Give recognition - help people to do their best
Having good personal relations means feeling good about yourself and getting along with others. The individual's efforts towards good relations determine the psychological environment in the department and the company.
In an Employeeship company, all employees assume responsibility for the department's and the company's internal and external relations. All employees make a wholehearted and goal-directed effort to create a climate in which everyone finds inspiration and wants to do their best.
In Claus Møller's books:" My Life Tree – a different book about personal development"," Be a Double Bagger – bring out the best in yourself and others", and" Heart Work – bring your heart to work", you will find inspiration, methods and tools to get on well with yourself and others.
People's self-esteem determines whether they feel good about themselves and get along with other people. Your self-esteem is determined by the amount of recognition your brain registers.
Recognition – in its broadest sense – is also called strokes. Strokes are vitally important to the quality of the psychological environment.
Strokes can be defined as: "Any kind of attention people can show". Strokes are the most powerful means we human beings have at our disposal for developing or destroying our own self-esteem or that of others. It is essential to your well-being that you receive strokes. If you do not receive enough strokes or recognition, you will feel bad about yourself, you will behave inappropriately, become a loser, or, in the worst case, become seriously ill, both mentally and physically.
The way in which you exchange recognition with others determines what kind of relationships you have. Strokes can be positive or negative. Your self-esteem is determined by the amount of positive and negative strokes that you receive.
Positive strokes
Positive strokes increase your self-esteem and make you happy. Positive strokes may include any form of recognition, attention, praise, appreciation, pleasure, pride, or admiration.
Negative strokes
Negative strokes make you upset and disappointed, and make you feel inadequate.
Negative strokes may take the form of criticism, reprimands, scorn, ridicule, distrust, and ingratitude.
Zero strokes
The best thing a person can receive is positive strokes. The worst thing a person can receive is not negative recognition, but zero recognition – “indifference”. Nothing has a more destructive effect on someone's self-esteem and sense of well-being. Lack of strokes has a dramatic effect on people's thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
When people don't get enough positive strokes, they try, consciously or subconsciously, to get negative strokes. This reaction is natural because, despite everything, negative strokes are better than no strokes at all.
Conflicts at work and at home, high personnel turnover, high absenteeism, lack of commitment and poor quality are often a direct result of a lack of attention.
Make the following exercise
Sit down in a chair and relax. Close your eyes. Think about your experiences last week. What happened? Who did you spend time with? What did you talk about? How did you feel about yourself? How did you get along with other people?
Did you help create a positive environment that encourages you and others to develop?
Do this mental experiment for each of the people you have spent time with and with whom you currently live and work: your partner, your children, your parents, your colleagues, your boss. Think about them one at a time and ask yourself the following questions:
- How many times did I give him/her positive recognition? In what situations? For what? How did I do it? Were they superficial or profound?
- How many times did I give him/her negative recognition? In what situations? For what? How did I do it? Did he/she maintain their self-esteem and perceive the recognition as a help?
- What kind of recognition did I give most often last week – positive or negative? Does he or she receive mostly positive recognition from me? Does he or she receive mostly negative recognition from me?
- Did he/she do something last week which I didn't appreciate at all? Did I invest any time in this person and show my interest in them? Do I take his/her efforts for granted? Did I make any attempts to open the door to the other person's world?
Then ask yourself the following questions about the recognition you received during the past week:
- How many positive recognitions did I receive? From my partner? My children? My staff? My colleagues? My boss? My friends?
- How many negative recognitions did I receive? From my partner? My children? My staff? My colleagues? My boss? My friends?
- How many times did I make a serious effort without anybody noticing it?
- How many times did I do something for others, which they took for granted? Who is interested in my world?
How do you feel right now? What do you feel?
‐ Do you give enough recognition?
‐ Do you receive enough recognition?
‐ Is recognition something you need to work with?
If you do, you will feel better about yourself. You will make more friends and have better relations by giving more positive recognition.
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