Pieces of happiness
Have you ever faced one of the questions: How to reward people for correct behavior? How to thank for an act? How to motivate people? How to cheer people up and charge them with positive emotions for the whole day?
In his book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” Daniel H. Pink explains that people who implement complex creative work are not motivated by material or financial rewards. Oppositely, approval from other people and a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves, improve happiness and give the energy to strive for new achievements.
The most simple and extremely effective practice offered in Management 3.0 — Kudo Cards can help with this. Kudo Cards are a set of simple cards that are just waiting to turn into physical tokens of appreciation and bring someone the joy of the work.
You can read more about Kudo Cards, download, or buy your deck on the management 3.0 website. I want to tell you about how I used them in my work.
In Sprint Retrospective events, we often focus on problems that need to decide, sometimes ignoring why we are happy to work together. At one of these events, the participants asked me — Are we not going to talk about what made us happy? Of course, I quickly corrected this mistake and provided them such an opportunity. And the question suggests that I am not a bad Scrum Master because the team is used to the fact that this part is present :).
But this question prompted me to look for additional practices that will add positive feedback to our meetings. And I found Kudo Cards.
Since we are working remotely (hi, COVID-19), I used a miro board. I created an area consisting of various Kudo Cards and adding stickers on them (so that people could write more comfortably).
At the end of the primary part of the meeting, after we had done the hard work, I offer everyone to fill out the cards.
After that, we walked across the board and everyone read out the cards that they filled. I assume that reading the cards by those who wrote them is extremely valuable, as it adds personal non-verbal components and brings people closer together. I have not seen anyone hesitate to read what he wrote. Opposite, the people improved short notes by using deep context.
I tried this practice with several teams and found it requires no more than 20 minutes. But the effect exceeds all expectations! People smiled, laughed, and little embarrassed. And after the event, I saw (and later all team members confirmed it) that they leave happy and charged of positive for the whole day! And I got some cards too :)
For me, this experience has become an invaluable lesson — never forget to allow people to thank each other and say a couple of warm words. Positive feedback is essential. I also advise everyone to remember that — our work is not only the techniques, methods, processes that we use and the problems that we solve. First of all, it is the individuals with whom we work.
Now I am thinking of expanding my practice with Kudo Cards and using it also for cross-team communication. Perhaps create a “Kudo Mail” with which everyone can send a message of positive feedback.
