If I told you that a small piece of card stock (the size of a business card) can change a company culture, would you believe me?  

I know, I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but the little card I’m talking about changed the mood of an entire company’s attitude in 5 days- and I saw it in action.

The little card has on the front “CYDSG” which stands for Caught You Doing Something Good.  The idea came from my good friend Ellen Simes, a corporate trainer and Dale Carnegie instructor for many years.  Here’s how it works:

• When you see someone doing a good job in the company, write a little note on the back of the card telling the person about it and leave it on their desk.
• Do not include your name on the card, don’t announce it, just let the praise carry the message

When Ellen used to do this exercise in corporate training for managers she gave out a dozen cards to each manager on Monday and said “They all have to be gone by Friday”.  The managers were terrified!  “I’ll never be able to hand out all of these by Friday!” they shouted.  Ellen asked them to trust her.

By Wednesday, all the managers were coming up to Ellen asking for more cards.  And when the other employees figured out where the cards originated they started asking for some too!  

Now you might be thinking, “this is just a gimmick; sharing platitudes with people that will be forgotten and the whole thing will stop in a week.”   Again, I thought so too, but I was surprised to see the practice continue and it became an ongoing part of the organization.  Why, you ask?  

We’re used to hearing about it when we don’t do something correctly or well, right?  And the good stuff- well, in many organizations that recognition is saved for reviews (maybe) or company meetings when people are recognized for “employee of the year” or years of service.  That leaves everyone else out of the loop, and even though everyone in the company can be doing good work on a regular basis, all they remember (or hear about) is the bad stuff.  It can wear people down; it can break a company.  

Morale is built not by major milestones and events; it is built one day at a time as a group by flipping the script and recognizing people when they do something well and giving them praise.  The really cool part is everyone gets in on the act and in a very short time a company will shift its culture to celebrating and noticing good work and mentioning it with evidence.    As a result, productivity goes up; waste/mistakes are reduced; employee retention increases; and more.  

All this happens because of a very important reason- employees (or team members) are aware that others are paying attention and care, in a good way, not looking to catch each other when they mess up. 

So my friends, if you want to change your company culture, it’s as easy as a little card that says CYDSG-Caught You Doing Something Good!