Why trophies matter

Trophies | Crystal,
a photo by trophies on Flickr.

The parents groaned just a little bit when they walked into the sports banquet and saw a table loaded with plastic gold-tone trophies.  They saw each one as another piece of clutter that would be left on the stairs to be tripped over or plopped on a dresser to gather dust.

What the parents forgot - until their beaming child marched to the front to be presented with his prize - was that it wasn't about the plastic trophies.  The banquet and the "gold" cups on pedestals were about recognition for a job well done.  The trophies were tangible evidence of appreciation and achievement that would be revisited over and over.  The sight of that trophy in each child's room would serve as a reminder that they can be successful.

In the workplace many compensation structures involve incentive pay.  The idea is that the financial reward coincides with the calibre of the performance.  Do good work and you receive a nice bonus.  But there are a few problems with incentive pay as a means of recognition:

• It doesn't take long for the financial incentive to become part of the family budget.  It morphs into an expectation, and before long the bonus or commission only becomes noticeable in its absence.   When it shrinks or disappears, regardless of the sound business rationale behind the change, the employee is demotivated.
• It is impersonal.  The bonus or commission arrives in a paycheck, and sometimes directly into a bank account without any fanfare.  No handshake, no "attaboy" accompanies it.
• It isn't noticeable.  Nobody but the CFO knows how well you're doing - that is unless you use your gains to purchase a car, a big house, or some trophy of your own choosing.  Heaven forbid that you talk about it in your workplace - comparative compensation talk can result in disciplinary action in some companies.

Trophies aren't just objects - they are symbols.  The ceremony that accompanies the bestowing of awards is also important.  Public recognition is a huge motivator, so even when the award is plastic, or framed paper, or even an inflatable monkey, its recipient appreciates and remembers it.

There are prerequisites to trophy earning and trophy giving. 

1. The leaders have to know in specific terms what performance they are looking for. 
2. If they want team members to pursue excellence intentionally they need to communicate the desired performance standards.
3. And the leader has to be noticing what's going on in performance.  There are measurements to be followed and/or score to be kept.  Without knowledge and data the leader can find himself or herself rewarding unfairly because he or she is using subjective rather than objective criteria. 

Trophies are bigger deals when they are more scarce - to a point.  They have to be issued frequently or predictably enough to be on team members' radar, but not so abundant that they cease to be differentiators.  A club team swimmer is thrilled with earning ribbons at the first few meets.  But quickly the four from this meet are added to the four from the last meet until over the season one child can accumulate two dozen printed pieces of fabric.  They start to be left scattered around the house until the dog picks one up and chews it to bits.  So the child starts to count only blue first place ribbons, or first and second place, or medals - and not to care so much about the ribbons that come in so much abundance.

This idea that scarcity equals value in rewards is part of the reason why you don't say "Thank you for coming to work!" in the morning or "I appreciate that you handed this in on time."  After a while the team member's internal voice is saying "yeah, yeah, yeah..."  It's also a performance expectation that the leader is making a big deal about.  When the leader makes a huge production out of thanking for the fulfillment of performance standards, the employee eventually starts to hear it as a vote of no confidence in their ability to deliver.  It's the performance equivalent of throwing a game of cards so your child's feelings won't be hurt.  You need to be able to take decent performance for granted - and the team members need to be able to know that your expectations of them are high.

Now back to the trophies to wrap this thing up.  What could you make a point of noticing and recognizing in some tangible way?  What behavior do you want to see more often on your team?  Perhaps a traveling trophy is the way to go.  Whatever you choose to do, remember that trophies do matter.  Even if they are made of plastic.