The Power of Praise: How your team gets your company to the next level

In the business world, the professional field of human resource management is mature with associations, university degree programs, systems, processes and established conventional wisdom. Professional coursework in human resources management could not be counted as the most riveting or electrifying subject one could attend. The professional results of these learned efforts certainly are what inspired the song lyrics: all in all, you’re just another brick in the wall. 

Amazing organizations are comprised of amazing people; the problem is that amazing people don’t come labeled as such. You have to find them and in order to do so; you have to look for them. Looking back across almost four decades in the cleaning industry from working in 25 different companies, I know the cleaning business is really the people business. 

But I didn’t always know that, I had to learn it. 

I remember at first recruiting, interviewing and hiring was a bit of a mystery to me and as you can imagine it didn’t go very well at all. Employees were a necessary evil and one of the big headaches in the cleaning business. Starting from that point of view employees then became warm bodies, a part of the cleaning equation and not as reliable as my other tools, such as upright vacuum cleaners. 

I recall having very pleasant daydreams of clean buildings without employees (which completely replaced childhood daydreams of being a pirate, but required the same amount of magic).

Slowly I learned the value of my own employees but it was not until I was working for a large cleaning company where cleaning staff were less expendable than upright vacuum cleaners that I began to develop a realistic working theory and then a strategy.

We hired large groups of workers all at once when a new contract was secured. I recall seeing one worker on his first day and I could have bet money he wouldn’t return for his second day of work. A ‘loser’, a complete zero in my mind and on the first night we were never very picky, we simply needed warm bodies.

He proved me wrong. Not only did he return on the second night for work but never missed a day and five years later he was appointed supervisor of one of those buildings. I was wrong about that man but what I could not see that first night was that he cared about what he was doing. Identifying people who care means you have to pay attention.

Most of my time had been spent on the employees who did not perform up to standard. They were the ones causing problems; they were the ones generating phone calls from clients who were not happy with our work. I began to pay closer attention and established a personal rule to find someone on my front line staff doing something right. The power of praise became a tool in my survival arsenal. As cleaning organizations grow, layers of supervisors and managers insulate company owners from front line staff. This disconnect becomes more pronounced, the larger the company. I rode on top of several growing cleaning organizations and experienced the pull to disconnect from my front line staff.

There are different pressures at different times in growing companies so what I was concerned about when my company employed 25 people was different than when there were 100 and again when there were 250 and again when there were 500. I understood the need to stay close to my staff which interestingly kept me closer to my clients. 

Management by wandering around became more difficult when the entire United States became my territory. Meeting with front line staff and catching someone doing something right was my way of hunting down potential managers. Other people in similar positions were perplexed at my odd penchant for walking buildings, which I believed was my primary responsibility. It’s where all the action was so that’s where I needed to be. I like people who come up through the ranks like I did and the front line is where they are found.

Bringing front line people up through the ranks whenever possible creates a different type of organization. The people you hand select and promote and train become your team. There is a loyalty factor. I like seeing people stretch their own ability and your front line is filled with people who have not been given an opportunity to do much stretching.

Our entry level positions are filled with people untested when it comes to their own ability. When you are the person who takes a chance on an employee who may never have given a thought to what they can accomplish, a special bond is formed. Someone believes in them – maybe for the first time – and this is a powerful event. It may be the most important event in their entire professional life.

Never underestimate the power of a person who is just beginning to understand the talents and abilities they never knew they had. The power of one’s own pride for accomplishing things they NEVER dreamed they could, is unbelievable.

If you are the one who unleashes that power in your own organization, you have created a team that cannot be held back from taking your company to the next level. Try it yourself and see what happens when you go hunting for someone doing something right.

Reprinted with permission from INCLEAN Magazine July/August 2013