What do you want to be acknowledged for? Christopher Littlefield at TEDxBeirut

We love recognition, but we suck at it. Whether we want to admit it or not, recognition plays a huge role in our day-to-day lives, in our happiness, in our well-being, both at work and in our personal relationships. But the problem? We are horrible at it. We are horrible about giving it, we suck at receiving it, myself included. And the problem is, most of us don't even know it. I had a rule for a year that no matter whoever I sat next to, on the plane or on the subway, even if they had earphones on or they were asleep, I had to get their attention and I had to interview them. And my first question was always, "What makes a good acknowledgment or compliment by a boss or supervisor?" Once they realized I wasn't hitting on them, trying to sell them something or get them to join a cult, then they would open up and they would tell story after story of the boss who never recognized them, the parents whose approval they wanted to gain or the teacher who made a profound difference in their life. 365 of these interviews later I've come to understand one thing for sure: We are crazy. (Laughter) We are! And our relationship to recognition is confusing, it doesn't make much sense. For example, I interviewed my landlord when I lived in Boston. I said, "Cathy, what is your relationship to recognition?" "Oh, I love recognition, but it makes me so uncomfortable." Cathy explained, "I was at my retirement party." -- Cathy worked at this organization for over 2 decades -- "All of my colleagues were telling stories and thanking me. I loved it, but I was so embarrassed." What I saw with Cathy is what I saw in nearly all of my interviews, that the majority of us have this often multi-sided conflicting relationship to recognition: I love it, but I get so embarrassed; it motivates me, but I worry I won't be able to produce the same result in the future; or I don't like recognition; or I don't need recognition. But after asking a few questions, it always turns to, "I'm not comfortable with recognition" or "I'm not supposed to need recognition." So, I don't know about you, but I always thought that recognition was supposed to be something positive, right? Right? So, that's what doesn't make sense. That's why we are crazy. Why, if this is supposed to be something positive, do we all have these conflicting relationships to it? So right after Cathy said, "It makes me embarrassed," I immediately asked why. Without skipping a beat, "Fourth grade, school -- in the middle of class my teacher goes, 'Cathy stand up!'" So Cathy slowly stands up. "Now everybody look at Cathy. Now that is a perfect uniform. All of your uniforms should look just like Cathy's." (Laughter) Awkward! (Applause) We all have these past experiences or associations with recognition and it's these past experiences or associations that dictate how we experience recognition right now. Now I am not a psychiatrist and we are not going to, I'm not going to go all Freud and talk about our childhood traumas, what happened to you in 5th grade, and what your mom said to you, and we are not going to talk about you. We are not going to talk about all our childhood traumas. But what I do want to talk about are some of the things that we do to ourselves and to others that keep these conflicting associations in place, limiting our ability to effectively give and receive recognition, and limiting our ability to actually get present to our own accomplishments. If you go back to Cathy's example -- Can you see what Cathy's teacher did was not actually recognize her? Okay, maybe her uniform was spotless; it was perfect. But she wasn't actually recognizing Cathy. She was using Cathy to teach the other kids in class a lesson. That's not recognition; that's manipulation. I told you that my first question when I was doing interviews was, "What makes a good acknowledgment by a boss or supervisor?" 9 times out of 10, people didn't tell me what made a good acknowledgment, but instead, what made a bad one. And I was able to establish several ineffective practices that actually break down trust and actually hurt our relationships and our connection with others. And I want to start today by sharing three of them with you. Number 1: I hate it when my boss give me compliments right before they ask for something. (Applause) Joe, habibi. (Laughter) You were an all star last week in that sales meeting. All star! Can you get me this report by five? How many people have a boss or a friend who does that? Yeah, by the way this is being recorded. (Laughter) Okay, now here is the real question: How many of you do this? Ah, less hands! You are all liars! (Laughter) 'Cause you do this too. Mom, you are so pretty. I love you! Can I have 5 dollars? We all do this. Number 2, and by the way my mother's watching this. So mom that wasn't about you. Okay. Number 2: I hate it when my boss sandwiches feedback or criticism between two compliments. Also known as sandwiching, less eloquently known, excuse my language, as "the *** sandwich". (Laughter) George, Rona, you are such an asset to our team, but if you make a mistake like you did last week again, we are going to have to let you go. But, we are really glad you are here, really, really! Right? Or -- you are a really great guy but I just want to be friends -- Hug? (Applause) Any compliment followed by a "but" is not actually a compliment. The problem? We have actually been trained to do this. This is a standard feedback model. If you go to any business school you are going to get taught this. When you get feedback you are going to just put it between the two sandwiches. And it's not always wrong, if we actually mean the compliments on either end. But most of the time, we don't. We are using those to make ourselves feel more comfortable. Okay! Number 3: This is what we do when other people are getting recognized and we are not. Imagine yourself at a staff meeting, at a family retreat, and that other guy or girl are getting recognized and you are not. If we like them, we are happy for them. Jealous, but happy for them. But if not, we are nasty. Jerk, kiss-*** -- You guys have seen him. He doesn't really do any work, does he? Yeah! Now here is the question: When you are getting publicly recognized, what are you worrying people are thinking about you? Similar? Usually it is. Before you judge, give people the benefit of the doubt. Plus, I think it's time to give up the idea that someone else's success is our failure. Because that's just made up! (Applause) Now, when we do these ineffective practices we worry people are going to do them with us. And if you want to stop worrying about them, you gotta stop doing them. So this is what we do to others. What I want to talk about now is one of the things we do to ourselves. So you know when you start a new project at work, or you set a new goal for yourself? You get this idea in your mind what that end result is going to look like. I'm going to organize an event and a thousand people or a thousand two hundred people are gonna come. (Applause) Right? Go TEDx! Okay! And it's going to be extraordinary! And then you produce a result. And say 800 people show up and people are coming up to you saying, "Thank you, that was such a cool event, that was amazing!" But we don't hear it 'cause what are we focused on? We are focused on the gap. The gap between what we actually produced and what we had in our mind that we are going to produce. And then when people are coming up to us, they are actually recognizing us for this result. That's what they are experiencing. But that little voice inside our head blocks out all those compliments and it focuses on, "Yeah well, 200 people didn't show up, and you didn't do that, you didn't do that, yeah, yeah thanks for the compliment." Yap, but I didn't do that, and I didn't do that -- See it's really important to focus on the gap, to pay attention to the gap. That's where we learn and that's where we develop. But if we only focus on the gap, that's how we go crazy, and that's how we burn ourselves out and the people around us out. So what's important is: Before you look at this, stop and look here. Look at what you did accomplish and all the things and the ups and downs you went through to produce this result. 'Cause that's what gets us present to our motivation and that's what gets us present to the passion that helps us overcome the gap the next time. Okay. So, this is what we do to ourselves and others. And because we've been trained to focus on the gap our whole life and not hearing what people are saying, or because of these ineffective practices that people are using, and also because of these past associations, the craziness, I found that we've actually established this sort of conditioned response to recognition. Like Pavlov's dogs, when the bell was ringing they would salivate; someone gives us a compliment and -- "It was nothing!" "It was nothing! I swear!" or, "Voila" or, "It was a team effort." And maybe it was a team effort, but, but -- Here is my but, okay? Maybe it was a team effort, but that's not accepting the compliment. We quickly divert the recognition away. We also make jokes, or we play compliment ping-pong: I love your dress! I love your shoes! (Laughter) (Applause) And sometimes it's even culturally institutionalized. Someone told me recently that in certain parts of China it's actually considered impolite to accept a compliment. And also we find it in language. In French I say, "Merci," and you respond with -- Audience: "De rien!" Direct translation:€“ "It's nothing!" Diversion, okay, you see it in Spanish as well. But there's an impact when we divert recognition. What most people don't realize is that a compliment is oftentimes more about the giver than it is about the receiver. And when someone offers us a compliment, it's like they are offering us a gift. And when we divert it, it's like we are taking that gift and throwing it back in their face. So even if you don't like it, even if you don't agree with it, just say, "Thank you." And if it made a difference, let them know. My friend Carol told me a story. She said, "When I was in fourth grade -- and by the way I don't know why everything seems to happen in fourth grade, but it does. We should look at that. Marge, you can talk about that one, okay. Tell me what happens in fourth grade. (Applause) She said, "When I was in fourth grade, right before going on maternity leave, my teacher Mrs McKay-Hill came up to me and she says, 'Carol, you know you are a really great student, you know you are going to be okay, you are going to do great things.'" Carol said, "I don't know what it was about what she said, but I went from being shy and reserved, to taking on sports, taking on AP classes, and just going for it." And she goes, "That compliment made such a huge difference in my life. I never get to thank her for it." So I said, "Great! When you gonna thank her?" She goes, "I'm 44! That was 35 years ago! I don't even know if she is still alive!" That Friday, Carol was able to have an email forwarded through the school department to Mrs McKay-Hill. And within hours she had a response, "Carol, I worked in a lot of different schools, but I think I remember you, I think you were in one of my fourth grade classes. How are you?" Carol immediately responded and told Mrs McKay-Hill about the difference she had made in her life. Mrs McKay-Hill wrote her right back, "Carol, you know I grew up in a poor family and I never thought I could go to college. But my guidance counsellor Mr Tingman told me I could. And I did and I became a teacher, and I never got to thank him for that. I know he's passed away now. But I know where his kids are, so I'm going go thank them." (Applause) There is a huge power in acknowledgment, recognition and praise, but because we are often uncomfortable with it, we avoid it. And when we avoid it, we rob ourselves and others of the benefit that it brings, and we need to get better at it. We need to rethink our relationship to recognition. We can start by looking at our own experience of it, our own relationship to recognition, and being aware of these ineffective practices that I shared with you today, and work on phasing them out of our daily use. We can also make sure that recognition doesn't just happen once a year in our performance review or on our birthdays. That doesn't work! No one should go one day at work feeling like that what they do doesn't matter. And we do this by creating opportunities for recognition in our staff meetings, in our daily conversations with friends and family. And by the way, this is not just when you are happy and inspired, with the people you like to -- with the people you are frustrated with, on the days when you are pissed off, you are angry and you don't wanna go to work. That's the day to do it! 'Cause that's when it makes the biggest difference. And I wanna leave you today with one thing you can do on the break here at TEDx or when you are watching this. Go out and ask one person, "What do you want to be acknowledged for?" or, "What are you proud of?" And then -- And by the way, they are not going to hear it, they are going to divert the question, they gonna think that you are weird and all that stuff. But ask them anyway and insist, "No seriously, what do you want to be acknowledged for?" And then listen. And then ask them questions about what it took for them to do what they did. Because we usually don't want to be acknowledged for the result; usually we want to be acknowledged for all the ups and downs, the challenges and barriers that we went through to overcome that result. Afterwards, just thank them and acknowledge them for what they shared. And please, let me know how it goes. Thank you. (Applause)