Truth 43. High performers have enough coffee mugs

You’re a high performer. You’re proud of your work. You do it independently, and you take responsibility for its outcome—on good and bad days. Exactly how many coffee mugs do you personally aspire to own before you can feel truly recognized and appreciated for all your contributions to your company? The best guess is a nice, round number: zero.

And do you really need another acrylic doodad, even if it does have an engraved, gold-tone label with your name on it? How about a balloon with the word thanks emblazoned on it? Do those things really help you sustain your passion for your job? Probably not. Quality employees don’t need junk to keep up their passion for the job. They just need to be noticed and appreciated for what they do. That’s probably the way you prefer to be treated. And that’s also how your employees like to be treated.

Employee recognition and rewards programs can actually do more harm than good. For instance, the nature of the reward or recognition itself speaks volumes about what kind of employee behaviors you want. If you want your people to act like children, give them toys and then expect them to be delighted—or at least act like they are. If you want your people to be self-satisfied with insignificance, give them trashy trinkets for the smallest amount of accomplishment.

If, however, you want your employees to be authentic, adult, and self-motivating about their responsibilities and expectations, be real in return about the sincerity and specificity of your appreciation:

• Lavish the recognition; spare the rewards. When it comes to intangible forms of recognition (we’re not talking paychecks and pensions here), people want to be noticed for investing their individual efforts toward the big-picture mission. No one likes to be invisible or a number. Everyone has a name, face, and life story. Know your direct reports—and preferably their direct reports—by name. Know a little bit about who they are, what brings them to your team, and what their dreams are. And let them know you know.

• When you do give tangible rewards, make those rewards specific to the person or to the accomplishment that’s being celebrated. Even a relatively “catch them doing something right” $20 spot reward should have significance that speaks to them personally. Challenge yourself to come up with specific ideas for each employee. That tells them that you pay attention to who they are in addition to what they’re doing for you.

• Give them a gift certificate to their future. Send them to a key industry conference, for instance. Or offer to pay for a college course of their choice.

• Give them the chance to benefit the future of others. Recognize them for their wisdom. Get someone to interview them about their secrets of success, and gather their collective advice and insights to share with the rest of the company as an internal training program.

• Let people see that you’re trying. Person-to-person appreciation doesn’t come easy for many managers. If saying nice things to an employee’s face makes you feel awkward and vulnerable, your employees probably already know this about you. So don’t hide it. Deal with it. Some managers who are struggling with this personal behavior challenge will put ten pennies in one pocket, shifting a penny to another pocket every time they express sincere appreciation to an employee. Just because you may have to force yourself to do it this way doesn’t make the appreciation itself any less authentic. You are working hard to integrate this habit into your daily work life. And your efforts will be noticed. Your people might even recognize you for it.

Sincere appreciation is an essential part of a workplace culture in which people throughout the ranks behave respectfully and encouragingly to each other. This is a way of life, not just some program goal to meet. Your people will know if you’re speaking from the heart or reading from a script.

It really is the thought that counts. So when you want to recognize your employees in a way that’s meaningful to them, put some thought behind it!