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Geotechnical News December 2011
ASFE NEWS
Human Resources Management
Engineersandothertechnoprofessionals
are notorious for failing to praise people
whose efforts or accomplishments
merit praise. And when they do praise,
technoprofessionals often don’t do it
well.
Writing in BNET, the CBS interac-
tive business network ezine, Jeff Haden
recalled the time he was summoned to
the plant manager’s office. “My su-
pervisor knocked on the [manager’s]
open door to announce us. The plant
manager looked up, looked down at a
note pad, then looked back up and said,
‘Hello, Jeff. Thanks for stopping in.’
“…It turned out he just wanted to
congratulate me for a number of pro-
ductivity improvement suggestions
I made. He didn’t know what those
improvements actually were, though,
so he explained how shop floor em-
ployees were the real foundation of the
company. Then he went to what I later
realized was his go-to, standby speech
about the three-legged stool (if one leg
breaks the stool tips over), and sent me
on my way.
“At the time I was tickled. I had
never spoken to him before, so it was
pretty neat he wanted to congratulate
me in person. I could tell he looked at
his note pad so he could remember my
name, but hey, that was okay.
“A few years later I was in a differ-
ent role helping to start up manufactur-
ing operations for a new demand-print
initiative. One day, to everyone’s sur-
prise, the [30,000-person-] company
CEO came to our facility. Instead of
looking around or talking to our man-
ager (who literally sprinted out of his
door to try to greet him) he headed
straight for me. ‘Hello, Jeff,’ he said.
‘I’m John. I’m in town for the board
of directors meeting and wanted to
meet you and say thanks for everything
you’ve done. You’re ahead of schedule,
the customer is delighted, productivity
is better than we expected… I can’t tell
you how much I appreciate all the hard
work. Do you have time to introduce
me to everyone?’
“I am as cynical as they come —
okay, probably more so — but at that
moment I could not have been more
proud, of myself and of the rest of our
group. I was genuinely pleased. It was
awesome.”
Think about the different approach-
es to praise. In one, the boss made
praise a somewhat perfunctory task; a
box on his to-do list that needed to be
checked. He did not know the employ-
ee’s name and he was not particularly
familiar with what he had done to earn
praise. And he had the employee come
to him, in private.
In the other, the boss wanted to give
value to the praise. He was briefed be-
forehand about who merited praise and
why. He knew what he looked like and
was familiar with what he had done to
earn praise. He came to the employee
– not the other way around – and, in
front of everyone, asked the employee
to introduce him to coworkers, putting
the employee in a leadership spotlight.
Praising people should be a routine
part of your job that you genuinely
look forward to. Have you developed
parameters that indicate who should be
praised? Have you made clear the path
by which people should call praisewor-
thy acts to your attention? Do you go
to the employee or make the employee
come to you? Do you praise in public
or private?
Giving praise can have a huge im-
pact on employee morale and produc-
tivity, yet it costs nothing. Of course, in
some cases, it’s worth nothing.
Bottom
line:
Give praise…and give it value.
Colleen Knight Joins ASFE Staff
Colleen F. Knight has joined ASFE
in the dual capacities of membership
director and organizational relations
director. Colleen was most recently
employed as the assistant manager of
membership for the American Society
of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-
Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE),
where she was responsible for
educational and networking events for
the association’s younger members and
also assisted with the organization’s
recruitment and retention efforts and
membership marketing. Before that,
she worked for more than three years
for the National Investor Relations
Institute as the director of professional
development. Colleen earned a
Bachelor of Arts degree in English
from the College of William & Mary
(Williamsburg, VA) and a Master of
Public Administration degree with a
nonprofit management concentration
fromGeorgia State University (Atlanta,
GA).
