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ATD Blog

How to Create a Good Plan

Tuesday, February 24, 2015
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A good plan, clearly communicated, takes all the fun out of a mystery. You see, a good plan answers a host of questions before the crime is committed, including: who, what, where, when, how, and why. 

This is important because 71 percent of employees think their corporate strategy is so mysterious they cannot identify it even when it’s placed before them. Let’s put this in the positive: According to Forbes, 29 percent of employees can correctly identify their company’s strategy out of six choices. 

Case in Point 

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You’re planning to start recognizing your employees, right. You understand its power in boosting employee’s engagement with their work, with each other, with the company’s strategy. Your plan, even if it’s a plan for one (you), should take the mystery out of your next steps by answering these questions before you go out and recognize those around you. 

  • Who: Who are you recognizing? Write their names down, including their titles. Know their background, their strengths, their accomplishments, their dreams for the future, and their family. You don’t have to know all of that to start, but by recognizing even a part of WHO they are, you’ll get to know all of WHO they are and wish to become.
  • What: For recognition to be effective it should be meaningful to the recipient. To be meaningful, you have to recognize the person and the deed. What did they accomplish? Be specific. That specificity helps focus their understanding, and helps them align their thinking and decision making with what is meaningful. Write it down the first few times. Practice makes perfect.
  • Where: Decide where this conversation should take place. They face deadlines, family demands, and a full schedule of meetings and tasks to complete. The short, quiet, intimate moment works as powerfully as the full-blown recognition in front of the team and the company. It’s not where you think is best, it’s where they think is best. Nothing ruins a recognition moment like choosing the wrong venue. Trust me.
  • When: I have a latent bias for “now.” I’ve learned to balance that with answers for these other questions. Sooner is preferable. The connections of challenge > action > solution > recognition and reward should always be strengthened. Otherwise, you have 71 percent of your employees who can’t recognize their own company’s strategy.
  • How:How will you recognize them: a word, a sentence, a pat on the back, a gift, a speech? As you answer the above questions, you will be able to answer this question. Remember to engage them with your recognition. Recognition is the start of a conversation. I always try to include this question in one form or another: Did you know that when you did x it had y impact over there? This engages them with your recognition, helping them connect the dots from their action to its impact. It shows you care enough about them to engage them in this process. It’s empowering for them to be able to take that process and use it moving forward. You’re creating a habit of mind for you both.
  • Why: As you prepare your plan by answering the question of Who, What, When, Where, and How, you will have the answers to Why. Be sure to address three additional questions:
      1. What’s in it for me?
      2. Why should I care?
      3. Why should I believe?

You will need to answer these three questions for the person you’re recognizing—and for yourself.

About the Author

Zane Safrit, author of Recognize THEM: 52 Ways to Recognize Your Employees In Ways They Value, spent his career in call center operations, many of them serving international customers and sales forces. From an entry-level position as a customer service rep to team leader to assistant director and country manager to finally CEO, he saw the language of employee recognition and employee engagement is a universal language and so are the forms of its ROI. You can reach him at [email protected], his website, www.zanesafrit.com, where he posts regularly on employee engagement and on Twitter at Zane Safrit. 

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