There is a great article in the Harvard Business Magazine about the correct components of praise and recognition:

1. Be Specific about what you are praising
2. Politeness is not praise - it's just good manners
3. Praise with action
4. Constructive criticism has no place in or around your praise message

Here is a link to the full article...

According to a 2008 study by the Gallup organization:

• 54 percent of U.S. employees are not engaged.
• 17 percent are actively disengaged.
• 29 percent are engaged.

View the complete article

1. Money is the number one way to motivate employees.
2. If you want to motivate people, don’t let them in on the bad news.
3. Most employees know what motivates them.
4. You simply cannot motivate everyone.
5. People are just grateful to have a job, and this attitude will survive the downturn.

From Global HR News - http://www.globalhrnews.com/story.asp?sid=601

SAN DIEGO -- A drastic change is coming to Corporate America. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2011 the American workforce will experience the worst shortage of skilled workers in U.S. history. As the Baby Boomers retire over the next six years, our economy will lose an estimated 10 million skilled workers. This shortage will create an unprecedented need for organizations to attract and retain their high-performing and loyal employees.

What sort of effect will these numbers have on corporate philosophy?

In the future, the “profits first, people last” culture will no longer attract the best people, according to Jack Lannom, author of People First. “The new business model for high profitability and long-term viability will be a philosophy that puts people first,” Lannom says.

“Every human being needs to know that who they are and what they do in a company has purpose, meaning, and immense significance.”

Lannom developed his philosophy after spending 30 years in the industry and working in the trenches with top executives from various Fortune 500 companies like Citibank, AT&T, and Blockbuster Video. Lannom noticed that America’s core business philosophy was denigrating from one of character and wisdom to one based wholly on profits first. “The outcome of this philosophy is the Enron’s and the Worldcom’s of the world where earnings became paramount without any ethics,” says Lannom. “Once a company loses its soul, it sacrifices long-term, trust-based relationships on the altar of short-term gain.”

Based on age-old wisdom and truths, Lannom’s People First outlines a 5-step philosophy designed to spark a major shift in business ethics. In the tradition of the international best-seller Who Moved My Cheese, Lannom has written People First to not only appeal to business professionals, but also to husbands, wives, teachers, parents, and students. “Excellence is the inevitable outcome of adopting this philosophy,” says Lannom. “People will work in excellence when they are treated excellently, and with this excellence will come profits.”

By distilling his business philosophy into clear, practical, easily learned principles, Lannom hopes to equip people with timeless secrets and tips for building lives and passing on a legacy. People First focuses on teaching people to empower themselves through the systemic building of interpersonal relationships. “If you want your profits to grow,” says Lannom, “you must grow people first.” Through the teachings in his book, he hopes to help those who really want to truly make a difference in people’s lives.

http://www.talentmgt.com/compensation_benefits/2009/March/890/index.php?pt=a&aid=890&start=0&page=1

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charlie_Cory

From the Incentive Research Foundation.

For those of you old enough to remember the 1970's and 1980's sales and business seminars, it seemed intuitive to go with the philosophy that visualizing success leads to becoming successful.  These thoughts and principles have even been reworked and repackaged in the latest rage/book called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.  This occult movement has created hundreds of thousands of apologists, but what does the evidence say?

The Experiment:

• The students were given some brief instructions on problem-solving, and were told that this exercise would "help them deal with their problem effectively."    They were told to think about the problem, learn about it, think about what to do, and take steps to deal with it.

• A second group of students were asked to mentally simulate how the problem actually unfolded - how the problems arose, and the incidents as they occurred step by step.  Visualize the environment and the chain of causation.

• A third group was told to mentally simulate a positive outcome emerging from the problem.  Picture the problem beginning to resolve, the feelings of satisfaction and relief, and the ensuing confidence from having successfully dealt with the problem.  

Which group of students coped with the problem the best? One, Two or Three?

It's not Group Three.  Actually, the group that visually simulated how the events unfolded (Group Two) did better on every metric than the others.  And it wasn't even close.  Within 24 hours, Group Two were already experiencing a better postive mood change than One and Three.  At the end of one week, the gap was even wider, meaning this group was more likely to have taken specific action to solve their problems (or at minimum, sought advice, or reported to have learned something and grown).  The mind can only think in terms of what it already knows, so to educate or grow, a picture must be painted that the brain can wrap itself around.  Group Two could easily visualize what happened - because they lived it.  The brain cannot visualize an event without tapping into those areas of the brain that are stimulated in that real live activity.  

The conclusion?  Simulating past events is much more useful than simulating future outcomes.  

What is the application to an actual business or industrial climate?  It means everything in the world of performance improvement.  Effective training should have more emphasis on audience participation, role-playing, and actual stories with consequences (chains of events).  No more can we hang a banner on the wall of "Think Safety" or Let's Grow By 10%" without thinking/educating in terms of why we haven't been safe or why we're not a growing company right now.  We can understand those activities - the process - rather than the outcome.  These mental simulations, in turn, help us manage our emotions and yield a far better improvement of performance.