Success – Silly Recognition and Playful Competition
“Wow, that’s a lot of green,” is a point of pride in our house.
My wife and I wear the Fitbit Blaze on our wrists. Individual fitness goals turn green when achieved. For example, when we reach our daily goal of 10,000 steps the number turns green. We high-five one another.
We have fitness goals for steps, miles, calories, floors, and active minutes. When we reach all the daily goals, Fitbit flashes, “Wow, that’s a lot of green.”
We’re constantly checking with each other. How many steps do you have? How many floors? It’s motivating to have someone notice.
At the end of the day, if we’re short on steps, we go for a walk to get the green. Dale walks with me, even if she has her green. I do the same for her.
One night Dale was up at 11:45 p.m. doing jumping jacks to get her green.
Every morning we step on the scales. I’m told that you shouldn’t track your weight everyday. But when you’re competing for progress, you need to be a little obsessed.
5 factors for success:
- Partnership. We go further together than we go alone.
- Competition. It’s easier for me to burn my daily calories. I let Dale know that she better get moving if she is going to keep up with me. We playfully brag and poke fun at each other as we track our progress. When I’m traveling, I’ll ask, “Did you get your green?”
- Recognition. Its funny that something as silly as, “Wow, that’s a lot of green,” can be a point of pride. Meaningful recognition requires that you track progress and honor results.
- Fun.
- Obsession. We decided not to let ourselves off the hook. If you’re going to achieve something, you have to be a little crazy about achieving it.
Which of the five factors for success are most important to you? Why?
What motivates you to pursue your goals and achieve desired results?
P.S. She just walked in and said we’ll have to walk up the road if I’m going to get my floors! Time to go.
I like that—accountabilityand support partners. And I like the visual feedback.
My wife and I both teach some of the same college courses–principles of management and organizational behavior. We challenge, support, and motivate each other in the creation of the case studies, slides, lectures, etc that we use to teach and mentor our students.
I’d say it is playful competition to excell!
Thanks Paul. After posting this one, I reflected on the five factors. I agree. For many of us, the number one factor for success is having someone with you. That includes a fellow competitor. Athletes often do the same thing.
Best wishes for success
As I see this it doesn’t apply just to fitness but to life in general. For example, in high school, we didn’t just compete for grades (which don’t provide very rapid feedback unless you’re competing with people who are in each if your courses), we also competed on a weekly basis for who got the best grade on quizzes and tests (on a teacher by teacher basis), or who got the best solo performance score in music class, or who got the best table score in woodshop, or who got the best apron score in home ec class.
Paul makes the same kind of point in his comments.
The really important thing is that the “judge” giving the score doesn’t.know this is going on.so doesn’t realize (a) there’s a competition and (b) that the result is known only to the participants (in most cases).
One time another professor and I were each teaching similarly sized classes in our respective specialties and we set up a small wager on who could get the best set of student ratings (Hawaiian pizza at our favorite place, loser pays). I know both of us worked incredibly hard that term and we both honored the wager (results will not be disclosed here). But the important thing is that it was something outside of the usual “competition” of three articles or a book or …. And that differentness was important to both of us.
virginia
Thanks Virginia. Your comment is helpful. The idea of a small wager is wonderful. I bet you dinner out that I can beat you. 🙂 … Love it.
Dan, I think you will understand my motivation better when you learn that I won a “number of slices” pizza eating contest every year I was in graduate school + the first year I was teaching when I hadn’t finished my degree so they held the contest the evening of the day I defended my dissertation, 6 contests total over those 6 years. Pizza Inn on the Ave in Seattle was the place! And, even though I’ve long since lost all those pounds, pizza with a diet soda is still my goto meal when I’m at Costco at lunchtime, though only one slice!
Have a good rest of the weekend!
vrh
Great story!! We ate at Pizza hut for lunch, today. 🙂
So fun!! We used to go to a pizza buffet when I was an undergrad. Cheap…tasty…and lots of it.
I weigh myself everyday. As weight can fluctuate a fair bit due to many different factors at the end of the week I take an average to see if I am headed in the right direction.
Thanks Z. You are so right. We like to track trajectory more than anything. It’s just part of the game.
Dan’s,
It’s great to have a competitor or competitors to share with definitely some inspiration to achieve goals.
So if you have no partners to inspire oneself what’s next?
I find “Obession” is key to keep one going, mix in some “fun” and things become enjoyable.
When one is alone you tend to battle yourself tends to be less productive or extremely brutal if your not enjoying your task. When you bring in partners you now have competitors to perhaps set reachable goals, not to say goals dont exist singularly, competitors induce commitment from all involved.
If looking for recognition, be careful how to present yourself, overzealous may sink the ship, perhaps concentrate on your true capabilities and recognition will come, don’t expect it!
Thanks Tim…your final notes on recognition are so helpful. From a leadership point of view, find ways to recognize people. From the recipients point of view…try hard, if someone else receives recognition, celebrate with them.
Being alone makes the path tougher. Be ready to be on your own, but do your best to find partners.
I think Dan’s comment of “playful competition” is important. If the competition gets too serious, the fun disappears quickly.
Thanks Paul, I think in fun competition the loser doesn’t lose too much. Plus, we look for an opportunities to win next time. We could use a little more fun in many of our organizations.
This speaks to me on a personal level, especially on the topic of fitness. On a business level, it’s also true – one or more of those 5 factors will speak to someone on a production-oriented team. It makes it easy if you have a team of competitors, but even if not, one of the other factors will spark something.
Also, you may hit this with the obsession factor, but the overarching thing that keeps any effort going is consistency. If you let off the gas – “we can skip this month’s recognition meeting because we’re busy or there’s a lot of volume to work” – the team loses steam and the whole program goes down the tubes. Everyone must agree that the recognition/competition is worth everyone’s time to be successful.
None is more important than the other, they should all have the same importance. The key for success in achieving in general, in being a leader, is finding an equal balance between them all.
When I worked, which I do hope to do again, soon, (unemployment sucks), somethings that drove me were (1) deadlines (2) seeing an end product (3) making something from nothing (4) getting to know something (5) on it’s own, plain, old sheer, inner determination, perseverance (5) oh and more than likely a wee bit of stubbornness. Used to get quietly annoyed, if I felt something was getting the better of me, especially if it wasn’t human! 🙂
Competition and recognition can inspire excellence. I worked for a global medical diagnostics company that rewarded performance. Our own managers, and our internal clients/marketing directors for various departments could reward us for excellent work. We might receive points toward items such as electronics, or gift cards or even cash bonuses. Our certificates of excellence were posted on the intranet and we would download them and proudly post them in our cubicles. Every year we attended a conference that gave company and department updates, followed by major awards for department teams that achieved excellence. Seeing our fellow employees receive recognition challenged our teams to work even harder.