A carrot according to the Merriam-Webster Online is “a reward or advantage offered especially as an inducement.” Over my 30+ years of work, I’ve experienced the best and the worst in workplace management. I’ve had managers who offered carrots and those who chased me with a stick. For those who offered me a carrot, they got a positive attitude, 110% effort all the time and a commitment to their individual and company success. The employers with the stick were so rotten, unappreciative and even sometimes verbally abusive, they never got my best results. I was scared, resentful and not very committed to them or their customers and they ultimately got the worst out of me.
Those are the memories and experiences that were the catalysts for creating a “carrot” environment when Bret and I started Sitewire. We were purposeful in establishing a culture where we would treat our employees the way we wanted to be treated. We would create a workplace where mutual respect, appreciation and positive employee interactions were the standard. We knew intuitively that those efforts would result in happy, hard working and committed employees. Over the years I’ve noticed that the more we appreciated and recognized our people, the harder they worked for us and the more positive they were. It’s my opinion that we have the best, most motivated and hardworking team in the world. This means our clients get the best possible work out of stable team of bright, happy and fully engaged Sitewire team members. Client and employee satisfaction are high and turnover is minimal at Sitewire. That is a great for everyone – clients, employees and Sitewire owners win!
Until recently, all of my observations of the impact of fostering a “carrot” environment were anecdotal, what I didn’t realize, was that our culture had a proven correlation to bottom line results. According to a study of 26,000 employees, that was commissioned by the authors of The Carrot Principle, the companies studied with the highest “recognition of excellence” scores (scored in the top 25% of those surveyed) when employees responded to the statement “my organization recognizes excellence,” out-performed the other 75% of companies in the survey by a minimum of 61% in profit margin. Wow! That was quite an eye opener for me. Never before did I see the monetary value in fostering a “carrot” culture.
The reality is employees work harder and produce better results when they feel recognized and valued for their work. There is no rocket science in the magic of the carrot, it is an easy formula for success: Employees + Appreciation = Happy Clients + Greater Profit Margins. What do you prefer; the carrot or the stick?
