Course as a training tool

Woody Allan is quoted as saying "I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia". This joke, apart from being just funny, reveals a lot of skepticism about the value of courses as a learning mechanism.
It is clear to all of us that we need training in every line of work. When we hire new employees, we must not assume that they have knowledge sufficient to perform their duties. Two reasons for that:
The first has to do with the organization and its environment. Even if the knowledge worker had a similar position in a different organization, we must assume that in our organization the job will have different characteristics and will require different skills.
The second is continuity. Knowledge related jobs evolve over time. Training is required in order to continue and meet tomorrow's knowledge challenges.
But, as Woody Allan hinted, there are two main challenges related to courses:
The first is unrealistically high expectations. We expect to read "War and Peace" in twenty minutes; we expect students to be more skilled coming out of courses.
The second is the question of answering a real need. Is speed reading the requirement or is it the assimilation of new knowledge? Are we sending our employees to have their minds filled with procedures, while forgetting the essence?
I would like to concentrate on the first challenge of this post. Not on the subjects of training but on methods to achieve effective training. How can we touch each and every student, ensure that they absorb, understand and assimilate the training material, and improve the chance that they will have better performance coming back to the organization. After all, this is the purpose of all training, as Peter Jarvis defined as early as 1958: "Learning is an improvement in performance when the stimulation, the situation and the motivation remains unchanged".
I'll start by saying that courses are complementary tools for training, learning and knowledge management. If sharing and developing knowledge, the building blocks of knowledge management, are daily events, then courses are the peaks whose aim is to boost employees' knowledge and performance.
How can we get effective training through courses? I think the key lies in understanding the four learning styles defined by David Kolb:
1. Concrete experience – A chemistry teacher illustrating an idea by a lab experiment.
2. Active Experimentation – An athlete improving his performance thorough many running practices.
3. Abstract conceptualization – Reading an article on prisoners' rehabilitation.
4. Reflective Observation – Listening to a case study analysis of a certain organization.
It is interesting to note that we, as humans, learn through a combination of the four styles. Even more interesting is the fact that some of us prefer certain styles and find those easier to learn by. In other words, the mix of learning styles is individual.
What can we learn from this?
Let's go back to the course and its' instructor. It is reasonable that this instructor prepared to course combining his preferred learning style, his preferred teaching style and his understanding of management expectation from the course.
It might be that this three are actually one style.
If we want effective training, we must demand that instructors equally combine the four training styles in their lessons. They must acknowledge that the students in the class have different learning styles.
And on a practical note:
Training by abstract conceptualization: In explaining concepts and grand ideas;
Training by concrete experience: By going into details and explaining how these details implement the grand idea;
Training by reflective observation: Including in the training a lot of stories and case studies;
And last-
Training by active experimentation as much as possible.

Seemingly, this is nothing new. I attended a training conference this week and heard there that we should change from lectures to active, "hands on" experience (Active Experimentation). It was said that this could be proved by looking at babies who are learning by doing, not by sitting in the classroom.
No friends! Do not follow this, or any other, trend. It is not wise to choose one style and rule out the others. Combine. And remember that each one of the students has a different learning style, and we need to create the best combination, one that will enable every student to match his personality.
In this way, I believe we can improve students' understanding and produce effective training aimed at meaningful learning. I do not believe we will read "War and Peace" in twenty minutes following a speed reading course. I do believe we will read it faster than before and we are sure to remember more than it involving Russia…

Yours
Moria

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Setting an Example

"Practice what you preach", is a common saying.
In the twentieth century, people worked all their lives in the same place. You could have hated your manager; you could have considered him a tyrant or a lazy slob. You could have attributed any negative characteristics to your manager. None these were reason enough to leave your work place. Some would even say that these were the roots of employee common culture.
I would not say that everyone today loves his or her managers. Nevertheless, a manager's behaviour is important, very important. It is claimed that people join organizations for the promise of an interesting job, but they leave because of managers. We expect, and rightly so, that our managers will set an example for us to follow. As managers, it is important for us to set such an example.

How to set an example and in what area? An organization is a complex system, and it takes different people working together to create the engine that drives it forward. Even in my line of work (managing a consulting firm) I soon learned that employees of different expertise are required in order to enable progress. The conclusion of all this is that setting an example is different than expecting everyone to duplicate your actions or your results. Such an imitation is not necessarily the correct way to a positive example.

So what needs to be done? In a post I wrote about measurements, I presented an idea that is suitable for this side of the equation as well, for setting an example: Measure values as you measure results, I wrote. Values represent the strategy by which we wish to act. If those are correct, and people are following them, we are on the right path.
It should be the same for setting an example. I think the key to good example is values and hard work. It is important that we set an example by getting results, but the lesson to be learned is the road to those results rather than the specific results. We set an example by demonstrating correct values.

I try to work a lot. I believe that luck and talent are components of success but hard work is not less important. I work in the early hours of the morning and I work at night. I find time to rest but my work takes most of my time, even during weekends. I don't expect my employees to work as hard, but it is important for me to set such an example.
I follow our company values. I try to project professionalism, innovation, humanity and collaboration in my actions. I admit it is not always easy. I am, for example, individualist by nature, and it took me years (actually, it is taking me years; I haven't completed the mission yet) to learn how to share. I put a lot of effort into it. I do it because it is right to share but also because it important to set an example. As I wrote in the beginning, to practice what I preach.

There is another aspect of setting an example. David, King of Israel, committed one of the most horrible sins: He took another man's wife, and then had her husband abandoned to his death on the battlefield. We could have asked why God gave us such an imperfect king. Why didn't we get a perfect king, one that it will be easy for us to take his example?
Those who thing King David is not a positive example, misreads the Bible. Ours is a complex world, and nobody can be perfect. Giving us a perfect king, or writing only of his good qualities, would set to high standards, standards that we would find hard to relate to. If this were the case, we would have no standard at all because of the major gap, because of the thought that we can never be as perfect so why bother.

A manager setting an example can and should expose his weaknesses as well. He does not have to be proud of his shortcomings, but he should not hide them. We all make mistakes. All of us, as employees, even the very professional ones, occasionally take wrong decisions. Setting a positive example includes, in my opinion, showing the less positive aspects as well. It is not that we are proud of these aspects. We are not happy with them. It's just that, like King David who sinned and repented, we admit our mistakes and try to learn from them. This is a positive example in my mind.
It is also important that we remember, as managers and as parents, that setting an example does not always result in your employees following your exact footsteps. Remember that values are the important issue. If we plot the correct values, and to set an example by following those values, there is a good chance that out employees, even if their professional decisions differ from ours, will take our example.

And as Albert Einstein said: “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.”
Setting an example is important. We should do so.

Yours
Moria

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Employees' Commitment

A famous joke tells about a pig and a chicken walking together and discussing the possibility to open a restaurant. "How shall we name the restaurant?" asks the pig. "Simple", answers the chicken "We'll call it 'Bacon and Eggs'". "I am not sure about this idea", says the pig. "It's true that we are both partners, but while you are involved in the business, I am committed".
What is commitment and how should we create organizational commitment? These are the questions I would like to dwell on in this post.

Thinking of organizational commitment brings to mind issues of job satisfaction, feeling part of the organization and similar concepts. All these are related to commitment, but are not identical. Organizational commitment is a psychological engagement of the employee to the organization.

Why should an organization work towards such commitment? There are several reasons.
First, commitment improves employee retention. We invest a lot in Knowledge Workers; we spend many hours nourishing and deepening their knowledge. An employee that is leaving forces us to re-invest. Furthermore, we depend on many of our employees. In some organizations, employees have strong relations with customers, making the personnel change unpleasant to the customers; in many organizations employees hold invaluable information, which will be lost if they leave. If employee commitment to the organization reduces turnaround, no doubt that we should encourage such commitment.
We could settle for this reason, but apparently, there are other benefits to an employee that is committed to the organization.
A committed worker is more productive during his working hours; a committed worker, according to studies, works more hours and has better performance. A committed worker is less absent; and a committed worker identifies with the organization and better assists in meeting its goals (see Dr Sigal Weisner's PhD thesis on the importance of an individual's commitment))
In order to understand how to get employee commitment, it's important to understand the different types of commitment.

Commitment can be characterized by several dimensions: One dimension deals with the nature of the commitment: an emotional commitment that the employee develops, verses a beneficial commitment (the benefits of staying within the organization), verses a moral commitment.

This can be viewed also as intellectual motives affecting commitment, like a high chance of not finding an alternative job or the comforts of the current job; verses emotional motives affecting this commitment, whether positive (liking the people we work with) or negative (fearing from the need to get use to a new job).
Yet another aspect is the subject of commitment: An employee might be committed to the profession and thus (partly) to the organization; or an employee might be committed to people in the organization, either to top management, direct management, to colleagues or to customers; and some employees are committed to the organization itself, seeing themselves as part of it and wish for its success.
We can also refer to the scope of commitment: inter-personal or organizational. In the personal level, researches have found that older people are more committed than youngsters, women more so than men, educated professionals less committed than laymen. We also see personal character as an influential parameter of commitment.
The organization and its organizational culture play a major role: a culture of sharing, teamwork and participation in decision making enhances employee commitment.

The professional aspect has great influence on the level of commitment: Job description clarity, volume of activity and personal ability to develop, all affect commitment level.

If I had to choose one parameter affecting commitment, just one tool, I'd choose reciprocity: be committed as a manager to your employees and to their wellbeing. The rest will follow.

Yours,
Moria

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The physical work environment

In his book "Thinking for a Living" that deals with how to achieve better performance by the knowledge workers, Prof. Tom Davenport dedicates a whole chapter to the issue of the physical work environment of the knowledge worker.
When I think about an invested work environment, the first example that pops to me is Google's offices. The slides, the fire pipes (enabling one going down fast) and the various games and entertainments, all leave me with the impression is a place with fun. The massage booths (with professional massagers), as well as the settling areas (arm chairs and aquariums), enable any employee rest also on formal working hours. And the list is long.

Fifteen years ago, I worked for a short period in a Start-up. If there is one thing that I won't forget from there, it for sure is the kitchen. The kitchen in this place was always full. The refrigerator always seemed to be overloaded, having every type of delicacy one could dream of. The closets were always filled up and twice a day, someone in charge, came in to refill. People arrived to work very early as breakfast seemed much more appealing there than at home. People left later, staying for dinner at work, and of course, discussing work at the time. I always thought that this is a cheep and easy way for the organization to see that its workers work more and produce more: Give them the right conditions and they shall stay more and produce more.

The interesting question is what influences the performance of the knowledge worker in terms of physical work environment? How is it right to organize the workplace?
In the mid nineties, as Knowledge Management emerged as an independent discipline, some organizations invested in building special complexes nurturing knowledge sharing and development. It became popular to invest in many cozy coffee places, encouraging the employees to speak more one with another. The assumption which led to this, was that when an employee encounters a problem, and does not solve it by himself immediately, he will take a coffee break, meantime meeting a colleague and discussing the issue. There is a good chance that the conversation can help, whether because the colleague has a good idea, or whether because the employee has spoken about it, and found a way to progress. Coffee areas turned to be part of the trend of organizational Knowledge Management efforts, enabling informal knowledge sharing.

Another phenomenon that developed at these years, also witnessed nowadays is designing special areas for knowledge development. Skandia, for example established its future center in this perception, back in 1996.

Do plants and lightening encourage thinking? Are colors as red, blue and yellow better for creativity? And, maybe, whiteboards across the office walls (with markers near them, of course), enabling one to write down every new idea as it pops, the key to successful knowledge development.

Davenport, in his book we mentioned, has researched this issue of the physical work environment. His conclusion is that even though many companies have acted in several ways in order to provide a more efficient workplace, very little can be said for certain, as to the effects of the workplace on the knowledge workers' performance. Davenport claims that the attitude towards this issue should be fit, twofold: Customized and personalized:
Customized- fitting the physical work environment to the group and its knowledge needs, based on the fact that knowledge workers should be segmented to sub-groups, each having its typical workplace needs.
Personalized- as knowledge workers like the autonomy of deciding for themselves, and if possible, choice has to be granted to them as to their workplace.
Indeed, I learned.

A new trend that I have heard about in several big high-tech organizations has to do with setting up virtual workplaces. The supporting rational is that the employees are mobile employees nowadays: They come in to the office only part of the work days, they have mobile telephones, and laptops, and a fixed workplace is not really needed. Instead, virtual work-stations are populated, every day with the employees who need it on that specific day. This solution can also be used if people do not have laptops or mobile telephones. Technology enables one to connect to every computer and log-in to his or her environment using their User-id and password, and connecting to their fixed number just dialing some instructions on the phone.
No doubt that this solution can save any organization a great deal in the short term. Rent is expensive and should not be ignored. This solution is one among a series of possible solutions, from which any organization has to pick its decision:
A private room for each employee.
Team rooms.
Open space (having a cubicle for each employee).
A virtual workplace.
In order to understand how the environment influences the performance of the knowledge workers, I believe three factors should be considered, each effecting the performance, whether directly, or indirectly:
The ability of the workers to concentrate and promote their tasks.
The workers ability to share one with another.
The workers satisfaction from work, as affected from the physical environment.

If we analyze all alternatives, we see that there is no one correct answer:
Private rooms may enable the optimal concentration, and may be most satisfactory, as a private room as concerned as part of the employee's status; they enable less sharing.
Teem-rooms enable sharing but may decrease concentration;
Open spaces give a bit from each;
And virtual workplaces are cheap.

I favor teem-rooms (3-4 people in a room). Assuming knowledge develops in teams and groups (as to Nonaka) and that fellowship/ friendship / team spirit develops with togetherness, I think it is the best solution, performance speaking. I know that concentration can be affected but there are several ways to handle this challenge:
First, remember that almost never, all employees are together on the same day in the office. The knowledge workers, as already stated, are mobile and spend a lot of hours out of the office.
Furthermore, people with laptops can always wander to other rooms, in order to hold a noisy telephone call (and not interrupt the others) or in order to work on some task where they need the silence (and not to be interrupted by others). The organization has to verify that such rooms exist, and that such a move is legitimate.
Also a request to work at home in order to promote such a task, should be treated favorably.
And, last but not least, when people work in a joint room, they develop a culture of considering one another.
What else do we need?

No matter what you decide to do, I have one wish: Do not promote a virtual work environment in your organizations, also it has financial benefits. Understand the importance of a private corner, a place for personal pictures, a plant and some nonsense on the table. They are all part of the worker, and even though it may not be proved by any research to help better performance, it surely is important for the employee's feeling and sense of convenience and comfort. At the end of the say, we invest a lot in order to give our employees a belongingness feeling, so why spoil?

Yours,
Moria

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Teamwork

We live in the 21st century. IF we examine the people surrounding us as well as ourselves, we notice something that was not the same in the past century: individualism. People at life and employees at work, all seem to be very individualistic. One may say that it is almost a religion. Oscar Wilde, in his book "The picture of Dorian Gray", expressed this saying in his unique way: "being in harmony with oneself is a key to life, echoing the tenet to Aestheticism that calls for the individual to make of his own life a work of art."

Individualism conflicts with teamwork. The willingness of one to placate himself, to utilize, to succeed building a career, opposing to the need to fit yourself to the environment, to people that may work and think in a different pace that may have other perceptions and other agendas.

Organizational thinking, there seems to be a conflict as well: We were taught that teamwork is a good thing. However, teamwork costs more: More time as to the need of synchronization; and more money as duplication exists.

Yet, teamwork should not be considered part of the past. Teamwork is a value, one of the values that belongs, not only to the Human Resources department, seeking for the ideal. Furthermore; in the 21st century, when many of us are knowledge workers, and our knowledge is one of the main things causing the organization to move on and succeed, in such a time, teamwork is important, one may even say essential, threefold: From the individual perception; form the organizational perception; and from the business perception.

I shall explain:
As individuals, even though we may eager for individualism, we need a network of support and we need a belonging. These of course can be developed in an organizational level, with no teams, but are not enough as such. We need a close group of reference. One that will see us in the morning, and ask why we might seem worried. One that will share our happiness and success, and share our sad moments as well. One that we can turn to when we are in distress. A close group. Belonging can be built also within big groups, however being part of a team, conceptualizes the belonging and makes it fell reality.
In the past years, a new type of relations has emerged, similar to teams, but actually serving some other functionality: Social networks. A social network deals with relations between peoples, but focuses on week relations. In teams, we deal with tight relations. A Social network cannot be a replacement and solution providing the belonging level nor the support network as provided by a team structure.

Examining the organizational angle, teamwork is a very important value. In their book, Collaboration 2.0, Levine and Coleman write, that teamwork includes, among other benefits, the following advantages:

1. It strengthens the individuals commitment;
2. It raises satisfaction level from the workplace;
3. It enables advanced trust and communication.

No doubt, that obtaining even only one of these is enough for us to understand that organizational speaking, teamwork is a positive thing. How much more so, when speaking about all three.

Professionally speaking, teamwork is surprising. We could have thought that in an era of knowledge, when everyone has his or her own expertise, there is no real business benefit to working in teams. However, this is not the case. Teamwork brings better business value, than working separately. Nonaka and Takeuchi, in their book "The Knowledge Creating Company", taught us, how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. Knowledge, they write, develops in teams / small groups. Not in the individual experts' brains. Socialization; that is how they name the first stage of four in which knowledge is created. A stage that deals with transferring the tacit knowledge from the individual to a close group. The knowledge may start from the individual, but it develops through the transition and within the group. Other researchers, who analyzed learning processes, agree with this finding: Teamwork improves the quality of products and other outcomes, improves the efficiency of obtaining them, and advances the innovation and creativity related with them.

Teamwork helps improvement individual concerning, organizational concerning and business concerning.

Nevertheless, so I believe, life is not as simple as it sounds. Working in a team is not always convenient. People have to compromise and understand that the team may work or decide according to their colleague recommendations, and not as they thought.
Teamwork can cause a herd effect, where the group influences the individual, not always in a positive way.
Moreover, teamwork can yield duplication in resources cost.

How can the potential of a team be utilized? Buchel, in her article "Knowledge Creation and Transfer: From Teams to the Whole Organization", published as part of Nonaka's and Ichujo's book "Knowledge Creation and Management", writes about two main factors of the team, that influence the human capital and improved performance:

• Density of relations within the group.
• Bridges to the outside (organization, stakeholders, etc.)
  

How can a company avoid the duplication challenge? I think that the solution to this problem is by defining clear limits. Defining the tasks in which there is an advantage for teamwork, and the tasks in which it is better to be performed by one individual. Analyzing, brainstorming and interviewing are examples where teamwork should be preferred, even if it may seem to create duplications. Implementation, technical operations and documentation are examples in which teamwork may be unnecessary, and even a waste of time and money.

One last point, before ending this post. I started with individualism. Individualism has many benefits, and it must not be spared in the name of teamwork. Combining both, teamwork with place for the individual and his or her uniqueness, is a key to success. As Michael Jordan said: "talent wins games, teamwork and intelligence win championship".

Yours,
Moria

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Electronic mail

Israel's Defense Forces (I.D.F.) has announced that it is working nowadays on a new command that will limit email sending so that any soldier can send an email up two ranks higher than himself, and not above.
No doubt, that the electronic mail has influenced our lives, and has influenced management. This example of the new army command is one example that demonstrates how much technology influences culture and flattening of the hierarchical organization structure.
Is this something good? And if not, is it right to block it? Maybe, in the 21st century it is rather a good idea to flatten the organization or at least reduce the mental gap between the organizational ranks.

The issue is complicated; however, no matter what the final decision is, I think that two things have to be considered while taking the decision:
Technology should not dictate culture. Each organization has to analyze the advantages it could achieve from the organizational flattening, and potentially there indeed are advantages: The employee thinks wider looking at the big picture as the organization does not treat him as a small part in a well-defined organization; good new ideas can defuse better. Furthermore, in Israel, where the post is written, many people know one another from several different life cycles having different hierarchy relationships in each; etc. If these advantages are greater than the disadvantages deriving from emails to all (and on the disadvantages I will not elaborate as we were all brought up on them and know them all), then we should favor the free email usage. Of course, if this is the case, new bounds should be set, preserving the managers' place as the final decision maker.
If a decision is taken to make a change, as the one reported to be in I.D.F., then the change has to be managed. It should be communicated, explained, and not only commanded. The reason is obvious: Employees already got use to this ability. Any change will be interpreted as worsening conditions and can cause bitterness. The move and its rational should be communicated and special care has to be given to the period until people get use to the new process of work.

However, email usage has more in to it for the 21st century worker, beyond organizational flattening.

Email has totally changed our availability to work. Even though we all have cellular telephones, people do not tend to call us off working hours (and yes- working hours' definition is tricky). With emails, we have no problem. We can write whenever convenient to us, and if it is not work time, we assume that the employee, receiving the mail, will answer when s/he find it suitable. Without noticing, we reach a situation in which most of us work, write each other, exchange opinions and tasks almost 24 hours a day.

Emails have also changed our routines on working hours. Sometimes we have the feeling that email is managing us, no us managing it. It seems as if every half an hour the mail carrier arrives, with a new big sack full with mail, leaves it on our step door and goes to bring the next one. The piles turn higher, and the small message on our inbox notifying us how many mails yet have to be read and/or handled leaves us stressed, hopeless or both. Some people reach a situation when all day they reply to mails, and again, as in the beginning of the post, somehow the mail is the initiator managing us, and we are the responders.
What can I recommend? I manage the time in which I answer mails. Emails are treated mainly on evenings, nights and on the early hours of the day. Most daytime is dedicated to people. I do enjoy the mails advantages not letting it gaining control on me (at least most of the time).

A post on emails cannot end without concerning the email's content, beyond the framing (to whom and when). Email is somewhat risky. On the one hand, we regard it as something less formal, as speaking on the phone, or even speaking face-to-face. We speak unofficially and therefore, not always consider every word we use. Email however, is written. If we get an email from some colleague, or even worse, with some subordinate, and are under the impression that they hurt our feeling, we read it again, and again, empowering the insult. It is very different from a situation where someone speaks with us. The situation is even more complicated, ad when speaking face-to-face, and even on phone, the one with whom we are communicating, can sense our feelings. S/he can fix the impression, clarify things, apologize, or limit the arm level. With emails, we do not have this luxury: On the one hand, informal; on the other hand, very formal.

What is recommended? To read every mail we write and think if there is any chance it will be misunderstood; to use the email channel to shorten things, but better use it on good or natural issues. To remember that a third person can pass and see what was written. The bottom line: do not give up this fabulous channel, yet use it a bit less than what would seem natural.

Email indeed is a revolution, a revolution of the 21st century. A technological revolution that has influenced quality of life, pace, and ways we treat our managers. I do think that at the end of the day, it does have more advantages than disadvantages, and we should be happy with it.

And, yes, I think that organizations can be flattened, at least in most cases (of course, I do not know what is best for the army). Authority in the 21st century starts from knowledge and is less influenced by formal hierarchies only. The manager has to invest more to be appreciated and treated with honor, and it is less a case of the ability to send or not to send him or her, an email. The knowledge era builds its own balances between things.

I wish us all, to indeed benefit from the email revolution. I wish we will have many other positive revolutions as the email one.

Yours,
Moria

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Rewarding

"Incentives and rewards are some of the most powerful management tools available" (Cited from "Making innovation Work", written by Davila, Epstein & Shelton).

People work against some compensation. We do not expect people to come to work day after day if s/he does not receive anything in return. Yet, when we deal with rewarding, we redefine the scope, speaking not only about salary (or self-contentment in case of volunteers). People expect to be rewarded; they expect a system that will encourage those who do well and punish those who do not).

A close examination of what I written above, can teach about two objectives in rewarding:
The first sentence was cited from an excellent book I read on innovation. Innovation deals with changing the organization; leaving the current situation and replacing it by another one. Rewarding, as to the authors, is an essential tool for aiding this change and help it turning into organizational reality. If you want to change peoples' behavior, give them incentives before and while changing, and reward them after.
The second objective of rewarding is somewhat different. It deals with the daily routine, motivating us to continually work and perform better. It resembles the gasoline, which every car needs a steady supply in order to continue driving. This need is part of our genes as people, and it only grows with us being knowledge workers, choosing whether to stay and how well can we perform.

It is obvious why rewarding is so important: To help maintaining and to help changing.
The problem starts as rewarding is not as simple as we would wish.
It is not simple to reward, as, due to researches, to much rewarding, leads to poor performance. I think the reason is twofold: First, people get used to the rewards, and the level of rewarding required grows higher. The second reason has to do, with the fact that people understand that less is required from them in order to actually win the reward, and they naturally will tend to make fewer efforts.
It is not simple to reward as no company lives in a vacuum: The employees have expectations regarding what they were use to in previous places of work; towards what they hear from friends and family; and towards what happens in the market in which the company works. It is very easy to be drawn after others and build some rewarding system that does not serve us as a specific organization. Acting otherwise and not answering employees' expectations, and un-satisfaction and de-moralization can follow.
It is not simple to reward, as rewarding should be proportional to the phenomenon or behavior which we want to encourage. As already I have written in previous posts, measuring is difficult. In many cases, it is complicated to estimate how much each individual contributed to some success.

However, the main question is not why rewarding is not simple, yet how should it be done.
First, an organization has to conduct its own rewarding system, based on its unique organizational culture; I recommend not following others, not to be drawn after the industry, nor neighbors or friends. The saying "we are unique" can lead to a positive implementation, if communicated properly. Of course, expectations should be leveled with new employees, before they are hired, and as part of the interviewing process. In case of an existing organization, wishing to change its current rewarding system, things are more complicated. I read a study, conducted by Kaplan, claiming that people tend to become fixated on existing incentive and rewarding systems and resist the change. Such a change has to be managed, according to all well-known change management methodologies.

Second, any rewarding system has to be based both on organization needs as well as on the individual needs. In general, organizational needs are in high congruence with achievements and results, while individual needs are more connected to efforts. Both need to be rewarded. Rewarding can be "hard", mainly money in all formats, starting with higher salary, bonuses, stock options, etc. Rewarding can be "soft", examples including recognition, promotion, publication, compliments, professional course, etc. Using Maslow's needs pyramid can help in designing the rewarding system. What I find important is to balance between the two, being sensitive and wise.

Any rewarding system, no matter how designed, should answer some principles in order to be effective:

• Fairness. Living in a situation where other employees do understand why their colleague was rewarded and not them. Any rewarding system should aspire to reward individuals when the organization was rewarded significantly.
• Answering the individuals' needs. No matter if the rewarding is for a team or for the individual, s/he has to be touched and motivated.
• Balanced in scope. Too generous rewarding systems are not considered effective, and in some cases harm. To little yet communicated rewarding, will have cynical interpretations.
• Flexible. Never pre-define everything. Always there are unexpected situations in which an employee should be rewarded. The rewarding system has to be flexible enough to answer these situations as well.
• Stable. Do not change to often the rewarding system.

And most important-

• Suitable. Fitting the organization's spirit.

I hope we all succeed rewarding our employees and motivate them to work properly and change when appropriate. At the end of the day, we have to remember, that rewarding is one of the most powerful management tools available.

Yours,
Moria

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