Better Recognize

Research indicates that employees have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company. 

-Zig Ziglar

It is interesting how sometimes certain themes or ideas will dominate our lives for days or weeks. Sometimes I wonder if I'm unwittingly part of the cast of some television drama and these themes are just the writer's way of organizing things into episodes. Then I realize The Truman Show is fiction, and the reality is that all of these themes are constantly present, it is only my awareness of them that ebbs and flows. 

Right now, recognition is a theme that is on my mind. We found out last week that the Sullivan Chamber and Economic Development is recognizing Sullivan Schools as their Business of the Year at their annual luncheon later this month. As a leader within this organization, I am incredibly honored that we will be receiving this award. For me, it is a sign that our efforts are recognized by our community. It isn't that the recognition is necessary for us to continue the work that we do, but rather the knowledge that what we are doing has been noticed. 

In order to show our appreciation for the award, we will take a group of people to receive the award. As a building principal, I was tasked with picking a teacher to attend the luncheon with me to represent Sullivan Middle School. This turned out to be a very difficult task because I viewed an invitation to this even to be a recognition itself, so I started to think about each member of our staff and the tremendous contributions that each person makes toward achieving our overall goals, and I found that I could talk myself into selecting literally every member of our staff for one reason or another. Ultimately, I had to narrow the criteria to things that I thought may have caught the attention of the SCED, which still only narrowed it down to three. Ultimately, I have reached out to those teachers to see who would like to attend. 

The point of all of that is to say that I consider myself incredibly blessed to be in the position I am. Anyone in a leadership position works to build the best possible team in order to achieve whatever goals exist for the organization they lead. I feel like I have the best possible team, and I believe this recognition of our organization is a testament to the amazing work each one of you does on an individual basis. No team accomplishes what we have been able to accomplish without outstanding performers throughout the organization, so understand that this recognition is about all of you. 

I said this has been a theme for me over the last week. Today I had a conversation with my daughter about recognition as well. Without getting into specifics, one of things we discussed is that sometimes, the little things that we do every day, the things we are supposed to do, go unrecognized. It isn't that people don't appreciate us doing these things, it is that they are commonplace and our repeated completion of these things makes those around us take them for granted. In some ways, we can take some satisfaction in the things people do not thank us for doing because it means we are reliable. For example, I do a number of things around the house for my wife and children. I like that they do not feel the need to thank me for all of them. I wear it as a badge of honor that I have done them so consistently that they have become a commonplace part of our lives. When one of them does thank me for such things, I often wonder if they just now realized I had been doing it all along.

I guess what I am saying is that I appreciate all that you do, and even if your reliability in doing the little things has become so consistent that it doesn't seem noticed, understand that it is, and it makes a huge difference in our school and our community.