Ahhhh, Thanksgiving.  The time of year that we all stuff ourselves and try to remember that the holiday is about more than turkey and football.

I had a good reminder today that I need to be more thankful more often - not just on Thanksgiving.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve got a great life and I definitely live with a sense of gratitude.  Thanks being said, I am bad at a particular area of “thankfulness” that I need to be aware of, and I imagine that all of you have an area that could use some work as well.

My area to work on (I’m sure there are more…this is just the one I identified today!) is being outwardly thankful for the contributions of star performers in my company.  You see, I think that I subconsciously divide people that I work with into two categories:

  1. Star Performers
  2. Everyone else

I think there is actually a third category - people that I shouldn’t be working with - but for the sake of simplicity I am going to stick with the two.

The first category, Star Performers, is made up of people that have a burning desire to do their best and kick ass at whatever they do.  They are to a great degree intrinsically motivated.

The second category, everyone else, is made up of people that are still very good people and generally good at what they do (or they would fall into the third category mentioned above), it’s just that they take a little more pushing, pulling…whatever, to get all-star performance out of them.

Now, the problem is with something I said about the Star Performers:

“They are to a great degree intrinsically motivated”

The problem is that I assumed for a long time that they are entirely intrinsically motivated.  That’s just plain stupid.  Nobody is entirely instrically motivated.  Everyon loves and pat on the back and a warm “thank you” every once in a while to let them know you care and recognize their contributions.

I need to spend a little more time giving attention and praise to my Star Performers.  I’m thankful for recognizing it before it cost me my most valuable people.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!