Appreciation@work: Panel Discussion: Did This. Tried That. Now What?

Let's keep the program rolling. Uh, we have our next lineup of speakers and experts, practitioners internally doing this work. We're gonna have a little bit more of an open dialogue around this, so we're gonna have a panel discussion here. We're just gonna talk through a couple different themes and topics as a group. Um, so this is also all of your chance, listening, and if you have any questions or things that you're navigating right now, this is a perfect opportunity to like plug those in the chat, plug them in the Q&A. Uh, we have amazing leaders here who you can almost get, like, free executive coaching and strategy from right now. So, uh, I encourage you really to lean into that. So in the chat, if you can give a warm welcome to these three amazing leaders. We have Courtney King, Vice President of People and Culture at BeatBox Beverages, also a Shark Tank, uh, organization, which I don't know how much time we'll be able to get into the weeds of that, but pretty cool. Courtney, thank you for being here. We have Karen Kaczor, Director, People Strategy at Pontera, and then Anju, Chief People Officer at Zozoday, joining us for this discussion. So let me stop sharing the three of you. I'm gonna take a second to breathe here, but welcome. I would love if you both, uh, kind of go around the horn, maybe we can introduce ourselves, share a little bit about the work that you're doing. And then I would love to hear, just to kind of get this kicked off, uh, what does appreciation start to look like for your organization? Or what are some of the key elements at, like, the top where you're like, "This is so important to us when it comes to recognition"? So that being said, Anju, I'll pass it to you to kick us off. Thank you so much, Zach. What an important discussion today. Hi, everybody. My name's Anju Chaudhary. I'm the Chief People Officer for Zozoday. And those of you who don't know us, we're number one product suite to scale for reward incentives and loyalty. What gets measured gets managed, but what gets recognized gets maximized. So we help organizations plan their incentive, reward, and loyalty program across your business ecosystem. And today, you will hear me refer one of our product called Impulse quite often. It's an AI-powered recognition tool that allow you to recognize moments that matter at your organization, and then we'll, of course, talk more about it. But one of the thing that we truly focus on, and this morning we heard from Doctor, um, from Chris, Tyrese, and Doctor King about how crucial is the recognition piece at enhancing productivity and meeting your business goals. So if you're not one of those organizations like NASCAR who can build your own, you would like to listen to me talk a little bit more about Impulse and reach out to us, so we'll talk more. Thank you. Amazing. Love that. And Karen, I second in the chat there, what gets recognized gets maximized. I really think, like, whatever we get atten- give attention to grows, right? So if we want certain behaviors, values, and performance pieces to grow within our organization, we need to recognize that. So Anju, thank you for kicking us out- off. Uh, Courtney, I'll pass it over to you next. Hi, um, I'm Courtney King, Senior Vice President of People and Culture for BeatBox Beverages. Um, we are an alcohol beverage company, rapidly growing. As Zach mentioned, we are a Shark Tank company. Um, and when I think of recognition in its purest form, I think that recognition is your culture, emotion. Um, so I know we're gonna talk about some of those other things when we get into the discussion. Awesome. Thank you so much, Courtney. I appreciate you being here. And Karen, welcome back. One, let's recognize Karen. She's been, like, a member and advisor and partner to the Achieve community for, like, three years now. I don't even know, but, uh, it's always a pleasure to have you with us. So thank you for joining us again. And yeah, please reintroduce yourself, and yeah, what's some of the things at the top for you when it comes to appreciation and recognition? Yeah. Thanks, Zach. It's great to be back. Um, so my name is Karen. I'm the Director of People Strategy here at Pontera. Pontera is a fintech company that allows financial advisors to help their clients manage their, um, oftentimes their number one asset, which is their retirement funds. So we are disrupting a space, and I would say that when it comes to recognition, that's actually at the top of it. Um, so we're a fast-scaling scale-up, I guess you would say, and, uh, what comes with that is a lot of flexibility, um, headwinds, and we wanna make sure that recognizing people with the same speed and agility at which we're asking them to contribute to the company. I love that. Well, what an exciting time. I'm sure many of you are listening like, "We're growing fast. It's- it's a lot of things happening." And I often probably see, that's sometimes where recognition actually gets a backseat. It's like, "Look, we have other priorities. We're growing, we need to build these things, we gotta operationalize certain stuff." So Karen, I'm gonna pass it back to you to kind of kick off- Yeah. ... our first theme here, and then we'll open up the floor. And I think one of the things that I often hear is this, like, knowing-doing gap, right? Like, we know recognition is important. We know we should appreciate our people. We know we should celebrate the wins, but we don't always do it, right? Like, it's not actually common practice. And I think especially for organizations like yours, where there's so much happening, there's a lot of noise, a lot of this growth, there's other priorities, we know this is important, but we just don't have time to do it, or maybe that's the objection that people share. So, um, I'm curious from your thought, like, uh, your- your perspective, like, what are things that you've seen often block it? And- and what is maybe in the middle of this knowing-doing gap when we're- we're experiencing that internally? Yeah, it's a great question. So I think probably one of the biggest issues is that recognition itself is extremely nebulous. I mean, that is a big bucket term. And so when you think about the gap between knowing and doing, it's because, uh, that's quite a large mountain to climb. What is recognition? And that's where I would start, is figuring out what are the subgroups or the buckets underneath recognition? So does that look like shout-outs in a team meeting? Does it look like monetary recognition? Does it look like growth and stretch opportunities? How you're gonna tackle each one of those, the people who are in charge of those projects, that's all gonna look different. So, you know, if you wanna start taking a piece of the pie, you kind of got to start off with making it bite-sized. Yeah. I think that's, like, uh, a key part, right? Like, how do we turn this, these big terms and tell, like, "Okay, what do I actually do with that?" Like, what it, uh... Just tell me what to do already, right? Like, where does this fit in, within my role? And Anju, I'd love to kind of pass it to you next. And you brought up how one of the key areas to really unlock this is performance management, and making it- Absolutely. ... like, plugged in there. So tell us more, like, if we're trying to make this more of a doing and more real for people, and performance management is an area of opportunity, what does that look like? Like, what does that mean? Definitely. L- let me start by saying this first. Recognition is not a scarce resource. You can't use it up and run out. (laughs) So let's start with that. And, uh, since we recognize that this is so crucial, then what makes it hard for people to be able to do that? And as a company that is providing you the resource and tools to be able to do, we understand there are, one, competing priorities. There's lack of awareness on, how do I do that? So, you know, we're gonna get deeper into identify how do people want to be recognized. And it could mean different things for different people. Some people want to be recognized socially, while others more personally. So identifying those in terms of how to do that. Uncertainty of, "I don't know what to say." So in that case, and we spoke about, Dr. King, about AI-powered engine, so we allow managers and people and peers to be able to have that support from AI engine, to really fulfill that gap to how to articulate this really well. And then systemic reinforcement. What gets measured gets done. The same way, what gets recognized gets repeated. So what does good look like? And that ties into performance management. So our tool actually is well-integrated within your HR ecosystem, so it allows right from onboarding space all the way to every moment that matter, small micro-recognitions to major business goal, um, achievements. You're able to recognize and reinforce the positive behaviors. So you, within your organization, right early on can show to people what good looks like in this company. So at Zozode, we really enforce, as a new person joining this company, what do I want to see to be able to do that? And early this morning, we actually did a great job tying in how this connects to, uh, values of the organization, performance management. So when you have these kudos and high-fives, a manager at the six months review or quarterly review can really see who's receiving this. And then the data also shows burnout challenges too. So let's say if Karen was receiving a lot of recognition in the first half of the year, but we see a dip, and that's when, when managers having these conversations, they can use those datapoint to identify where the burnout is. One other thing that I want to mention is, there's sometimes culture misalignment in terms of what does... how does the top or the leadership alliance or models recognition? Does it feel safe? How do I do this? The vulnerability, gratitude that comes from leaders actually also showcase how others can walk that talk. And then fear of inequ- inequity and bias, uh, which I think reinforces with the hybrid or remote workplace systems. Then again, you can rely on tools and systems that make it more structured approach towards recognition. Thank you for breaking all that down. And I think one point that you hit on that I want to reaffirm for the community is really the, the part of how this gets brought into performance reviews or unlocking performance. And I remember seeing earlier in the chat so many of you going like, "Recognition, what is that? It's nonexistent at our organization today." And sometimes it's just hard to get leadership bought into it, because they see it as just an engagement tool, which is important, but really what most executives care about is performance, and they care about impact and results. Like, that's what's gonna get their attention first. So, I, I think for many of you, if you're trying to get people bought in, I would go in from the performance lens first and be like, "Look, we need to use this as a tool to improve performance within the organization, which will help us accomplish our goals and, and realize the impact that we've been going for. It will help engagement, but we're gonna start here as the focus." So, I think that's really important. And, and I love to kind of build off of that. Courtney, if you don't mind jumping in, I would love to hear your thoughts on this piece, is kind of how you do get people bought in, and how do you make sure that the top of the organization, um, is, is aligned and part of this? And we always know that so much of it has to start and come from the top. And that might be the biggest gap within the whole knowing-doing gap piece that we're talking about here. So, um, what are your thoughts on that piece? Like, how do we close this knowing-doing gap and ensure that it's first established and supported by the leadership team? So, I think that gap lives in a space between intention and example. And as leaders, we often talk about and we say how important recognition is-... but employees are watching us, um, and what we're actually doing. And so I think the fastest way to close the gap is for leaders to start to model that. So they're genuinely and consistently recognizing people. And when they do that, I feel like it gives the rest of the organization permission to follow. So I think it's as simple as, like, leaders modeling the behavior that they would like in the organization. Um, I, I mean, that's a place to start, you know. I think there's probably some other topics that we'll get into in the discussion about how we actually do that, so I don't want to jump ahead too far. Well, let's jump ahead a little bit. Uh, let's go to, let's go to the skills and the enablement piece, 'cause I think that's where you're, where you're going with some of this, is- Okay. ... okay, we need leaders to model it. We need leaders to start to bring this to life, and part of that might be a skill thing, right? Like, that might be we actually need to develop our people so that they are skilled in recognition or even advocating for themselves in many ways, right? And I think that was something interesting with, with what Dr. King, Dr. Jermaine shared. He kind of talked about, you know, one, AI and some of these tools can wipe out the bias of it and just pull from these data sources. But so much of our recognition is tied to also people who are advocating for themselves and bringing, you know, awareness to their work and the things that are happening in their life. So, um, let's jump ahead a little bit to that piece. I'd love to hear your thoughts to kind of build off of that. One, how do we maybe help teach and build the skills so that our leado- leaders can model it? And then, I guess, the second part to that is, how do we also help people showcase and recognize and advocate for their contributions or bring awareness to the things that they're doing? So I think I might answer this a little bit in reverse, because the whole time I'm hearing you talk, I think about self-advocation. And I think that probably when you're at the point of leadership, um, you're a little better with that skill. But I think something that's critically important is we have to normalize, um, that it's okay to advocate for yourself. Even before that, I think we have to really break it down for employees to explain, you know, that self-advocation is not simply bragging, because I've heard so many people talk about how they feel uncomfortable bragging on themselves. So we need to kind of realign their expectations that sharing their accomplishments is, is even great for the team. Um, it shows people what work, um, and I think that sharing those accomplishments is about visibility and growth for that individual. So it's somewhat of a cycle, if you think of it. Um, and then as far as the leaders go, I, I think that you have to align on if we say this is important, we have to make the time to do it, because we have to model it for our people. But just because we have to make the time doesn't mean that leaders necessarily, you know, know the most about self-advocation. I do think that you- that is a skill set. Hopefully, if you're in leadership, you have flexed that skill a little better. But, um, also normalizing that as leaders, we don't have all the answers. And so I think that, um, coaching leader and manager in training opportunities, those are some of the ways that you can help build the skill practice even, um, because it's something that doesn't quite feel comfortable for people, um, the first couple of times they try it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a- I love that we're- Yeah, go ahead. You told me to jump in, so, um ... (laughs) I, I love it. Yeah, please do. (laughs) Um, I, I love that we're getting into the, the nitty-gritty and the actual details, 'cause I feel like that's why the people here showed up. They really want to learn the tangible pieces that they can take away. And Courtney, I so agree with you that teaching employees self-advocacy is, is important, and it's a skill that you have to learn. And so that's something that we really practice here, is, um, specifically in my one-on-ones, actually, on the agenda every single week, I have wins and obstacles for my employees. And yes, it's of course an opportunity for me to understand what their obstacles are and help remove those barriers, but it's really an opportunity for them to celebrate their wins and to get in the practice of it. And something that we talked about, the four of us, in our pre-call is that, also, it allows them to generate a list of their wins each week. And so when it's time for them to do their self-review for performance reviews, they have a list of everything that they've accomplished, and that's really cool to look back and see, like, "Here's 20, things that I did that had a positive impact to the business." In terms of the manager side, I also think it's important that managers ask their employees what recognition looks like to them, what, what fills their cup, what drains their cup. It's gonna look different for each person. You want to make sure that you're not thinking you're doing something that positively impacts an employee and then, actually, they hate it. Uh, so one of my employees recently said, "I don't like public shout-outs, but I love stretch assignments. For me, recognition that I'm doing a really great job means that you're giving me more responsibility." And if she hadn't explicitly said that, I would have had no idea. Yeah. I want to reinforce the three Rs we heard this morning, real, relevant, and repeatable, and I want to give due credit where I did. I think from Tyree's session, I believe, how do you make it real? And this is one of the biggest challenge, I know Karen mentioned, um, and Courtney, from, um, employee's perspective on how to do self-advocacy, how to create your, uh, wins charts, et cetera. And from manager's perspective, one of the biggest skill that I've found missing amongst those is communication in terms of how do you... what does... you know, start with education, what good recognition looks like. And, uh, one of the framework that I focus on is providing clear way of making it real and repeatable. So if you did great job on doing today's presentation, I don't know what did I do good, unless you make it a little bit more specific. So, um, what are my grows and what are my glows? So if you were to mention, "You did great by doing A, B, C," and then your grows, opportunity for growth could be if you would have done these things. So that way you're providing an opportunity for them to continue to grow, uh, instead of just generic praise in terms of, "Great job." Um, again, the tools can do really good job in supporting you on are you making it clear, repeatable behavior, and can give you a heads-up and say, "You might want to reconstruct this statement if you're doing that, uh, appreciation on Slack or Teams, et cetera." Modeling it from the top is of course super important, but making it habitual. I learned from a leader that she actually puts a sticky note on her desktop for people who she wants to recognize that week. And I know sometime it might feel a little bit artificial and forced-upon, but please know that during the entire hustle bustle of things that are taking up your time, it's very easy to drop the things that are not your priority in the moment. They're important for you and they're crucial for the organization, but they might take a backstage. So having that sticky note, something super easy to do, but it could remove the friction of time management. Coaching people emotional intelligence which is empathy, listening skill observation, that allows managers to be able to see people and identify those opportunities and behaviors where you want to, um, show gratitude and recognition, and reinforcing and measuring it regularly. So leveraging your dashboards, analytics, et cetera, that actually shows how and where recognition is happening more frequently, uh, and where's the sentiment across the teams, and spotlighting those teams is also very, very important. So I think we also have to create intentional space for recognition, um, in team meetings, newsletters, employee awards, like, create those places where people can share their impact, and they can celebrate other team members' wins. Um, but don't forget, similar as, um, I believe, Karen, you said, is recognition is something that is deeply individual, and recognizing someone in a way that doesn't feel authentic to them, you can unintentionally do damage that may be hard to correct. I think that's a really (clears throat) important point here, which is another part of that I- I was really excited to get into, which is the personalization piece. And again, Karen, you provided a great example there, right? Where, like, public recognition might be someone's biggest fear, right? (laughs) Like, being recognized and pulled onstage in front of the entire company, that might be someone's nightmare. Another person's like, "Oh, my gosh, put me in the limelight," you know. So I'm curious for some of you, and, and Courtney, I'd love to maybe pass it back to you to kind of kick us off on this piece, what are... what does personalization look like? Like, if we can't take a one-size-fits-all approach because it actually might be a disengagement for certain people, um, how do we start to tailor things? And, and, I mean, as Tyree shared before, like, making it relevant. So, um, and we can kind of go around the horn. I'd love to open this up. Like, how do we personalize it? What are different types of personalization that are maybe, like, the main pillars to this? And, um, how do we really make sure that it's hitting home for the individual, that they feel this sense of appreciation and it's not like, "Well, you did this. I actually don't feel appreciated. I feel like you don't know me at all," right? So, um, yeah, Courtney, what's your initial thoughts? So my initial thoughts are, one, in that it is somewhat of a simple concept in that you need to ask your employees, right? Don't make assumptions, and don't make assumptions because you think one thing landed. So as you're getting to know employees, one... when a new employee comes onto my team, I have a recognition, um, guide or sheet. And not only does it ask about different kind of, like, physical things, like gifts they'd like to receive. I ask them things such as, "How do you feel about, like, public praise? Or do you prefer private praise?" So I have a sheet for everyone on my team, and, I mean, I have a pretty good memory, but, you know, you can't always remember those things. So I literally keep, like, a, a cheat sheet for every employee, and, you know, when you think about it, most people are gonna be willing to fill out a guide that is something that will tell their boss how they like to receive praise or recognition. So that's one thing. Um, and then I think you have to make sure that... this is a little bit of a, a bigger concept, but you want to make sure that the recognition amplifies your brand voice so that it feels genuine as well. Something to think about is also the size of your company and the size of your teams. And so depending on the size of your company, the ability to individualize recognition every single time might just not be there, and, and that's okay. Uh, we do a weekly shout-out. We call it a values champion, and that's not a one-size-fits-all. You're right. There are gonna be people who don't love that. We still feel like it's an important thing to do. We don't make them come up. We don't make them talk. It's just usually the manager or whoever's leading the meeting just explaining why they embody our values. Um, the, the ownership over kind of individualized recognition and tailoring it to the employee, I think is... it's with the manager. And so our job as people leaders is teaching managers how to do that and giving them the tools to be successful with that. Um, I saw some people... Courtney, you mentioned that you have, like, a, a document for all the people on your team, and I saw some people in the chat mentioning they do that too. I think that's fantastic when you have a new person join your company, giving them questions to fill out about themselves so that managers have that. And that way, you can make it, like, more systematic and managers are asking the same questions. And then from there, your manager training is about now what do you do with that? Where, where do you take it? And giving them opportunities to explore different avenues for recognition. Like, we've talked about stretch assignments. Um, we haven't even really touched on monetary recognition, and that's super important too. Like, yes, people love shout-outs, but if you're shouting out the same person every week and they're not seeing that hit their wallet, eventually they're gonna be like, "Come on, guys. This has to work both ways." Um, so I don't know if we'll get into that on this call. There's not much time left, but that's something to consider for sure. That's such a valid point because so many times at different organizations, you know, employees get those shout-outs, but ultimately, they're not getting opportunities to earn more compensation. Um, and ............................ reasons we come to work. So, I agree. We may not have time to get into that, but, you know, good who- good old cold hard cash is definitely a great form of recognition. And on that point, just, uh, to reiterate, how do you make, um, things more personalized? I've learned this early in my career when I became a first-time manager to do something called as manager read-mes. That's an opportunity where you share more about how do you wanna be contacted, how do you wanna be appreciated, how do you wanna receive feedback? And then you do that with your team too, where you can ask the same questions from them and create sort of a repository of the team's dynamics, and then other people also recognize, oh, Anju prefers to be reached via Teams versus another person prefers email. The same way you know how other people want to be receiving their shout-outs and recognition. And, um, in terms of hard cash or the gifts that y- Not everybody wants to just receive swag all the time as a part of this. The company swag is great. I love mine, the comfy hoodie. I love it, and I showcase, and I wear it all the time. But people want to receive different things. So our marketplace actually allows you to pick and choose, and then there are global and cultural nuances. What does recognition feel like in India might be different than what it needs to be feel like here in the US versus Europe. Same way, I might... Actually, the first time when I had received a big award, I used that money to give a personal flying experience to my son when he turned 11. Now, that's an experience he'll forever remember. I could have used that money to buy him a new bike, but, you know, that flying experience was something very unique. He then remembers the company that offered him the award too. So you're touching the emotional part of it when your marketplace... so you give the points, the point converts to the dollar value, that then can be your w- marketplace that's g- global and nuanced. So that's a great way of personalizing your recognition, which makes the emotional collect long-lasting. So how do you make sure people remember days later? My son's now, and this is five years back. We still remember that. I think that's incredible. And, and as you're sharing this, uh, it reminded me of I remember a member shared they did this workshop with managers around if... uh, of, you know, like kind of the love languages, the five lung- love languages. They did a version of that around the, the appreciation languages. So they kind of, like, taught how there's kind of these different models of appreciation and recognition, and, and here's some discovery questions and things we can start assessing or asking our people to understand, like, what best resonates with them. And I think another thing that, um, some of you hit on was, um, like, okay, there's cultural differences. There might be also generational differences to consider. There's also differences on where someone might be in their career. Like, I think about when I got my first corporate job at this big company, I didn't really care about money. I wasn't really motivated by money at that point. I was motivated by stretch projects as well as face time with executive leaders, and I got a core value awer- award. And part of that core value award was I got invited to the executive luncheon with the CEO and the CFO and all these exec- I was like, "Oh my gosh, I get to s- go to lunch with these people." Like, this is amazing. So, I think those are also other things to consider is, like, where are people in their journeys in life? And that might... like, for some people who are new parents, they might just want more time off to spend at home with their kids, right? So, um, that might be another mode of this. So, um, personalization is so important. I think as, as you share, Courtney, it's as simple as, like, listening on the front end. How can we tune in and really understand where our people are, what their interests are, their personalities, and then now we can be really strategic with, like, how we're, we're nudging those things. We also... by the way, we have a question about recognition on our engagement survey. So we're asking everybody at least once a year if they feel like they get the right amount of recognition for their work and what that means to them, and give them an opportunity to leave a comment if they don't feel like they're getting that, what that would look like. Um, so I think that's a really good opportunity to also get feedback from your people. That is awesome. Yes. 'Cause it's like, okay, if you ... You might take the first step of building it in your onboarding (laughs) program, but you already have a whole bunch of employees that aren't being re-onboarded, right? So, how can you also work it into the other checkpoints? I think that's so important. So, which feeds in, and I mean, we're running out of time. This flew by so fast. So, I would love to talk to, uh, a final theme and maybe some closing thoughts from all of you around, like, rituals and rhythms and how do we create kind of the systems around this. And that was another piece in all of the, the Impact Accelerator sessions, like, it, it can't just be like, this program that you launch and then it happens and it kind of falls flat. You need to create, like, this ritual around it. And, um, Courtney, I would love to kind of go to you first, 'cause I remember you sharing you had a few key rituals that you all do today, like summits and other types- Mm-hmm. ... of ongoing awards. Could you talk to us about, like, some rituals that you're currently doing, or just rituals in general that companies should consider that help reinforce this type of culture? Sure. And so I'll start with talking about our company summit, and, you know, these are on spectrums, right? Like, some of these are much larger with a lot more planning, and I'll talk about things that are those simple 10, minutes of your time a week, because you have to start somewhere. So, we have a company cultural summit every year. Um, we bring all of our employees in and, you know, really the purpose of this summit is to celebrate employees, get updates from our founders, um, employees to strengthen connections with people they already know, and then, you know, form new connections, because we're a remote company. So, um, I am planning my fifth or sixth summit at this point, and something we started doing during the very first one is we do a set of employee awards. And we have multiple categories and they're peer nominated awards. So, we send out a questionnaire, and one of those categories is the Failing Forward Award. Um, so at first, you know, I think the first time I put this out, employees were like, "Wait a second. You want us to recognize somebody as a failure." Um, so I had to go back and add clarity to that category, because people were like, "I don't wanna publicly call anybody out for failing." But what, what the, the organization has come to realize is that, and this is probably a separate topic, but when you create psychological safety in an organization, your employees feel empowered to admit they failed, to talk about their failures with each other, acknowledging that innovation comes out of failure. And as I talked about brand voice, Beat Box is very innovative. And so we're looking for people that ... We're looking to recognize people that something didn't go their way, and instead of falling apart, throwing their hands up, and giving up, they said, "How can I fix this? How can I salvage it? How can I make it better?" So, that's one way. Um, and we do, like, a golden tetra. For any of you who may not have seen Box, uh, Beat Box, it's in a, um, it's in a tetra. I kind of call it milk carton material. And part of the reason we chose that is it's recyclable, resealable, um, but we, we actually, uh, one of the employees here 3D prints golden tetras. So, the employee comes on the stage. The, um, the nominations from their peers are read and they're presented with the award, unless we know that that employee does not want to be recognized on stage. Um, because again, Zach, you said, like, it can be somebody's worst nightmare. So, we don't wanna do that. And then, kind of on the opposite side of the spectrum, something that anybody can do, um, as long as, you know, you make the time for it, but you make the time for things that are important, you sit down on your one-on-ones each week, or you can simply do a 15-minute meeting where you can say, "How can I help you advocate for yourself? What support do you need on advocating for yourself?" And then, "What are accomplishments, or what are some accomplishments that you think should be shared with the greater team or company?" And then you coach to their answers. Again, it goes back to listening to your people. And so that's a quick or minute place that anybody can start. That's amazing. Karen, anything on your end on rituals as well, of like, "Hey, here's things that we can start doing on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis to kind of build this kind of culture around it"? Yeah. So, I, I mentioned that we do these values champions shout-out. So, every single Tuesday, um, the entire New York office, we're, we're in office three days a week, so every Tuesday morning, we come together for what we call our standup. Everybody gets into the kitchen. We have an MC hosting. And each week, we do a values shout-out, um, and it's nominated by the directors. It's, we make sure to rotate to different teams. And then once a quarter, for our whole company, because we're across three different countries, we do an all hands, and once a quarter, there's a values champion. And that person gets shouted out, and they also receive a, like, very special swag item that only values champions get. So, it's kind of like a, a thing that they can have in the office or wear around that says they're this s- ultra-special values champion. We actually did it this morning, and it was really, really special. That's pretty cool. And, uh, I also think of, and, and maybe you're doing this already, for other groups that have, like, your weekly or monthly stand-ups and you're trying to build more...... peer-to-peer recognition, just conversations. I want, I would say, like, take Karen's framework or, that she talked about around the wins and obstacles, right, that maybe you could use in your o- one-on-ones. But now you could say, "Hey, for the first minutes, we're just gonna set everyone up in breakouts or find someone to pair with, share with each other your wins and obstacles from the week before, and then we'll come back as a full group." And then maybe you do the, the full recognition that you just, th- that you just talked about. Like, that might be another cool way to kind of expand. Like, build these rituals of people coming together and sharing their wins with each other, and they can recognize and kind of, like, celebrate those things. You know, Zach- Yeah, that's great too. ... something else... Oh, I apologize, Karen. Were you gonna say something? No, I just thought it was a great idea. Well, I was gonna say something else that is fun to do that I have done. Now, you have to have a team. This, this is not something I recommend for a brand new team. But once you have a, a team that has been working together for some time, I think asking other team members share something amazing that Zach did, or another team member this week, like, that you saw or this month. And I think it's really powerful and it builds a lot of confidence in maybe some of your maybe more reserved employees for them to hear their peers recognizing them in kind of a, a safe space and a, in a casual way. Yeah, that's great. And especially if you have that foundation of trust and connection already, and it's a team that's actively working together on a day-to-day basis. Like how, yeah, how can you just, like, nurture that and have triggers and rituals where people are doing that? So, um- I wanna mention- H- Yeah, go ahead. ... three quick things. One, just mentioning, uh, tying to what Courtney just mentioned about reco- re- receiving recognition from peers in a more meaningful, personalized way. At work anniversaries in my past company, we used to have a yearbook where people would write stuff, things that they've enjoyed working with you. It's so personal, it's so beautiful. I love mine. I just open... It's like your, your school yearbook with pictures and moments and photographs and messages from your colleagues. Um, we've done Mondays, Moments That Matter Mondays, where people could, you know, do shout-outs, uh, et cetera. Thankful Thursdays showing gratitude and recognition for support that you've received from peers. And then one of the thing that I found to be super easy and helpful at Zoho Day is we get, every month, points added to our account that I can use it or lose it. So, it sort of forces you to think of opportunities that you want to recognize your peers and send them those points with a nice message in terms of how you've collaborated together or the work that you want to appreciate. So, I think something that is more structured, again, from the tools perspective, getting those points, getting a reminder that you have this. And then as I'm approaching end of the month, it also sends me another reminder to say, "You ha- still have these points, and you're gonna lose them in case you don't use them." I think that's awesome, like, and, and we've even thought about that for our communities. Like, hey, how can you leverage, like, the behaviors and the things that you're looking for to gametize it a little bit, right? And assign people points and rewards and things they can claim. But then I think what you shared is also another point is, like, what's, like, the nudging and kind of the reinforcement that you can have? And that's why I like having tools like Zoho Day, it's so important, 'cause it can help kind of automate and reinforce that for you and create this ritual and system behind it. It's not a huge lift from you as a people leader to kind of constantly be doing the heavy lifting. And so, uh, it's amazing what you all are building there. So, uh, unfortunately, we are, we are coming up on time. So, this was an amazing... I wish we had, like, a full hour to spend together to just keep unpacking and talking. You all are amazing in the work that you're doing. Thank you so much for these rituals and things that you're supporting and building in-house and, uh, to build a better world of work. So, everyone listening, can we give it up for these three amazing leaders for, for spending time with us and, uh, sharing these insights? Uh, Karen, Anju, and Courtney, thank you so much. (gentle music)