17/09/2026
Make Team Recognition Part of the Culture
One of the most effective tools for accelerating performance is also one of the least used: praise. Gallup finds that only one in three workers in the U.S. and Germany strongly agree that they received recognition or praise in the past seven days for doing good work -- and those who disagree are twice as likely to say they'll quit in the next year.
Recognition has an equally powerful effect on teams, according to recent data from France, Germany, Spain and the U.K.:
Gallup data indicate that praising teams can encourage collaboration by de-incentivizing self-protective behavior like information hoarding. More than half of the people on teams that are recognized strongly agree that they "openly share information, knowledge and ideas with each other."
Praising teams can clarify organizational goals, which can enhance agility in the internal supply chain to the customer. Rivalry remains focused on other companies, not other departments -- it's "us against the competition" rather than "us against the other department." In fact, in businesses that recognize team achievements, only 2% of employees disagree that their company sets ambitious customer goals.
These companies are laying the foundation for extraordinary partnerships characterized by a common mission, fairness, trust, mutual acceptance and communication, Gallup finds. Some partnerships have two more elements -- forgiveness and unselfishness. These characteristics create extremely productive, virtually frictionless work styles. And they're qualities organizational cultures would profit from.
Quality partnerships -- including team-borne partnerships -- produce outcomes no one person could. It's worth asking: How much more could your teams accomplish if their achievements got the group recognition they deserve?
When employees are focused on team goals, the outcomes far outweigh any one individual's performance. Some companies have even abolished certain individual rewards. Bosch, for example, has eliminated all bonuses linked to individual goals and now bases end-of-year bonuses on the company's overall performance.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/329351/add-team-praise-employee-recognition-toolkit.aspx
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