Team recognition shines the spotlight on a group of individuals rather than just one person. However, team recognition honors multiple contributors rather than just one individual.
When they present to a team, award presenters tend to generalize their comments without personally recognizing each member for their unique contribution. Don’t make this critical mistake! It is imperative that presenters recognize both the individuals on the team one at a time and the team as a unit.
The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) is a group of professionals from a variety of fields including, human resources, legal, finance, information technology, sales, and marketing. CEB delivers data and tools, along with best practices to over 120,000 executives on a regular basis. This organization has outlined the following four common mistakes to avoid when recognizing a team.
#1 – Don’t Dismiss the Importance of Being Personal
Follow the same best practices that apply to individual recognition – be timely and specific. Most of all, choose a personally meaningful award for the recipients.
#2 – Don’t Forget to Recognize Team Behavior and Accomplishments
Recognize the way in which the team accomplished a goal and the achievement of that goal. Both ingredients – the goal and the achievement of the goal – are important.
#3 – Don’t Miss an Opportunity For Team Reviews
Diminish the tendency for individuals to focus on their personal contribution by conducting team reviews. Ask questions like: Did the team meet their goals? or How did the team perform?
#4 – Don’t Allow Employees to Recognize Their Peers
Encourage your employees a chance to speak up and recognize one another at company meetings and large gatherings. Public praise doesn’t always need to come from a manager. Peer-to-peer praise is very powerful and encourages a team to unite.
Team recognition has a very powerful and meaningful impact on both the employees and the employer. Since team-oriented work is common in today’s business world, take a moment to consider learning about how to make teamwork effective in your organization. In addition to team recognition, we recommend the following resources:
- Teamwork 101 by John C. Maxwell
- The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player by John C. Maxwell
- Fish! by Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, John Christensen
- The Orange Revolution, The Carrot Principle, The 24 Carrot Manager, and Managing with Carrots by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton
At Crystal D, we’ve helped create a number of teamwork awards. Here is a small sample of these awards.
Contact us today for more teamwork award ideas.
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