Recognition, what about you?

Thank you. That was the first thing one of my colleagues said as he approached me when I arrived at the office. Ok, maybe it was the second, as he usually greeted me first. I remember it vividly. It was on a Monday morning, and I was about to start the week. He then went on to explain what the reason was behind these words, such simple words, yet so comforting.

It was a few months back, this fellow had taken some days off. Right before leaving, he had pushed his last feature onto our server and everything seemed fine. Unfortunately, the changes he made were responsible for breaking the build the next day (if I remember well, there was a test in the suite which was time-sensitive).

The next day, I was having a look at the reports generated for our applications and noticed one job had failed to execute properly. Not-so-long story short, I took it upon myself to investigate the problem and decided not to wait to fix the build, which I quickly managed to get back to green. But this is not what I’m trying to get at actually.

When he returned from his leave, it didn't take long before he noticed the actions I had undertaken during his absence. Delighted as he was to see I had spotted this mistake and had fixed it for him instead of pointing the blame at him, he immediately thanked me for this. What sounded completely normal seemed to mean so much for him that he insisted on repeating it several times just to be sure I had heard him.

To be honest, he even caught me a little bit off guard. Since it had happened the week before, I had already forgotten the whole thing. But he took the time to thank me and apologised for having made such a mistake. He made sure to refresh my memory and, as of today, I still haven’t forgotten how he reacted to my gesture. I’m not going to lie, the joy I felt at that particular moment made me feel good instantly.

Beyond the fact that he really appreciated what I had done, and that he cared to share it with me, I was particularly amazed by the manner in which he admitted his mistake feeling a bit embarrassed, instead of trying to cover up the whole thing.

As Dale Carnegie put it in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People,

"If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically"

That’s exactly what the colleague did! It seems simple enough, right? It is so obvious you will probably ask yourself why I even bother to mention it. How come then we often hear stories of people who have the feeling that their work is not appreciated enough and for which there is not true recognition?

Whatever you feel, you can be sure someone else has already experienced that feeling. Admitting your mistakes can be quite relieving. People like to relate to others, and this will not make you appear weaker. On the contrary, humble people — you know, the kind you want to be surrounded by — know there is no such thing as perfection, and recognising your mistakes will make you appear more human.

We are too often drawn to ourselves and forget to appreciate the work of others. Take the time to do it, and do it now.

Let’s all be more supportive and not only appreciate but recognise what others do for you. It can start with a smile, some nice words, a tap on the back, or offering your help to someone. You know the best part? It’s contagious. So you can be sure this person is going to do the same for someone else.*

* Many thanks to my English teacher Ronan Healy for proofreading and improving my text.