Build a recognition rhythm that rewards values, not results

1. Reinforce what you want more of

People do again whatever is reinforced. The rule here follows from that: a behavior you want to see more often gets more reinforcement, and one you want to fade gets ignored, not reinforced.

An example from parenting. A child keeps interrupting while you are with friends, and each time you ask them to come back later. They walk off, return, and try again. In the end the parent simply stops responding, and the child gives up. That is how a behavior dies out. Now picture a child who asks for a hug and gets one every single time: they will come back asking for more. That is how a behavior grows.

Recognition in a company works the same way: what you recognize is what gets repeated.

2. Praise the way the number was won

What results-only praise teaches. Where only revenue or output is recognized, people draw the conclusion that outcomes count and values do not. The claim runs the other way too: rewarding people for keeping the values brings results as well as values. A system for recognition, then, exists for more than paying tribute to what a team produces. Its job is to reward the way they produced it, keeping to the values along the way.

Why the difference matters. A lot of people can reach a number by cheating on a test, lying or massaging their figures. That person is not equal to someone who keeps every value and still delivers.

Without a system. The absence of a system makes praise random. Some people are praised and others are not, and to the team it looks like favoritism.

Where it came from. In one company, the owner built this after noticing that the owner's own praise went to results and never to behaviors. Since then, by that owner's account, the company's values are no longer abstract: people watch them being lived each day. Recognition costs nothing, but, in this view, that holds only if there is a system behind it.

Behavior comes first. A favored saying here: successful behavior comes before success. The reading of it: to succeed, people first have to act in the ways that produce success, so reward those acts and let the outcomes follow. That is one way to think about it.

3. The calendar one company runs

Here is the recognition one company runs, at every interval; build yours on the same frame. The interval names below are that company's, and the second column gives what each one holds, in plain words. The notes after the table describe how the company runs each one.

Interval	What it holds
Daily recognition	Shout-outs posted in a dedicated channel on a chat tool, each tied to a specific value
Weekly celebration	Teammates name one to three colleagues, with the value each one showed
Monthly spotlight	An MVP award, chosen by a vote of the leaders and shared across the company
Quarterly awards	An MVP award chosen by peers, weighing values and performance together
Annual honors	Awards for each core value, with between one and three people honored for each

Daily. The company keeps a channel for constant shout-outs: someone names a teammate, the value they showed, and what they did that day. People love the channel, reportedly, and it keeps itself going, because writing in it feels good and so does being named in it.

Weekly. At the company's weekly all-hands meeting, teammates can call out anywhere from one to three people, saying who and what value that person showed. Some people name far more, and the team tries to hold that down because the shout-outs run long. Some get public recognition while on a call, which is called a really good feeling, and the others pile in with messages in the call's chat.

Monthly. The company's leadership team votes for the month's MVP and shares the result with the whole company.

Quarterly. The quarterly award is also an MVP award: who showed the core values most. By the company's account, last quarter's awards went to three people for each core value. The company also tells people who was voted for and did not win, because it would like as many people as possible to know their conduct was seen.

Yearly. At the company's annual event, a values award goes to whoever showed each value most over the year.

The table and the notes differ here. The table gives each core value between one and three honorees at the annual honors; in the notes, the one count per value given is last quarter's, three for each. The table has peers vote on the quarterly award; the notes liken the quarterly award to the monthly one, which the leaders vote on, without saying who votes. The table weighs values and performance together for the quarterly award; the notes ask only who showed the core values most. This page does not settle which reading is right.

4. What is left off the calendar

Notice what is missing. That company's owner does not recognize who brought in the most revenue, who got the most results, or any of that, in the company. Results are recognized through what people are paid, through their targets, and by their peers. When the owner stands in front of the whole company, what gets recognized is the process and the behaviors.

If you have nothing like this, thinking about it in these terms is highly recommended. A team that wants to win has to begin by rewarding the behavior that wins, and hopefully your values are what produce that behavior.

SOP 88, section 4, gives kudos inside a sales team to the reps with the highest show rates, asks them what they did, and adds approval when they say they followed the process. That is recognition within one team, on one of its own targets; what this section keeps out is results praised by the owner in front of the whole company.

SOP 271, section 3, item 5, has you celebrate in front of others the outcomes, as well as the behaviors, that fit your values and standards. This page keeps results out of that praise. This page does not settle which reading is right.

5. Write down your own

The exercise: write the interval names down, daily through annual, and beside each put what you currently highlight for your team at that interval. Ask what you reward, applaud, snap for, post about, praise in public and give shout-outs for. Whatever is on that list is what will get repeated.

The appeal of the frame is that it is a reminder that the aim is not to praise results alone. The aim is to praise the behaviors that lead to them.

6. Reward practice, not only game day

A common question: how do you get people to turn up for practice and not just for game day? The answer: reward practice at least as much as game day, or more.

In one company's recognition, game day is not what is rewarded; practice is, the small behaviors that happen every day. Some examples: coming in early, staying late, helping a teammate. None of these is a win or a big event. Recognize the person who cleans the kitchen or puts a plate away, the one who stays long on a client call, the one who travels to help another company's team in person without being asked. Reward the process, and not the outcome.

Why outcomes win instead. A lot of people reward outcomes, in this view, because they are afraid to reward the process. They are not truly willing to hold the line on their culture, since doing so brings the discomfort of facing someone who breaks it when they know they should not tolerate that. That is called an emotional problem, not a practical one.

7. When the culture asks for hard work

A common question, called the most generic of all: how do you get people to work as hard as that? The answer: be open about it at the start and then reward it.

Be clear at the start. One owner points to one of the company's values and says openly that the company is not for everybody. People are told plainly that if they are at a point in life where they want to slow down, this is not the company for them, and that this is fine; that owner has no problem with it. On the front end, by that owner's own description, the company is very open about the work, how hard people work there and what is expected.

Then reward it. A lot of people call rewarding hard work toxic. It is not, in this view, if you were open about it and it is what people came to do. The comparison is the winning team in a professional sports league that trains at 4 a.m., trains again at 6 p.m., and trains all day as well: that is not toxic, because the players chose it and wanted to be on a winning team. What that owner tells people is that anyone who wants a place on a winning team will find this a great place to work, and anyone who does not should work somewhere else. Then the effort gets rewarded: the owner names it when someone stayed late to finish something, or was in at 4 a.m.

On shying away. Some places avoid this, afraid people will feel pressed to be there. The answer here is a question: who would not want to be recognized for working hard? People then work harder, which is the best that can be said about it. The view here is that there is no room for shyness about what you want. That owner likes working hard and working with people who do, and does not want people who do not, which holds for that owner's own business.

8. Flexibility for people who have earned it

Another common question: how to balance a culture of excellence against giving team members flexibility. The view here is that flexibility should grow with the loyalty a person shows and with how closely they keep to the behaviors.

An example. Picture someone who constantly upholds the values, fits well, helps the team and always really performs, and who is now going through a rough spot, with something going on in their family, and slipping a little. One practice here is to be very flexible with that person.

Like any relationship. You always aim for an even split, 50-50, but there will be seasons where it runs 80-20 or 60-40, in either direction. Sometimes the call is that a stretch is simply a 60-40 season. In one example, an owner who tells teammates to take the time they need lets them know that the owner is patient, that they can be all in again later, that the owner will not go quiet on them, and that their loyalty, effort and time invested have been seen. What the owner goes on is the pattern they have been seen to keep.

The question to ask. Look at the person's patterns. Are they, to put it one way, worse than everyone else's on the team, or in line with them or better? The more consistency you see from a teammate, the more flexibility you give.

9. What this page does not decide for you

• Which interval carries the per-value awards. The table and the notes in section 3 differ.
• Results praised before the whole company. SOP 271 section 3 and the approach here point different ways (section 4).
• The prize. This page gives no figure for what any award is worth.

10. The checklist

Step	What to do
1	Decide which behaviors you want more of, and reinforce them; ignore the ones you want less of
2	Reward how people reached a result while keeping the values, not the result alone
3	Write down what you recognize at each interval, daily to yearly; one company's calendar is one model
4	Tie shout-outs and values awards to a specific value, as one company does
5	Keep revenue and results off what you recognize in front of the whole company, as one company does; pay, targets and peers recognize them
6	Give practice, and the small things people do each day, at least as much recognition as the big wins, or more
7	If you reward hard work, be open about the pace from the start
8	Give more flexibility, in this view, to people whose loyalty and consistency have earned it

11. What this page does not cover

Building culture in layers from behaviors upward, and then auditing it, is SOP 258. Sorting people by how well they hold the values and how they perform is SOP 259, Sort the team by values and performance, and act on each box. The values themselves are chosen on SOP 260 (Make your values non-negotiable and find the ones you really hold). Recognition as part of keeping people once they are hired is SOP 270, Onboard every hire against a written plan, then keep them growing. Naming what a sales team's culture rewards and puts up with is SOP 257. Opening a sales team's daily training with shout-outs is section 5 of SOP 256.

Employment law is not covered on this page.