debra Corey: 13:03

I mean, I'm a big believer that you need something to sort of condense into a simple word, simple acronym, whatever it is. And I was trying to come up with an idea for the title of the book, I told you my last book for HR people was called Appreciate It. And I was standing at the train station and I was hearing that phrase, which we've heard a million times, which is see it say it sorted. And it was one of those lightbulb moments for me it was like, Oh my gosh, isn't that sort of what we should be doing with appreciation instead of when you're at the train station, it's about you see something, you tell somebody and they sort it. And I said actually with appreciation, we see something, then we need to take responsibility and we need to say it and we need to show appreciation. So I thought it was a really simple way in a simple sort of rallying call, you know, to remind all of us to you know, look for those moments and then do something about it, say it and deliver what I call the appreciation feeling so that that's where it came up from. I'm glad I'm doing this in the UK because I think I did a talk in the US once and they're like what see it say it sorted. I never heard of that before.

Andy: 14:10

Yeah, well, we should say because the majority of our listeners are overseas so we should explain that this is a British Transport Police I think mantra isn't it. It's a mantra that if you travel on public transport in the UK, you cannot avoid hearing see it say it sorted and it's the call to action is to message them on on a certain number and they will sort it out. So it's very, very well known to our British listeners.

Debra Corey: 14:38

Yeah, it's a different call of action. So instead the call to action here is to deliver the appreciation feeling so yeah, that's where that's where it came about. So thank you British Transport Police.

Andy: 14:48

Yeah, that's inspiring as always, it is it is. So we start with see what sort of things can managers be looking out for that where if they want if they get I'm bored with this, what can they be looking out for to recognise?

Debra Corey: 15:03

Yeah, and I think that's one of the problems is a lot of times we look for those big huge things that people do, like, you know, they finish a project, or they come up with this amazing new idea. But there's all those little things that lead up to it, I interviewed somebody who is a personal trainer, I wanted to get his thoughts on how he motivates people and how he shows appreciation. And he was, he was saying something very profound, which was, you know, when I, when I work with someone to run a marathon, for example, I have to give them little moments of appreciation, you know, the first time they run their first 1k, the first time they run in the rain, or, you know, they fall over, and they get up and he said, you know, these are the moments that you no matter just as much. And actually, you'll never get over the finish line at a marathon if you don't do it. So I think it's to look for those small moments and those big moments. And I always joke about put your appreciation glasses on, and then also hand them out to people on your team. Because there's no way that we can be responsible as managers for capturing all those moments that matter, we can be in all those different places, especially when you know, we've got virtual teams now and such. So it's, you know, challenge everybody to look on their, you know, put on their appreciation glasses and look for those small moments, those big moments, and share them and encourage people to share them so that we can be inspired and think, do you know what? So and so did the same thing? I'm gonna go and appreciate them as well.

Andy: 16:29

Yeah, you mentioned the technology there and the virtual environments that we work in now, which obviously take away some opportunities, but they also have made it I think, quite easy to the mechanisms aren't there for recognising teammates, and you build this environment. There's noticeboards there, you can have channels that are devoted to giving kudos and high fives to people, people do it in different ways. So there is the platforms are there. If the leader models the behaviour, and then encourages the teammates to, as you say, put the appreciation glasses on.

Debra Corey: 17:03

I call it a crowdsourcing approach. So you get everybody involved in, you know, as you said, about technology, there's, you know, I've worked in many organisations where we have a recognition platform, which is great. But if your company doesn't have one, there's still things you could do. When I was writing this book, my husband every day on the dog walk had to listen to me talk about it, and his company didn't have anything. So he just put it upon himself to create a funny you say that word, kudos, a kudos channel on remember, he had slack or teams, but one of them. And he just set it up for everyone in the company. And he said, I'm going to do this for my team, if anybody else wants to join in. And then I love what he did next. Because I always talk about how you should to live your company values you should recognise based off of your company values. So he had each of his company values animated so that when you recognise someone against one of the values, you'd get this dancing values emoji, so I thought that was quite fun. And he said, it took a little while but little by little, and their engineers, little by little, they all jumped on and they they really enjoyed using the channel, and it costs nothing. Well, I think he paid something like five pounds to have each of the values animated, but that was it.

Andy: 18:17

Yeah. Excellent. And you also share in the book, your recognition toolkit, if you give us a toolkit of things we can use to help recognise people based on their individual contributions and their preferences. So how they want a need to feel appreciated, I remember think about this years ago, delivering the seven habits programme and you know, someone's really takes care of what they eat, and it's very interested in, you know, looking after themselves, then taking them to McDonald's is not going to be the treat that it might be for someone else. So that idea that you need to recognise So what sort of things go in the in the tool kit, then what are some of the tools that managers can be using?

Debra Corey: 18:59

Yeah, the reason I decided to have this particular chapter is that there's formal recognition, which people like me and HR are responsible for, you know, building these technology based programmes and everything and things with prizes and all that. But I think as a manager, there's so many other things that you can do informally. So that's what the toolkit is, is all of the informal things. And I, you know, to some extent, I give guidance, but I'm a big fan of doing what works for you. And I'll give you a perfect example, I worked at one company, and this one guy, his wife baked the most amazing cookies in the world. And anytime you would help this man out, you would get a bag of homemade cookies. Now, you can imagine how many times people volunteered to help him because his cookies were famous, but that was something that that he would do that was personal to him. You know, people knew working with me anytime we did a project I'd always have a party so people would want to work with me for the party at the end. But it really depends on you know what feels right for you, but Going back to what you said, also what's right for your people. And there's lots of different ways of putting them into categories. I tried to make it simple things like growth and development opportunities. So sometimes it recognition would be as simple as having someone present for you at a meeting. I mean, what a great way to say, you know, you did such a good job on this project, I want you to present the results instead of me, or do you know what you did such a great job, I'm gonna send you to a training programme or something like that, um, gifts, I talked about cookies. Somebody I interviewed once he sent out this thing, which is a values, a vulture, culture, culture vulture toy, I don't know, it was from a pet shop. And it was one of those little squeaky toys, and anytime someone helped him, he'd send them a lovely note with that. So any kind of gift doesn't have to cost a lot of money. Next one is time. I mean, we all are strapped for time. You know, I've done things before where someone's gone out of their way to help me on a project. And I'll be like, you know, what, why don't you just take a half day on Friday. And it just means so much to people cost? Nothing. Last one are activities, doing some fun things as a group maybe. And then communication, which is just, you know, maybe having in your team meeting, you share how someone did a great job. But I think you really, it's important to get it right for that person, so that it's viewed as a gift and not a punishment.

Andy: 21:25

Yeah, so the positioning, if it is, I'm going to get you to present the results in the meeting that has to be positioned and understood by the individual as what an opportunity this is, yeah. And that they feel comfortable with it. Yeah. And you also talked about, you know, some people will find it excruciating to be publicly highlighted and praised in front of everyone. So getting that understand the individual understanding. So you don't just have a one size fits all approach to how you recognise people and you appreciate some are gonna love it, and some are gonna hate that.

Debra Corey: 21:57

Yeah, it's interesting, because a lot of the recognition technology has a box that you can tick that says, Do you want to keep this personal between you and the person because a lot of times what happens is you've got like a, a social recognition wall, you know, like Instagram, or Facebook or something like that. And it just shows all of the recognition moments so people can jump in. And it's lovely, you know, you thank someone, and then 30 other people in the company jump in and say, Well done, but I love you. And personally, I would only get technology that has that little box, because some people, as you said, would be mortified. I have an example, I think I put into the book where I recognise someone who helped me prepare a presentation for a conference. And here I am standing on stage with a couple 100 people in the audience. And I thought, how can I thank this person? Well, she loved the limelight, she would have loved to be on the stage instead of me. So at the end, I brought her onto stage and had the entire audience applaud her and you know, tell her what a great job and you know, going back to happiness chemicals, instead of it just being one set of happiness chemicals for me, she had a couple 100 people in the audience clapping and happiness chemicals were going everywhere. Yeah. But that wouldn't work for everyone. Other people would have been mortified. Don't make me go on stage.

Andy: 23:12

Yeah, I can imagine it would be awful for them. So that reminds me of another example in the book, which we might not get into in detail. So I'm going to bring it in now was an I might get this wrong, but it was like a piss off praise or something where you just say a little bit about about that.

Debra Corey: 23:32

Yeah, I you know, I'm very honest about what works, and also what hasn't worked throughout my career. And I think that sometimes we make mistakes, and where we end up thinking we're doing the right thing, and we end up pissing people off. So for example, I had a situation that happened once where, you know, we all worked on this project together different levels of contributions. And then at the end, everyone got recognised at the same level, where one person had, you know, been in the project for a, you know, a day and another person had been doing it for four months. And we just end up pissing people off, or you recognise someone, and you miss out three people. So I call them either the piss off factor, or also sometimes I call it the eye rolling factor where people are like, oh, yeah, here we go. Again, they didn't get it. Right. So not to scare people. But you know, just a little bit of a caution if you're going to recognise someone and please do it. Just think about are you going to piss anybody off? Is there is there any, you know, anything that that's gonna happen negative as a result of it, and most of the time it isn't. But just that one moment of pause, will make sure that you haven't missed somebody out or that you're recognised in the wrong way.

Andy: 24:45

I love that. And I loved all the examples to really help managers get started on their recognition journey. So giving them hey, look, here's five things that counters recognition that don't necessarily cost money. And yes, please be mindful of how you You, you're ready to get started. Now be mindful that not every one wants the same type of recognition. So do that, but you're off and running. And then you give us four golden rules of appreciation with a really nice acronym. So should we talk about that?

Debra Corey: 25:15

Sure, I call these the four things we must do. Because again, I've got a really bad memory. So see it, say it appreciate it must be easy to remember. And yeah, each of the letters of the acronym are different things. So the M stands for meaningful, we talked a little bit about that already making sure that it's meaningful for that individual, but also meaningful based off of what they've done. Because again, if I think about how I've seen it done wrong before is, if someone's done something really big, you need to make them feel like they've done something really big. If they've done something small, then it should be small. And I'll give you an example of it. I've worked at a company once and somebody did a really good job we did like the annual pay review process. And one of the senior directors wanted to recognise someone on my team for doing a great job. And this was back when I was in the US. And I think they wanted to, to give this person $1,000. And I pushed back and I said, you know, by all means, sank this person show appreciation, but she was just doing her job. So first of all, she's going to feel really embarrassed about it. And going back to the piss off factor. I've got 15 other people on my team who will not have gotten $1,000. So please do not do this. So yeah, meaningful, making sure that you make it meaningful.

Andy: 26:33

Yeah. And then the U is for unified.

Debra Corey: 26:36

Yeah. So it's, it's, um, I wanted to use the word inclusive, but missed doesn't work as well as much. So it's more about unified, uniform, inclusive. And again, it goes back to that. So make sure that when you're doing it, you're thinking broadly, and you're thinking about how can I do it in an inclusive way, because again, that's one of the things I've seen wrong. You know, I talked about the eye rollers, I worked at a company once where we had like a quarterly Recognition Award. And it was always the same people from the same department every time. And I sat in the first meeting and watch people rolling their eyes, and I got rid of the award the next day. So again, thinking about what can you do to make it inclusive?

Andy: 27:19

So we've got must meaningful, unified, and then the S for spotlight.

Debra Corey: 27:24

So yeah, so as it's under the spotlight, and I mentioned it a little bit earlier in that, I think, you know, recognition is a learning moment, we talked about it's feedback. So it's not just feedback for you. But if someone on your team has done something great, why not share that as a teaching moment, for the rest of your organisation, put it under the spotlight, you know, start out a lot of people, I know managers, they'll either at the beginning or the end of their meetings, they'll open it up and say, does anybody have anything that they want to share that someone's done that you want to show appreciation, and all of a sudden people have learned, you know, that's what good looks like, or that's what great looks like. So it's a learning moment. But also going back to that happiness chemicals. As I said before, it's a way to have more tap happiness, chemicals released just by putting it under the spotlight. And there's so many ways to do it through technology, or just simple things, like I think you mentioned about putting it on a notice board, but whatever works for you.

Andy: 28:19

And I'm going to say that also paints the manager in a good light, if I'm in that team meeting, so I'm new into that team. And I'm sitting there and the manager opens up with fat, I'm gonna think, oh, this person really cares about, you know, the performance of people and then noticing things, and I'm gonna feel good about the manager, I'm gonna have a positive impression of the manager from seeing them do that.

Debra Corey: 28:44

I think it's a really, really important point. And, yeah, where were you when I was writing the book? Because I think that's, um, yeah, there's so there's some, it's a win for you as well. So it's not just a win for your people, it's a win for you. Because it shows people that you care that you value them all the things that appreciation can do. And it's interesting, because I'll have people say, You know what, I want to be on that team, because that boss gets it and that person appreciates. Whereas this other boss, nothing ever seems good enough for them. Why do I ever want to work for this person? So yeah, I can help you, give you bonus points.

Andy: 29:16

And I also notice, we really shouldn't underestimate how much we have to help people make the connection between concepts and reality. So I was saying that at the beginning, because I think you do this very thoroughly in the book, but as a manager, this is a great tool for me to show. This is what I want to see you doing. You wonder how that concept applies in our organisation? Well, you know, John, or Jenny, just they did it there. They they lived out, you know, what does it mean? What are our values mean? Well, I think when Jenny did this, she was absolutely demonstrating our value of x. So you're using real life examples from the organisation from the team to help people make the connection between a value or a concept or a theory and practical applications. So

Debra Corey: 30:03

absolutely. And it's interesting because the book I wrote before this was on values. And the reason I always write a book, when I see that there's a problem, and I feel like I have a solution. And the reason I wrote that book is that about three out of 10, people know what their company values are. And about two out of 10, people actually apply them on a day to day basis. So as you just said, if you're using appreciation as a storytelling mechanism, to bring their values out to play, which is what I call the book, because I love the idea that you bring them out to play, you throw them around like balls and use them, then of course, your people are going to start understanding what they mean and using them. That's what values are for to help your business and your people perform better. So you might as well do it through appreciation.

Andy: 30:47

Yep, we had something when I was back in New Zealand, we had in the organisation, we had 12 basic principles, which was quite a lot to keep on top of, if you saw somebody demonstrating one of the basic principles, then you could nominate them, and we had a chart up in the restaurant area. And we would go and, you know, stick a little picture of them up with what they did. And it was a race really, as soon as we filled up a certain number of spaces for that, then there was a there was some kind of treat at the end of it, I cringe a little bit because it wasn't very sophisticated. But it was along the same lines of getting people to recognise values in practice and principles. In practice,

Debra Corey: 31:28

I was just gonna interrupt you, because you made me think of something. When you said that, you know, you're a bit embarrassed. But to me, sometimes the most crude, the silliest ones are the best I interviewed company, Tony's Chocoloni great chocolate. And they have an appreciation wheel. So that when someone leaves a value, they get a spin and they get to, you know, get some prize. It's it's not worth a lot of money. But the reason I raised this is that during the pandemic, they change the prizes on the wheel. And they sent me a picture of it during the pandemic, because I wrote a book about how companies were using the values during the pandemic. And they put little prizes like you can win toilet paper, when hand sanitizer, you can win a six pack of beer and you know what people absolutely loved it so it doesn't have to be sophisticated. Yeah, that's another one of my pet peeves is that people just, they wait too long. And to be honest, they missed the moment, one of my my second book I wrote with my CEO, he told me the story of how he became like one of the employees of the year. And he couldn't even remember what he had done. He said he got the award, he's standing on the stage. And he was mortified. So I always say you've got these superpowers, why wait to you know, release the happiness chemicals, have people put their superhero cape on, you know, it takes a minute to do and if you're the kind of person where you, you know, your job is so busy, you can't do it in the moment, jot it down somewhere, even if you just do it, like on a Friday morning, do it on Friday, but do not wait too long, because it's gonna lose its impact. And you're going to miss out on all the time that that person could be their superhero.

Andy: 33:25

Yes, I think if you've got the right paradigm, if you understand why you're doing it, this is not just something that yeah, this is going to make them feel good. And everybody should do it at some point in the it's this is going to accelerate them, this is going to give them a boost, right now it's going to it's going to engage them, it's going to have all sorts of positive impact on them immediately. So catch them doing something right. And appreciate it as soon as you spot it, or as soon as you can.

Debra Corey: 33:53

Yeah, share some when you talk about accelerate, I shared, I'm the type of person who's very visual. So I try to explain things in a sort of non business way. And I talk about like, you know, if you're on the motorway, and you can drive 70 miles an hour, why would you only drive at 30 miles an hour, you know, it's going to take you twice as long to get there. And that's what appreciation can do it can move someone from 30 to 70. So why wait, you know, why don't you just say, You know what, I'm going to appreciate them now and zoom, they can go to 70 instead of waiting six months, and doing that. So I'm I'm not saying that, you know, programmes like quarterly awards and annual awards are bad. But personally, I'm a big fan of in the moment recognition. So that should be your priority, and then build into more of these these big, you know, the bigger prizes.

Andy: 34:42

Yeah, I think sometimes people think that people who are interested in these topics, just care about people and then feeling good and them having a nice time at work. And they kind of think, yeah, they're just like, soft Soft Skills soft people might not appreciate that no, this is about going from 30 to 70. This is about having people really performing at the highest possible level all the time. It's not just about making them feel good.

Debra Corey: 35:13

Absolutely. And that's why, as I mentioned earlier, that's why I share 10 superpowers, and some of them are softer. Some of them are things like, you know, a sense of belonging, things like that. But others are hardcore business results, because at the end of the day appreciation drives hardcore business results, I genuinely genuinely have seen that. I've seen the data to support it. And even if you just look within yourself, and think about how did you feel the last time someone showed you appreciation recognised you? And how did you feel when you did something great, and you were ignored? And just think about those those different scenarios and think about the difference that made to you. And then think about how you can then do that with your people and help them.

Andy: 36:03

I think that's great advice. You can imagine, if you ask yourself, well, how do I feel when someone gives me positive feedback or appreciation? Do I take my foot off the gas? No, I think, Oh, great. How can I do that? Again, that felt good. I'm on the right track. I want to do more of this. And then you also because we have to be careful, don't we, Deborah about the way we give feedback, it's not enough to just say, Oh, great job, you've got some guidance there as well on how to actually deliver your appreciation and recognition so that it's meaningful, so it hits the spot. And again, there's an acronym here, or AVI, tell us a little bit about AVI.

Debra Corey: 36:42

Yeah. And I can't take credit for that. A former colleague of mine wrote a book called Crave. And he shared this. And the reason I included in the book is I remember at a previous organisation, I was looking at data on who was recognising and who wasn't an entire country, nobody none of the managers were recognising. So when I went and did a visit, they said to me, Well, we're not doing it, because we just don't know how to say it. So forget about giving the awards. They just didn't know how to say it. It was I think it was Macedonia, and they were telling me how culturally, it's just, this was five years ago. So it's probably changed. But culturally, it's not just something that that we do, it's not something we're used to. So I shared this model and light bulbs went off. So the the A is the action. So what exactly did they do? So instead of saying, just thank you for your help, what did they do to help? You know, they're not mind reader's? They might help 20 people a day. So what exactly did you do? The Wii is linking it to the values, we spoke about that. And then the eye is the impact. So again, it's great to say, you know, thank you for preparing this presentation. Okay, but what impact did it make? So thank you for preparing this presentation. It got the point across really well, people laughed in the presentation, they did a really good job. You know, they enjoyed it a lot. So A is action v as values is impact. And it's really, really simple. And it doesn't take longer to do those three steps in a message.

Andy: 38:11

No, but it superpowers that ignites the superpower of that appreciation. It gives it real weight.

Debra Corey: 38:17

Yeah. And they know what to do next time, they'll know, okay, this is something that people value. I'm going to do that. You mentioned something earlier, I'm writing another book, and my editor, what she'll do is she'll correct things. And then every once in a while, she'll highlight something and say, I love this. And my co author said, Why is she doing this? Isn't her job just to edit? And I said no, because she's telling me to do more of this. First of all, it makes me feel good when she says it. But it tells me you know, what, as I continue writing, those are the types of things that she thinks is going to make a difference in my book. So you know, that's appreciation, just by adding that one comment.

Andy: 38:59

Yeah, and it's helpful guidance is absolutely, it's, I can see that. You mentioned culture. You mentioned Macedonia, that made me think I had German colleagues in my team from time to time. And if I said to them are, you know, thank you very much for doing that. That was really good. They'd say I was doing my job. And that seemed to be a very different kind of level of expectation, culturally. So have you noticed that you obviously, you've noticed it with the Macedonian colleagues? Is there something more to say on that, and also, generationally, because we've had a big focus on self esteem in the 80s, I think raising kids in the in the 80s and 90s. But you know, has that affected the expectation of recognition and praise that we're seeing in the workplace now?

Debra Corey: 39:48

Absolutely. And I think that's why it goes back to the concept of personalization, because we can generalise so some of the younger generations we call the trophy generation. So you know, the recognised for me everything, I mean, I'll just share this silly story about how my, my daughter at the end of the year award ceremony was like, you know, average and academics average in sports, everyone won an award, but her. So they gave her a trophy for kinda student or, you know, completely not meaningful. But you know, I hadn't written the book yet. So I'll cut them some slack. But they grew up getting trophies. So they, you know, they do have different expectations. Absolutely. Whereas, my generation, you know, we didn't do that. But I do think that's a generalisation. Because as my husband, I thrive on appreciation, if I don't get a preferred appreciation, I feel really frustrated. So I do think there's some general things like to your point, certain cultures, it's not as common, certain generations, it's not common. So we need to keep those things in mind. But then go back to understanding our people and understanding, you know, I have conversations with my people. What does appreciation look like to you? You know, what are the things that you do that you really matter that you want me to make sure that I see these things? And how will you feel appreciated? What do I need to do? I'm not saying you have to do this, but getting an understanding the same way that you understand other aspects of your people. Some companies I know even, like, put it in their system, like so and so really likes time off so and so really likes gifts? Because, you know, it makes a difference.

Andy: 41:25

Oh, that reminds me if the love language is yes, absolutely. And how we need to know what those are to really maximise the opportunity. Today, as we're recording this tomorrow, in the UK, the Great British Bake Off starts, which is a programme I love. I don't watch Master Chef, but I watched the Great British Bake Off. But you you learned some lessons about appreciation from Australian Master Chef, didn't you explain that a little bit about what that was?

Debra Corey: 41:52

My husband makes fun of me. Because when I'm writing a book, everything relates to the book, everything. But um, it really did. So if you've ever watched Master Chef, or

Andy: 42:03

I'm sure the the format's probably very similar. Yeah, they are.

Debra Corey: 42:07

And what I said was, it goes back to this inclusive environment in that, you know, yes, you have a winner. But what they do is they have lots of different things that we can learn. So you can win in different ways, like you might be, I don't know, the most creative person. So you might win the innovation test, or you might be a real team player, and you'll will win the team test. So I thought it was a really good lesson for people to think about, you know, not everyone's the same, what are the different ways that we can see appreciation and recognise people, they also I think, do a lovely job, at least the the Australian one, not every country does it as lovely as the Australians. But even when you lose, like you could be like in the top three in this innovation test. And even if you lose, they give you really good feedback. Because remember, appreciation is partially feedback. And they give you really good feedback, you know, Congratulations, you made it to the top three, you didn't win. But these are the three things you did really well. And again, I think that's important. You know, there's not always just one winner. There's lots of other types of winners that you can have. So I just think it's important. You know, even when you've got to show like, so competitive as Master Chef, they still try to find different ways to appreciate people. And you can definitely tell because when people are leaving, they talk about what an amazing experience was not just oh my gosh, this is so horrible. I lost. It's like no, I was a winner throughout the entire experience.

Andy: 43:31

Yeah. And those programmes that I've seen in that format, also really demonstrate growth mindset very well. So they, they really recognise that if I get feedback from a top judge, that's a gift, and I'm going to use that next week. If I do get through to next round, then I'm taking all this on board and I'm applying it there's no negativity about being given feedback, it's appreciated for what it what it's going to how it's going to help them. So I love what

Debra Corey: 44:01

you just said, because going back to the concept of, you know, cultural and you know, like, some people might not see the power of it. But I could see me going to my people and saying exactly what you just said, you know, I want you to see feedback. As a gift, you might be embarrassed because culturally, it's not something that that you're used to, but see it as a gift, see it as something that you can use next time in your situation, and maybe appeal to their, you know, priority on learning, you know, growth mindset, as you said before, so if some people are a bit, you know, they feel a bit funny about being recognised just culturally it might not feel right or personally might not feel right. Try to pick on one of the you know, one of the other reasons for having it, it's it's a way to help you learn more to grow more to progress more and focus on that aspect of it.

Andy: 44:47

Yeah. And if I didn't care about you, I wouldn't go to the trouble of telling you these things. Absolutely. We've had quite a few visual we've had our superheroes capes. For me the spring in the step they Get there. There's the going from 30 to 70 on the motorway. And then there's another example you say think of recognition like a board game, when you recognise someone, they move one step forward. And if you miss the recognition moment, they move one step backward. So I like that, that idea, as well. So to what extent if I'm still totally on board, I've read the book, I'm thinking, Yes, I can see the benefits. And now Thank goodness, thanks to Debra , I know I'm not lost when it comes to how and when to do this, I know what I can be trying. So to what extent can I put in place some kind of system to take some of the strain so that I'm left with a manageable responsibility for noticing and recognising, rather than it's not on an ad hoc basis, but I've got some kind of system to help me or I can turn this into some kind of a habit. So how do I how do I do that?

Debra Corey: 45:52

I think the first thing is to see what your company has in place. So you know, I'm an HR person, I'm responsible for putting things in place. So leverage what your company has. And if they have it, use that if your company doesn't have it, then talk to your people find out what will work for them. And you know, to your point, come up with something, you know, to me to make it inclusive, I would want to track it, though, just you know, can just be a simple spreadsheet, to be honest with you and just say, you know, these are the types of things that I've been tracking and just see, because it also helps with performance management, if you think about it. So at the end of the quarter, or a year, or whenever you're assessing your pupils performance, by all means, look at all the times that you recognise people. So yeah, keep track of those moments as well.

Andy: 46:38

That can be so helpful I can imagine. Because when it comes to those annual reviews, and you're sitting there trying to think, Okay, what do I want to say? Well, if you've got already got a list of all the times you recognise them for things and the feedback that you've given, then it's all done for you, isn't it? Really, it's an it's been given in the moment. So there's no surprises, you don't want surprises for people in those review meetings. So they'll have already habit and you'll just be referring back to what happened during the course of the year.

Debra Corey: 47:05

Yeah, because in performance management, there's something called recency effect, I'm sure we all know where, you know, you can't remember all the great things the person did. So it's nice to have those moments. And again, if you've got technology, it does that for you, you can run a report of what the people did. But if you don't have technology, that's why I would encourage you to do something to track it just because I've learned the hard way that I'll never remember these things, if I don't jot it down, and it can take two seconds.

Andy: 47:32

So there's yet another what's in it for me for the manager is it's really going to improve the quality of your review meeting your annual reviews or quarterly reviews. And it's going to make them a lot easier today. So is there anything on this topic that I haven't asked you about? From the book The you'd like to to underline, Debra, before I asked you about your next book?

Debra Corey: 47:58

I guess one thing that you said just about making it a habit. So figure out what is going to work for you trial and error. You know, is it something as I said before, that you come up with a little notebook, a little spreadsheet? Is it something that you sit down on Friday, but you know, I in the book, I talk about habits, because I genuinely believe that for some people, it's going to take a little while to feel comfortable. You know, for me, it I'm just so passionate about it that I see it all the time. And I don't find it difficult, but it might take you a little while to do that. And that's absolutely fine. So whatever you can do to make it a habit and you reap the benefits, and I say reap the benefits, because my husband told me and I completely agree. He said you know what? I get happiness chemicals when I show appreciation to someone, and he's true. So it's not just, it's not just the people who feel great. But again, think about the last time that you thank someone and you recognise somebody and what was it a great feeling for you. So it's another win win, as you talked about earlier?

Andy: 48:56

Absolutely. It does seem to be very beneficial all round. And I was a bit glib when I said it's free besides like free money, but I still can't get away from it. It's like free money plus loads of other stuff. And happiness, chemicals and fulfilment.

Debra Corey: 49:17

Why don't you share why wouldn't you? Yeah, and it's fun. You know so much of our job. That's that's the last thing I'd say actually is so much of our job as a manager is difficult and challenging. Let's be real. We have to deal with difficult customers, difficult employees situations. Nothing in recognition is not fun. All it is is I know it sounds touchy feely, but all it is is happiness and why wouldn't we want to have a part of our job, which is Delivering Happiness and feeling good about something?

Andy: 49:48

Yeah, it's Delivering Happiness should delivering growth. You're showing the team what we're looking for. You're showing even your biggest underperformer in the team is going to if every team meeting they're giving exact examples of what the other team members do, then they're getting clarity on what they should be doing the eyes just I'm sold. Debra don't need any more convincing. So

Debra Corey: 50:09

one down. Yeah. And I say that because you use that one statistic at the beginning. And another statistic that made me write the book is that eight out of 10 people have not been recognised or felt appreciated in a year. So forget the last week, the last quarter of the last month, eight out of 10 people are saying that not one person has shown me appreciation. And I want to change that. And I need all of you to help me with that.

Andy: 50:38

Oh, I'm open mouths, but that so call to action to listeners, when you finish listening to this podcast, go and appreciate somebody and use some of the guidance from the conversation with Debra to do that. But even if you get it slightly wrong, better than not doing it. So what's the next book about

Debra Corey: 50:58

well I interviewed you for this book. So this book is called very different, very different than this than appreciation. It's called Bad Bosses Ruin Lives. That's the negative part where I'm talking about some of the bad boss traits that all of us have to be honest with you, including me. And then the other half of the book is what are the building blocks to be a great boss? So understanding it's I think it's about awareness, similar to what we talked about appreciation, awareness of what are the things that we can do wrong? And then I'm a big believer in how to do it, right. So again, lots of models, lots of examples, lots of stories. Interestingly, I asked for stories on bad and great bosses. I had lots of bad boss stories, I only had a handful of great boss stories. So that's that's not good.

Andy: 51:47

All right, well, we can definitely I had a fantastic boss. So when my most recent boss when I left was in the corporate world. And I've mentioned that a number of times on my podcast. So if we want that story, you can you can definitely Yeah, happy to share how he looked after me. And they agreed me so right Debra. So this book, See it Say it Appreciate it, we'll put a link to this in the show notes to the episodes so people can go on to Amazon and get a copy or onto your website, wherever they prefer. When does the next book come out? When does bad but I just think it's quite funny that you said that you interviewed me for the book. It's called Bad Bosses Ruin Lives we need to speak to Andy Follows Yeah, definitely.

Debra Corey: 52:32

You know, it's, it's funny, because I'm always an optimistic person. All my book titles are always positive. But the reason that I have this title is that I'm writing this book because of a story I shared with one of my co authors. And the phrase came about Bad Bosses Ruin Lives. And I thought this book is going to be hit people between the eyes, and then have the solution. But I'm a bit nervous, because it might scare some people off. If they don't read the second part of the title, then they're never gonna get the book. No,

Andy: 53:02

I think they'll get it.

Debra Corey: 53:03

But sorry, that comes out December. Okay,

Andy: 53:06

thank you very much. They were really enjoyed talking with you really enjoyed reading your book, I think it's very practical, very helpful, and just injecting a whole lot of value into into the workplace and into people's lives. It's very positive. So thank you very much for joining me, I look forward to staying connected with you.

Debra Corey: 53:26

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk about something as you can tell, I'm quite passionate about it. I appreciate it.

Andy: 53:37

You've been listening to Career-view Mirror with me. Andy Follows this episode has been all about the power of demonstrating appreciation, and how to go about doing so effectively. I hope that you'll take something away from Debra's insights and use your new knowledge for the benefit of yourself and those around you. If you enjoy listening to our episodes, please could you do me a huge favour and share them with someone you lead parent or mentor or a friend do you think will also appreciate them? Thank you to Debra for joining me, thank you to our sponsors for this episode, ASKE Consulting and Aquilae. And thank you to the Career-view Mirror team without whom we would not be able to share I guess life and career stories. And above all, thank you to you for listening.

Unknown: 54:16

No matter how hard you try, no matter how hard working you are, you're never going to be able to do it on your own. It's just not possible.

Paul Harris: 54:23

You know, at the end of the day, you're steering your own destiny. So if it's not happening for you, and you're seeing what you want out there, then go out there and connect.

Sherene Redelinghuys: 54:31

Don't rely on others. You you have to do it yourself. You have to take control.

Rupert Pontin: 54:37

If you've got an idea if you've got a thought about something that might be successful, if you've got a passion to do something yourself, but you just haven't quite got

Tom Stepanchak: 54:46

do it. Take a risk. Take a chance to stick your neck out what's the worst that can happen? You fall down okay, you pick yourself up and you try again.