Ross Saunders (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome to This Is Not What I Signed Up For, the podcast for new managers teaching you how to swim so you don't sink with your new responsibilities. Now today, I have such a great guest for you all, Sarah McVanel. Sarah is a recognition expert, professional speaker, coach, author, recovering healthcare executive, part-time perfectionist, and a movement maker of FROG, forever recognize others greatness.

Now, Sarah and I met through a mutual association we're part of probably about eight years ago. And we've had so many interactions since then. It's actually quite wonderful considering we were across oceans and all of that. So that was great. ⁓ And Sarah's an absolute breath of fresh air to be around. So I always feel really uplifted once I've spoken to Sarah, be it if Sarah is speaking or

Sarah McVanel (00:35)
Hmm?

Ross Saunders (00:55)
I'm speaking or we're both in the audience for something or we're socializing or even if we're discussing business, which has happened quite a few times. ⁓ so I'm immensely grateful to know Sarah and very grateful to have her on the podcast. And I'm very pleased to welcome the one and only frog lady. So Sarah, welcome.

Sarah McVanel (01:02)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

thank

you, Ross. Wow, you are a wonderful complementer and recognizer. I think you know a little something about what we're going to be talking about. You live this.

Ross Saunders (01:18)
Hahaha

I feel a little strongly about it, yes.

Sarah McVanel (01:26)
Yeah, yeah.

I could interview you and you could tell me a few things. Yeah.

Ross Saunders (01:31)
Yeah,

it's lots of lessons learned along the way.

Sarah McVanel (01:36)
Well, and I am curious about that. What is something that you're hoping that newer leaders are going to take from this? when you're saying, I learned a lot along the way, what did you wish you knew earlier that you didn't?

Ross Saunders (01:50)
⁓ well, that's my whole book. But,

you know, I think for me, was, I started out, when I really got into senior management, ⁓ I ended into the, ⁓ what would you call it? Like an office that was laid out like an ivory tower kind of situation, where senior management was in this little fishbowl and then everyone else was elsewhere and we were separated.

Sarah McVanel (02:09)
you

Yeah.

Ross Saunders (02:18)
It did not go well, didn't gel with me and eventually I went and joined the team, but there was no recognition in that sort of space and business. It was very difficult. And it was a game changer for me when that started coming in along with a lot of other things with getting involved in the team. that connection I think is what people, I'd love people to take. Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (02:24)
you

And

actually when you share that, it actually is backed by data as well. So I love how you shared that lived experience. I'm sure all of your listeners can also relate to that. They've been in teams and organizations and cultures where they were a part of something versus were in a hierarchical situation. You can't have a recognition of rich environment.

where there's also let's say toxicity, bullying, hierarchy, oppression of people's voices and so forth. Recognition is one of those things that how you know it's a healthy environment and actually that's why I love the metaphor of a frog. So frogs, because their skin is so delicate, they can't survive in an ecosystem that's unhealthy. It gets in their skin. get like they can't physically cannot survive. So when we were looking for a cottage years ago, the

Ross Saunders (03:25)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (03:33)
the real estate agent would walk down to the water and would look by the shoreline to see if he could find any frogs. And when I asked him, why do you keep going straight there? I want to see the cottage. He said, well, I'm not going to have your children swim in a lake if it's not healthy. I'm looking for the And so when you described what you were saying around the work environments, that made me think about, yeah, what you described is the ecosystem that you wanted to work in, where you could thrive and strive and

And really that's what I hope people listening to this podcast hear and listen to. You actually know how to be a great leader. Be the kind of leader you always love to work for and that you would choose every time.

Ross Saunders (04:20)
Yeah.

It's interesting you say that because a lot of my views on recognition come from one particular executive that I worked for many, many years ago. ⁓ and just how he wouldn't never kind of take the wind out of your sails or anything. And if the team did something good, it was the team named by name as to who did this and he could easily have taken credit for things and never, never would.

Sarah McVanel (04:31)
Tell me.

Ross Saunders (04:50)
And he was so hard on that stance of things. And he was quite a, ⁓ I wouldn't say strict or hard person, but he was very firm, ⁓ but equally fantastic in recognizing his teams. And that was kind of like, saw him, mean, I was young at the time and I was in a junior call center position. And I was just like, that's who I'm gonna be like one day.

Sarah McVanel (05:11)
Yes.

Well, you know what you shared is that you can be firm, clear, have strong and high standards. Recognition is not fluffy stuff. It's not all us joining arms and giving hugs and doing truss falls. That's not it at all. In fact, that stuff's very trite. If you had that, but then you had... And people can sniff out something that's not...

Ross Saunders (05:35)
You

for a few regular

listeners that are breathing a sigh of relief right now.

Sarah McVanel (05:43)
Yeah, exactly.

Recognition is about seeing, hearing and valuing the person and that it's not conditional just on on performance and outputs and targets. It's got to be about the person's what they value, what their effort, not just the outcome, but the effort that they're putting into it, the progress they're making. Because one person's 80 percent

Ross Saunders (05:55)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (06:12)
is another person's 110, another person's 50. Are you only going to acknowledge 110? Well, what if the person is 50? You can get it to 75. That's worth acknowledging. How are they going to get there? It's by acknowledging what's working along the way. And it's not all conditional. That's where favoritism and this sense of competition can come into play.

Ross Saunders (06:28)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (06:38)
inadvertently, sometimes people think, no, you we've got these ambitious targets we want to recognize and we want to reward when people are meaning and surpassing the targets. But then it becomes performative and external validation as opposed to valuing the person. ⁓

Ross Saunders (06:57)
Yeah, that ties into

those KPIs and things. had an episode a few episodes back that was very much on that as well. Great. ⁓

Sarah McVanel (07:05)
Well, people

will work hard to achieve those KPIs if they feel like they are invested in it being a shared we. And I promised you data and I skipped past it right to talk about that metaphor. ⁓ But here's the data maybe that will also assure your listeners. So when they, Harvard Business Review, they did a big survey about two years ago and they asked people about how well their leader recognized them.

Ross Saunders (07:13)
Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (07:35)
And then they also ask them how likely they are to stay. People, the leaders who were in the top 10 percentile, sorry, top 10 percent of recognition. In other words, people felt these were the best leaders at recognizing, like your boss that you said you wanted to work for. They were very unlikely to have any plans to leave. They were the most loyal, the most likely to stay. The leaders in the bottom 10 percent.

Ross Saunders (07:58)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (08:05)
So the rated by their people who report to them, the worse at recognizing, there is an extremely high turnover intention. And those of us in human resources know that if people plan to leave, that is one of your best predictors of turnover. So even in environments where it may not be the same competitive job market or employers market, employers driven market the way it was during the great resignation.

Ross Saunders (08:22)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (08:34)
We still don't want people to be planning to leave as soon as they can because how great is people's performance and sense of connection and community when they're kind of emotionally not so connected anymore at work. Yeah.

Ross Saunders (08:38)
⁓ for sure.

Hmm.

Sure. This is going to be a lot to unpack. love it. Right. So we are talking and I'm sure everyone's got that now. We're talking about recognition today. And I think you're, we're getting, if you, if you listen to that whole topic, it really is a superpower. So Sarah, when we talk about this and we've gone through a bit of what recognition is, the data and things like that.

Sarah McVanel (08:55)
Awesome. ⁓

Ross Saunders (09:22)
I want to speak about the different types of recognition. like, you we, we, you hit on there and we hit on sort of that KPIs and seeing someone as a person, but what types of recognition can there be in a team? What do we mean by it?

Sarah McVanel (09:26)
Mmm!

I actually ask people when they're in my audience, what's, if you could only receive recognition in one way for the rest of your career or anywhere in your life, what would it be? And there's always somebody who jokes money or a car, a trip, you know, there's always that. And then people chuckle because, you know, yeah, that would be nice. However, consistently what people say is tell me thank you and give me specific acknowledgement.

hopefully, you know, sincere and it's in a timely fashion. So 95 % of people say, me thank you. 92 % of people say make it sincere and specific in any modality. And 88 % of people say write me a note. And I don't know about you, but I hold on to my notes. I've got a little box over here. I use them as bookmarks. If I'm having a rough day, I just need to rummage around that box. And even if I don't remember who wrote it, because I'm thinking...

Ross Saunders (10:24)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (10:37)
When did I work with a Todd? I don't know, but he seemed like how I performed in that project. thanks Todd for writing me that note, however long ago that was. And it seems like it's too simple to be an effective strategy. And yet I'm curious for you, Ross, have you ever received a note in the context of work that was personalized, it was specific?

Ross Saunders (10:39)
Hahaha

Sarah McVanel (11:06)
and you held on to it.

Ross Saunders (11:08)
I have. I too have a little memories box. It's like a little container that's followed me from South Africa when I moved to Canada. still around and it's still got those little notes in it. I have received that.

Sarah McVanel (11:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And do you ever do anything with it? Do you look at it when you need it or?

Ross Saunders (11:27)
I, from time to time I do and like whenever it's my memories box so every time I have something new that's special and sentimental it kind of goes in there and generally whenever I put something new in there I end up going through it and kind of looking through it so

Sarah McVanel (11:41)
Right.

Well, and you know what? It's that's a great suggestion to leaders who aren't sure if they are going to be good at recognition. Go and look at recognition that's been meaningful to you. You had a lovely strategy you suggest earlier. Think about the best boss you've ever worked for and how they recognized you and how they made you feel and how they interacted with you. And you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Do what works. Do what works well for you.

Ross Saunders (11:54)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (12:10)
Now there is something called the Platinum Rule. So the Golden Rule being treat others the way you want to be treated, the Platinum Rules treat others the way they want to be treated. So start with recognizing people in a way that you know works for you, because then at least it feels comfortable. If you want to really practice your relatability skills, your connection, your adaptability muscles leaders, try to find out how people want to be recognized.

Ross Saunders (12:18)
Mmm.

Sarah McVanel (12:38)
We actually sometimes encourage people to fill out, encourage their staff to fill out a recognition checklist. We have one on our website on Greatness Magnified. There's a cool stuff section with lots of free resources and that's one of them. Okay, awesome. Because I mean, I'm curious about you. There are, in my work life, I've worked with people who, yes, write me a thank you note, but give it to, some people are saying, but please give it to me privately.

Ross Saunders (12:51)
We'll link to that.

Sarah McVanel (13:07)
Don't do it publicly. Were you going to ask him? Okay, ask me. I got to things to say about this. Yes.

Ross Saunders (13:09)
I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, yeah, so, well,

I mean, that's just it. And I was thinking as you were speaking there, I know for myself how I like to hear sort of recognition and I'm quite happy to be, like I like the feedback and the praise for a job well done kind of thing. ⁓

But I know that I've had colleagues as well, and I'm quite happy to have sort of public recognition. And I worked with a colleague for a while where she would be mortified for public recognition about something and she just needed a little note ⁓ like that. And also speaking to what you were mentioning with people joking about financial reward, I do have some former colleagues and I'm curious about your views here because they are like purely financial.

Sarah McVanel (13:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

.

Ross Saunders (14:03)
put it in my bank account, that's the thank you I need. And I'm curious as to how you balance that around the different team members. you've mentioned getting to know the people and responding as a person. How do you manage that as the manager?

Sarah McVanel (14:19)
Yes. So ⁓ that recognition checklist is the fastest way to get that, that lay of the land. The first page is about all the different ways in which we can recognize people, gift cards, know, ⁓ coffee, a thank you, a note, all of those things. People read on a scale of one to five. How important and meaningful that would be to them. And then on the back it asks things like on a continuum of private to public, where are you at?

from surprise to expected, where are you at? From team to individual, where are you at? So you can get a sense as to for each individual, what is their preference? But also as a group, what seems to be the footprint? So an example of that is I was working with a not-for-profit over COVID because they had to tweak their recognition program because everything had to be in person. Everything was very formal and very in person. So we had the entire organization.

And what we found is more people wanted unexpected surprise recognition than expected. So what started out as a context, a circumstantial ⁓ reality ended up being a big aha for the organization. Imagine if we didn't ask people, then we would keep doing it in a very formal way.

So people will tell you, you get it also with sense. If you have a formal event and some people show up and some people don't, they have low energy, but you have an ice cream truck on a Friday and people are like, what, this is amazing. And yet it costs less to have the ice cream truck than it would have been to rent the hall, right? And have the event. So asking people that is part of it. When it comes to things that are

Ross Saunders (15:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (16:09)
beyond our control, like money. know, a lot of people will say to me, well, I can't give raises. I don't want to ask how people want to be appreciated because I don't have any control over that. Well, you don't ask people on there, so how much money would you like me to pay you next week? We don't ask things that we can't do. What I will tell you is that there are some sectors and industries that are so financially incentivized, their entire value proposition is their productivity.

Ross Saunders (16:15)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (16:38)
So an example of this is if you're a lawyer, it's billable hours. So when people say, how do you express you appreciate me? You pay me more. You give me the promotion. That's because that's part of the deal. That's if you're a lawyer, unless you choose to work for yourself or a small family firm or if you're in a big formal law firm, it's all about the money because that is how you are, your value is quantifiable.

Ross Saunders (17:07)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (17:07)
It's not your creative use of emailing. Like that's just not part of the deal. Same with very high ⁓ output such as a commission-based sales. You can't expect a highly collaborative environment where everybody's writing each other thank you cards when generally the messages, the worst salesperson's going to lose their job at the end of the year. That's not a recognition-rich environment.

Ross Saunders (17:19)
Hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Sarah McVanel (17:36)
But if you realize

that actually we will sell more as a team of this particular product, when people feel a sense of we in the sales force, that's where you want recognition to be a to shift from that performative, we're all against each other to we are with each other. So your recognition give me a key vehicle to signal to people what matters. And if you

Ross Saunders (17:47)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (18:02)
tell people what matters based on what is very externally validated, the paycheck, the bonus check, the trophy. the only person who can formally nominate people is the boss or the higher level gets more sort of accolades to somebody, well, you're you're mentioning hierarchy matters around here. And maybe it does. And if that's what does, then fine. Great.

Ross Saunders (18:26)
Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (18:30)
But if you say everybody matters here, everybody's voice matters, but nobody's allowed to nominate a peer and it's only the executives who can decide, everybody's voice doesn't matter. mean, it doesn't matter in some ways. Yeah. So recognition is a beautiful signal to what matters in your culture.

Ross Saunders (18:44)
Yeah, it's a very telling sign.

So with talking about that, and I'm kind of, I have a couple of thoughts flying around. I'm trying to think which to put in place first. say you have one of these sales teams or something and saying we want to move to the Wii and that kind of thing.

Sarah McVanel (19:03)
Yeah, I love that. I love that.

Ross Saunders (19:15)
I'm perhaps thinking of like a situational kind of thing. Say you're a manager, a first time manager, perhaps in a company that doesn't really have a lot of this kind of program in place or something like that, but you want to bond with your team. I think I would see this a lot in startups and that side of things. And I've been in these spaces where as the manager, like you go ahead and you do what you need to do in your team and you kind of start up within a startup.

Sarah McVanel (19:43)
Mm-hmm.

Ross Saunders (19:44)
How do you go about putting a recognition program in place? I know what I've done previously, particularly for remote teams, like when I've done this with, we were multinationals pre-COVID, but we were all remote anyway. We would have a kudos channel where people could nominate people. And then it was kind of like the number of kudos you get. Then that was reported on at month. And it was just our way of putting it in.

Sarah McVanel (20:00)
rate.

Ross Saunders (20:12)
How do you get these kinds of things into a team, particularly if there's those different styles?

Sarah McVanel (20:17)
Right, yes. ⁓ I love the idea of it being shared, a shared responsibility. For one thing, the manager will be the bottleneck for a lot of things, just like HR will and finance will, the back office services will be a bottleneck. So let's not be the bottleneck to connection. If you're not sure, you've got a bit of a bootstrap in our culture because we're building the bridge as we walk on it,

Ross Saunders (20:29)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (20:47)
You're walking on it together. So build the recognition approach together. You could say, if you're literally all new to each other, okay, we all come from different organizations. Some of us are from different industries. We want to have a high recognition team. What have you seen that works? And then do something that has some enthusiasm. People may say, well, once a month we do a book club. Everyone like that? Great. Do that. Okay. I'll buy the book. You show up. Great.

If somebody else says we buy coffee for each other, somebody else might say we celebrate birthdays. I was in a team once where the person whose birthday it was bought the dessert because they didn't want to eat slab cakes. Lemon, you know, dollop cookies. Everyone had to eat your lemon dollop cookies because it was your birthday. you don't have to have cake. And that was, you're laughing. It was cute, right? They, that's what worked for them. And somebody else would say, I am not.

Ross Saunders (21:29)
Hahaha

Ha ha ha ha.

Sarah McVanel (21:46)
buying my own birthday thing, but I do want to celebrate birthdays. Great. they, you can, another team, they, they have an arrangement with the local cupcake place. Everybody told them what their favorite cupcake was. The cupcake place had the dates and they would bring them over. was this whole, because they had this lovely administrative assistant who was super organized and she loved to do that. But that's the only team I've ever heard that has this.

Ross Saunders (22:08)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (22:12)
cupcake delivery sort of situation that happens. so it doesn't, it's not that you have, there's any one way to do it. The point is, and I hope this is coming clear with all those examples, is manager, if you're not sure, you don't have to have all the answers. And isn't that true of everything, right?

Ross Saunders (22:14)
You

Hmm.

⁓ I don't know is a perfectly acceptable answer.

Sarah McVanel (22:37)
Yes, yes. And you know what? It may not be in this case. It's not that they don't know. It's just I want everyone to own it. This is our team. This is our culture. This is our way that we recognize here. How do you think that we should recognize if we were to recognize on a weekly basis? What would we recognize? How would we acknowledge it? Would we want to measure it, quantify it? Would it be informal?

Ross Saunders (22:45)
Mm.

Sarah McVanel (23:07)
What might we do? I am speaking for an organization in a few weeks from now and they're launching a new recognition program. And it's a really, really, really formal way that they're doing it and they want me to reinforce it. And I was sharing with them, I love that it's formal, I love that it's great. do, may I, I know this is outside of my job requirements here as a speaker, but may I give you with you a few suggestions and piece of feedback? And I don't think they liked it.

because it was too formal and they were creating bottlenecks. Well, it's their organization, it's their process, they can do whatever they want, but I can spot the bottlenecks. And what I asked was, so tell me when you looked at your engagement survey results and people said that they wanted to improve recognition, tell me about how you got between that result and this. Somebody did it as a project. There was no discussion.

Ross Saunders (24:03)
Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (24:06)
with the people who gave the feedback. I was like, ⁓ I'm just thinking,

please, please, please don't let this be a train wreck because like there's such love and heart that's behind what's been built. But they often have this gap, whether it be leaders we feel we have to have all the answers or if we feel like a department is responsible for something like the HR department's responsible for this, just like.

Ross Saunders (24:18)
Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (24:33)
If you communicate with the news, it's got to be the communications department. We can be overly prescriptive.

Ross Saunders (24:40)
Yeah, that's for sure.

Sarah McVanel (24:41)
How can you make it a conversation and co-create the type of culture that works and then keep iterating?

Ross Saunders (24:48)
Mm.

Yeah. And I think culture is just like a great point there as well. Like going back to one of those environments that I was in and that ivory tower one and where we, kind of got out of that. One of the best things we did, and I am thankful that we, and myself as the manager of the team had like fair sort of carte blanche to do what I wanted to in the team and a bit of a budget, but we turned Fridays into a.

Sarah McVanel (25:02)
Yeah.

What?

Ross Saunders (25:21)
like a lunch social with learning lunch and things like that, but we actually had an agenda for it as well. And even though it was casual and we got lunch in, no one had to pay for the lunches or anything like that, but so many things were discussed in those and we formed such a culture as to how we wanted to do things. And we would praise each other in that meeting as well. Like, ⁓ you know, that thing you did on Monday was just, that was

Sarah McVanel (25:29)
Mmm.

you

Ross Saunders (25:49)
spot on we're going to do that for the rest of the stuff that we're doing. And I can like see the people in that as well as I'm mentioning it I remember the situations and it was great and that built our culture.

Sarah McVanel (25:58)
Because they

I love that you gave an example where it was in an environment that wasn't one that kind of that environment like metaphorically, right? The physical environment where on the surface it was like the skin, would permeate, right? This ivory tower would permeate. No, you created a healthy moat around it. ⁓ Recognition can thrive in your team. It may not thrive in other people's teams. It may not thrive in the executive team, but in your team, it was

Ross Saunders (26:22)
Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (26:31)
healthy. And I hope that leaders who are obviously they're interested in this if they're listening to this ⁓ episode, that they feel empowered to try to create the kind of environment that they would choose to work in, even if it's not representative of the larger context, because everything changes, you the way in which things were a year ago, 10 years ago, 100 years ago, when it comes to work are different. So be the different

be the person who enables that to happen. ⁓ We just came back from launching a thankful movement. We went to the Netherlands and we brought compliments from Canadian healthcare providers to people in the Netherlands. And I will tell you, a lot of the Dutch, speak English really, really well, but I didn't always, not everyone, I could physically see in people's faces.

how much a compliment given by a colleague in another language that I do not speak, how it would land. Did it tickle their funny bone? Did it hit them in the heart and all the feels? Did it make them think? Did it hit on more like a value soul level? If you look, you can see it. And that, again, that's the power of creating that kind of environment on those Fridays that you talked about is...

Ross Saunders (27:34)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (27:54)
you're protecting time for people to be able to feel something at work. And the way our brains work is that we remember things that we feel. We feel something about it. So be the type of leader that people choose to work for, and then you will not have a turnover crisis. And if you decide as a leader that you can't build that kind of culture in the organization that you're in,

Ross Saunders (28:03)
Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (28:23)
Maybe you need to lead somewhere else, but probably you'll get a lot farther because there will be other people who will say, ⁓ how did you do that? Ross, how did you get this amazingly connected team? And they all are willing to show up on a Friday. And then you'll be able to mentor the next leader and the next leader. And then slowly you've got this lovely groundswell of culture, birth from the...

Ross Saunders (28:46)
Hmm

Sarah McVanel (28:49)
from the grassroots kind of thing as opposed to expecting culture to be something that is determined on high, so to speak.

Ross Saunders (28:57)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. yeah, I'm remembering back to it was just great for that as well. I do want to say from what I was saying where I said I had some budget available for these things, you don't need a budget available for it either. And I think that's an important thing to realize as well, that there are so many things you can do.

Sarah McVanel (29:12)
So true.

Well, for this complimenting experience that we did, I had to be able to pack on an airplane and I wasn't being paid to do this. This was something that our family chose to do. So we printed compliments on business cards and we brought pens with us. And that's what, so what was that? $200 maybe that we invested, quote, invested in the materials to do this. And people will hold on to those compliments.

They'll probably never get rid of them because it was so, as my kids accuse me of being random, it was so random, but it was a good, hopefully good kind of random. It was surprising. And things that are surprising again, are also more memorable and shareable and curiosity provoking. So yeah, as you were saying, don't, you could have some post-it notes and a pen. That can be the way in which you write notes. You've got words that cost nothing.

Ross Saunders (29:52)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (30:15)
You've got team chats as you were saying, people put the notes in the chat, that costs nothing. You don't have to have a budget. And in fact, sometimes people have to get out of their own way, assuming that the budget is the enabler. No. If you're only ever paying appreciation, well, then it's probably transactional. I shouldn't say always. However, if we believe the only things that actually are recognition, you have to pay for.

Ross Saunders (30:24)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Sarah McVanel (30:45)
it's probably more like a reward and it's not actually recognition.

Ross Saunders (30:47)
Yeah,

absolutely. that hits home as well ⁓ for working before with free meals. Free pizza is great until you just keep getting free pizza. It's like, okay, this is not going to cut it. I don't feel valued.

Sarah McVanel (31:07)
Yeah. Well, and sometimes people will say to me, you know, we've been doing pizza parties for people and now they're asking for something different. People are so entitled. And I'll say, well, maybe they're not entitled. Maybe they're telling you what they would like. Maybe it's not that they're entitled. Well, we do this for them. We expect appreciation. And so I'm thinking, huh, how ironic. We've now created an environment where I don't

I'm gonna give you this thing to appreciate you, but I expect appreciation back. And the only way I'm gonna keep doing that thing to express appreciation to you is if you express. So it's all very conditional. I don't feel valued unless I get a pizza that's gluten free and the person who says, I'm not, well, I can't get gluten free and dairy free and I got mushrooms with this and it's like, well, this has become too much work. It's not about the pizza, people. It's about.

Ross Saunders (31:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah McVanel (31:59)
coming together, it's about doing something nice for people like, ⁓ my gosh, it's not about the pizza. Same with the long years of service. It was never about the pin. Pins are sharp objects that you can't bring on a plane. It's not about the pin. It's about honoring the commitment, the years of service, the legacy. So recognize that. Don't make it about the pin or the plaque or the, you know, how...

Ross Saunders (32:06)
You

You

Sarah McVanel (32:29)
polishing the shoes and nobody wants to listen to the CEO talking about their vision and strategy and talking about the last year and blah, blah, blah, blah. CEO, friends, I'm sorry, I gotta tell you a message. It's not about you. If it's a recognition event, it's not about you at all. It's about everybody else but you. So make it about them or else it's not a recognition. It's a communication platform like a town hall.

So these are some of the things that I think gives recognition a bad name in organizations. Is they've seen it done badly? Oh, nobody goes to the annual award center. Well, not surprising. It's a bad buffet and the CEO talks for 45 minutes. And if you're not wearing red because somebody decided the theme was red, you have to go home and change. Well, that seriously, no joke, that was literally, that was literally a, well, that's not what we provided.

Ross Saunders (33:02)
Mmm.

I can see it. It's not surprising.

Sarah McVanel (33:29)
I don't understand why people didn't show up. Well, probably because they didn't want to wear red. They didn't want to listen to somebody for 45 minutes. And by the way, you didn't even give them the time off. They had to go, they had to take on paid time. I'm like, my, but that's okay because you can have these experiences and say, I am not going to do it that way. Great, do it your

Ross Saunders (33:50)
Hmm.

Yeah. We'll make that last five minutes available as a separate download if you want to send it onto your CEOs. Sarah, this has been amazing. And I think that there's been so much value out of this already. ⁓ you know, I know I follow what you're doing quite regularly. I love seeing what you're up to. ⁓ if someone wants to follow you and, and, and catch up on what you're busy with, ⁓

Sarah McVanel (33:56)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And yes, yes.

Ross Saunders (34:17)
Where should they do so? What should they do to get in touch?

Sarah McVanel (34:20)
Yeah, so we love serving folks on a weekly basis. We have a LinkedIn newsletter. And so the Platinum Rule we talked about, that was this week's newsletter. So every week we share a piece of thought leadership that we actually write it. ChatGPD does not write it. It is our brain. And so they can subscribe to that if they go over to my LinkedIn profile. So Sarah McVannell, and you'll have that in the show notes, how to spell my name. And you can join our...

your greatness magnified newsletter, and then you can see, keep that kind of that the nuances and the trends of what's happening. And if anyone would like tools, some the one we talked about, but there's dozens more they can head on over to greatness magnified.com and under cool stuff. There's so much there from coaching resources to white papers. There's a hundred plus ways to recognize 70 plus ways to recognize your customers. And so if

There, you don't have to come up with a new idea. You can just start there. Look at it like a menu.

Ross Saunders (35:23)
Wonderful. I'm heading there after this. Sarah, thank you so much. This has been great to have you on board. I knew this would be an amazing conversation. I'm so happy that you joined us.

Sarah McVanel (35:25)
That's great.

So.

it's my pleasure. Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Ross Saunders (35:38)
It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you. To our listeners, thank you so much for joining us again. Until next time, keep swimming.