Yesterday I delivered a project report in a monthly project meeting. As usual, I was nervous as hell, so the sentences that came out of my mouth didn't really flow very well. Consequently, the Project Lead misunderstood my words and said, "ok, so well done to the X team for rushing the coding." Then I realised, no, they weren't the heroes... they're actually the one who contributed 80% of this chaos. But then I didn't really take it seriously because it was just mentioned in a project update forum.
This afternoon, an email arrived from the Project Lead and she gave a call out to the X team for their "great job" getting the coding done. I felt that that was totally wrong. Especially because this X team was one of the team who caused most of the headache in the project by not taking things seriously, missing the deadlines, and not getting things right because they weren't proactively seeking for help if things were not clear for them, hence extra time was needed to redo their task.
Without any doubt, I knew I had to do the right thing: extend the call out to the people who really deserve it. I replied to everyone who was sent the Project's Lead email although there were 25 people in the distribution list (including 4 operations leads) and I know my email would be spamming their inbox. But I believe I need to set the records straight. So I wrote back, "I would like to extend the special mention to the A team, B team, C team, and D team for their efforts, working in a very tight timeline, to ensure that the data is delivered by this period."
Again, I don't care if my email is going to spam their inbox. But the A, B, C, and D team deserves an even more special mention compared to the X team.
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People are always happy and they feel valued when they are appreciated - which should translate to higher productivity. So, I always make sure that I appreciate people for what they do (especially if they've gone above and beyond to help you) and share that appreciation to a bigger group (and involve senior leadership!).
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