The old adage “It goes without saying . . .” should never be spoken inside the walls of a well‐run startup. Communication – real communication, not implied communication – is the foundation for a successful business. Good CEOs know this but even the best CEOs often fail at one crucial piece of communication: rewarding good performance.

It never goes without saying because it's the little things that count. Have you ever finished doing something and thought, “Wow, that was a thankless task”? Right. No fun. Why should your employees ever feel that way?

It Never Goes without Saying

We human beings live for “moments.” We mark time by observing regular occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. While religions and cultures differ on the details, we mark the cycle of life with things like baby namings, bar mitzvahs, confirmations, first communions, weddings, and funerals.

There's no reason the workplace should be any different. Think about a few examples where it could “go without saying,” but where you're so much better off creating a “moment”:

• Publicly acknowledging a member of your team for reaching an employment anniversary (the bigger the number, the heartier the acknowledgment)
• Marking the end of a project or a transition period with a celebration
• Meeting two weeks after the end of a project or a crisis to do a postmortem or after‐action report, analyzing what went well and defining lessons learned for the next time
• Publicly thanking a colleague for helping out on something – anything

Clear, simple communication is the cheapest and easiest way to create a fun, rewarding, accountable, and focused work environment.

Building a Culture of Appreciation

What does creating a thankful atmosphere get you? It gets you great work, in the form of people doing their all to get the job done. All of us, including CEOs, appreciate being recognized when we do good work. I love what I do and would do it without any feedback, but nothing resonates with me more than a moment of thanks from someone on my executive team or our board. Why should anyone else in the organization be any different?

This is not about giving everyone a nod in all‐hands by doing shout‐outs. That's not sustainable as the company grows (and not everyone does great work every week or month!). It's also not about remembering to thank people in staff meetings, either – although that's never bad. It's about informal, regular pats on the back. To some extent inspired by the great Ken Blanchard's book Whale Done!, it's about enabling the organization to be thankful.

Years ago, we created a peer award system on our intranet/wiki at Return Path to enable peer recognition. We subsequently replaced this system with an SaaS product called You Earned It, but the idea is the same and simple. In our system, we have an “award request” form on our company intranet that any employee can use to request one of five awards for one or more of their colleagues, and the list evolves over time.

Our office manager does a quick review of the submissions to make sure they are true to their definitions and that people aren't abusing the system. In the early days, we read these out each week at our “all‐hands” meetings. At our scale today, we announce these awards each week on the wiki and via email. The leaders of the business regularly read the awards list to see who is doing good work and who needs to be thanked separately on top of the peer award.

As of late, with about 350 employees, we probably have 30 to 40 of these every week. They typically carry a $25 gift card award, although most employees tell me that they don't care about the gift card as much as the public recognition.

It's not a perfect system. The biggest shortcoming is that it's not used evenly by different people or different groups, but it's the best thing we have come up with so far to allow everyone in the company to give a colleague a virtual pat on the back, which encourages great teamwork!

• EE (Everyday Excellence) recognizes those who demonstrate excellence and pride in their daily work.
• ABCD (Above and Beyond the Call of Duty) recognizes the outstanding work of our colleagues who go above and beyond their duties and exemplify exactly what Return Path is about.
• WOOT (Working Out of Title) recognizes those who offer assistance that is not part of their job responsibilities.
• OTB (On the Business) is about pulling ourselves out of day‐to‐day tasks and ensuring that we are continually aligned with the long‐term, strategic direction of the business. We make sure we're not just optimizing our current tasks and processes but that we're also thinking about whether we should even be doing those things. We stop to think “outside of the box” and about the interrelationship between what we are doing and everything else in the organization. In doing so, we connect the leaves, the branches, the trunk, the roots, and soil of the tree to the hundreds of other trees in the forest. We step back to look at the big picture.
• TLAO (Think Like an Owner) means that every one of us holds a piece of the company's future and is empowered to use good judgment and act on behalf of Return Path. In our day‐to‐day jobs, we take personal responsibility for our products, services, and interactions. We spend like it's our own money and we think ahead. We are trusted to handle situations like we own the business because we are smart people who do the right thing. We notice the things happening around us that aren't in our day‐to‐day and take action as needed even if we're not directly responsible.
• Blue Light Special recognizes anyone who comes up with a clever way to save the company money.
• Human Firewall is awarded if you catch a colleague taking extra care around security or privacy in some way, maybe a suggestion in a meeting, a feature in a product, or a suggestion around policy or practice in the office.
• Coy Joy Award is in memory of Jen Coy (a long‐time employee we very sadly lost to cancer), who was positive, optimistic, and able to persevere through the most difficult of circumstances. This award is designed to recognize individuals who exemplify the Return Path values and spread joy through the workplace. This can be demonstrated by going above and beyond to welcome new employees, by showing a high degree of care and consideration for another person at Return Path, by being a positive and uplifting influence, and/or making another person laugh out loud.

Beyond institutionalizing thanks, there are lots of ways to give thanks that are meaningful. Some are about maximizing moments of truth. Another thing I do from time to time is write a thank‐you note and mail it to homes rather than passing it to someone at work. There are lots of genuine ways to express your appreciation. Find ways that work for you and be consistent.