On Being Appreciated

A person who feels appreciated will always do more than what's expected of them.

Many managers think their job is to extract work out of people. I think the job is to make people want to give it. Feeling like what you do matters is incredibly powerful, and plenty of managers underestimate how valuable it is. As a manager, you play two roles here: you show genuine appreciation yourself, and you build an environment where people value each other too, not just where recognition flows down from you.

That second part comes back to everything else I've written about here: no egos, real trust, a genuine sense of team. Get those things right, and appreciation almost takes care of itself. People who trust each other and see themselves as one team don't need to be told to notice each other's work. They just do.

One nuance I actively coach my managers on: appreciation done wrong can backfire. Never single out one person, and never create awards for individuals. That person you're praising almost certainly had help, someone who unblocked them, reviewed their work at 9pm, covered for them so they could focus. Praise only the name on the ticket, and you've told everyone else who contributed that none of it counted. Real appreciation has to include the people who don't show up in the commit history.

I think the word “appreciation” is more interesting than people give it credit for. It doesn't just mean recognition. It also means to gain in value, the way a house or a stock appreciates. That's not a coincidence, it's exactly what happens when you show it. People become more confident that what they're doing matters, and once they feel that, they'll go looking for that feeling again.

People don't leave good teams over one bad sprint or one hard deadline. They leave because, over time, they stop believing anyone actually sees what they're doing.

This sits in the back of my mind all the time. Most of us have worked somewhere we didn't feel appreciated, or watched someone get credit for work they hadn't done. And most of us can also remember a manager telling us we'd done something well, and how long that stayed with us. Both of those change how people perform, and I try never to lose sight of it.

It does need to be real, of course, and it's harder with underperformers. But even then I believe showing appreciation for someone trying to do the right thing helps get them back on track.

This applies at every level, and it should bubble up as well as down.