by Diane Brady
As we move along with our daily work we focus on getting things done and finishing our deliverables and commitments. One of the ways in which I try to remember celebrating the wins and great things people do is by creating a Kudo Box and printing out Kudo Cards. These cards, which you can download from the Management 3.0 site, are colorful and can dress up a corner in the shared kitchen or a wall area close to the team(s).
This is a great way to appreciate the effort people put in and the personal touch is usually appreciated as people know you are super busy, so the time to do this means it’s special. These colorful cards stand out and get noticed.
You know things are going well when people stop putting them in the Kudo Box and just give them to each other!
Kudo Box In Practice
Recently while I was working at a well-known apparel company and I explained the purpose of the Kudo Box and encouraged others to take time to acknowledge each other and place cards in the box.
I got things started by enlisting a few Scrum Masters to create colorful Kudo boxes in different buildings and then picked a few cards such as thank you, congratulations, well done, etc…I wrote up some things team members have done worth acknowledging, we then got leaders involved and asked for their support in promoting these activities.
Scrum Masters brought the cards to their retrospective sessions so team members would write appreciation for others.
Founder of Management 3.0 Jurgen Appelo said he personally, puts time on his calendar to regularly think about people that need a Kudo card. He often writes the card and places it on the person’s work station early in the morning as a surprise or leaves the card with their supervisor.
At my company, since we started the Kudo box campaign, we have reprinted cards multiples times and I have yet to see cards in the trash. People show their cards in their work area and are pleased to receive this small effort of appreciation. Such a small effort, but a big impact for happiness at work!
Read on about how Gute Frage used Kudo cards and changed their company culture.
