(Alpharetta, GA) February 2, 2010

-The following is an article from "Living Your Leadership Legacy."
A newsletter published by Competitive Solutions, Inc.

Does Your Team Have an Entitlement Mentality?
Let’s begin by examining what is meant by "entitlement mentality." By definition, entitlement is when a person believes that s/he is deserving of some particular reward or benefit. The key issue is that the person believes this; whether is it true or untrue. Is this an issue? How can you overcome this and break the entitlement mentality in your organization? One way is to properly and publicly show recognition.

Ask yourself this – do I have a routine method for recognizing my employees? Do they even know what recognition looks like?

Recognition in a team environment is one of the most challenging aspects of being a leader today. For recognition to become part of an organization’s culture, it must first begin with a thorough understanding of what recognition is, and what it is not. Many organizations struggle with the difference between incentive and recognition. So, let’s define those terms:

Incentive -- an event that is established prior to the noted behavior -- It is designed to motivate a person or team toward a goal while promising a pre-established outcome if the performance is achieved.

Recognition -- an event that follows a behavior -- The person or team may (or may not) be expecting the event. It is designed to demonstrate appreciation and thanks.

However, many organizations, through a lack of understanding about recognition, have created an entitlement mentality, rather than a culture that values and appreciates recognition. Recognition should focus on intangible, informal events. Developing a proficiency in the ability to say, "Thank you, you make a difference, you are a valuable part of the organization," would offer so much more than another pen set, coffee mug, or t-shirt. There are some criteria to effective recognition; however, failure to follow these criteria causes recognition to backfire. The root cause of issues around favoritism is inconsistent recognition. Preventing this from occurring requires recognition to take the following attributes:

Sincere -- You can’t force sincerity, but you can remove qualifiers from your vocabulary. Those qualifiers include – but, however, next time, etc… We have become very good at qualified recognition. An example of this would be --"You did a great job bringing the project in under budget. You worked well as a team; however, next time you really need to work harder on the timeline. You missed the target date by two weeks." -- Recognition should be a stand alone event – do not qualify recognition, because it will inevitably be viewed as insincere.

Specific -- The goal of recognition is to point out a specific behavior, publicly, so the organization acknowledges that behavior, accepts it as the norm, and adjusts behavior accordingly. When we say "Good job. Keep up the great work," we defeat the purpose of recognition. When we are not specific, we allow many interpretations of why the person is being recognized. Always consider that failing to be specific opens the door for assumptions in interpretation. In short, what people don’t know, they make up. Don’t allow this to happen in your organization. Make your recognition specific!

Meaningful -- The most meaningful form of recognition is the sincere demonstration of appreciation through "Thank You’s," pats on the back, letters of commendation, etc. The act of giving pens, mugs, stickers, etc. undermines the value of recognition. Promoting a meaningful process requires that teams first of all discuss the appropriate behaviors. Every team should have recognition as a standard agenda item in every team meeting. By establishing a routine process, we begin to train ourselves to think not just about problems, but who deserves recognition, Above all, ask people what is meaningful to them.

With demands ever increasing on both managers and employees, promoting a recognition-based culture is becoming vitally important. Understanding the difference between incentive and recognition is the key. Applying routine recognition with sincere, specific, and meaningful praise will result in a minimization of the “entitlement mentality” in your organization’s culture.