He was massive. He was feared. His name was Bodacious. There was just a handful of cowboys in the country whose attitude he couldn’t change — in less than eight seconds.
Recognized in the rodeo community as “The World’s Most Dangerous Bull,” Bodacious, a Charbray bull, bucked off 127 of 135 riders during his career. As impressive as the 1,900-pound beast’s record of being nearly impossible to ride, was his record for breaking a cowboy’s pride and face. The bull was known for a "power move," where his hind end would make a rider lean forward, and then the bull’s head would smack the cowboy in the face—often breaking noses or creating more serious injuries.
What do bulls and managers have in common? When managers are dealing with team members' attitude issues, they often resort to their instinctive “power moves” that can be nearly as destructive as Bodacious. However, there are more effective and civilized ways to change employee attitudes.
A 10-year study of more than 200,000 employees and managers revealed surprising data about how a manager can change an employee’s attitude about the company and about their job. No, it’s not brute force or fear that does the trick. It’s something simple—appreciation.
With national employee engagement scores showing dismal results (Gallup reports nearly 70 percent of employees are disengaged) and, according to many studies, managers being the No. 1 reason people leave a company, it’s shocking that more companies don’t realize that appreciation (applied in a specific fashion) can quickly change an employee’s attitude. And this isn’t a new insight.
In 1949, Lawrence Lindahl asked North American workers to rank the rewards of their jobs. Highest on the employees’ lists were: 1) feeling appreciated for work done and 2) feeling “in” on things. Lindahl’s survey results, then published in Personnel Magazine, sent shock waves through the corporate world. Still, leaders weren’t quick to jump on the idea of transforming their management practices—at the time, no one had studied the impact of employees feeling appreciated.
A 2008 study by Towers Watson measured the impact that purposed appreciation can have on a company’s bottom line. Everything changed when the study revealed a massive organizational performance gap between companies who practice appreciation and recognition strategies and those who don’t, or don’t do it well.
When survey participants were asked to rate the statement “My organization recognizes excellence,” the organizations that scored in the lowest 25 percent had an average return on equity of 2.4 percent, whereas those that scored in the top fourth had an average return on equity of 8.7 percent. In other words, companies that most effectively practice appreciation recognition enjoy a return that is more than triple the return of those that do the worst at appreciating employees.
Here is how you can change an employee’s attitude about work in 60 seconds:
Step 1: Tell potentially disengaged employees exactly what they did right. (“Julie, I notice that you picked up the phones today because Sandra was sick.”)
Step 2: Tell them what value or goal they met. (“That shows a lot of teamwork, and that’s one of our core values around here.”)
Step 3: Explain how their actions or attributes impact the company. (“We might have missed that emergency call from our biggest customer without your help.”)
Step 4: Express sincere appreciation. (“Thank you so much.”)
Sure, it may feel awkward and bold the first time you do it. However, in less time than it takes to stir your morning coffee you can recognize someone with specific praise and appreciation. Almost immediately (maybe even less than an 8-second bull ride), you’ll witness a change in attitude, and you’ll most likely get a response (a deeper level of engagement, commitment, effort and job satisfaction) that fear and intimidation could never produce.
Ironically sometimes the boldest moves are in fact the most civilized.
This article originally appeared on Forbes.com.
David Sturt is an executive vice president at O.C. Tanner and author of the New York Times best-seller "Great Work: How to Make a Difference People Love" (McGraw-Hill). You can follow him on twitter @david_sturt or visit www.greatwork.com.