Being Recognized at Work: A Vital Need
4 October 2012
Read by 1474 persons
Are we eternally children seeking compliments? No. Professional recognition offers a sense of belonging, allows us to value our uniqueness, and helps us give substance and meaning to increasingly dematerialized activities.
"Actually, you have no skills. You're just lucky." Marc, 32, a sales representative at a large European bank, initially thought he had misheard. How could his "N+1" say that during his annual performance review, when he had "exceeded" his objectives? "I was the one on the team who made the most profit," he testifies. "At first, I was stunned. Then I wondered if he wasn't right." Gradually, Marc's self-confidence eroded. "At the risk of sounding ridiculous," he adds, he ended up calling former employers to ask them if he was really "so bad." They reassured him, but after a few months, only receiving polite silence despite his overflowing activity, Marc threw in the towel and resigned, convinced that if he had stayed, he would have fallen into depression.
A legitimate desire for social esteem
This extreme example is more akin to harassment than the everyday experiences most of us face. Yet, how many of us anxiously await those end-of-year reviews? How many of us watch for that opportunity to finally hear our supervisor highlight our positive achievements, say "thank you," give us a raise, who knows? In short, to reassure us of their confidence? Ultimately, why do we attach so much importance to it? After all, who better than ourselves can judge the care we have taken in accomplishing our daily tasks? The whole question is this: we have a visceral and timeless need for recognition.
Because, explains psychoanalyst and coach Hélène Vecchiali, "work, etymologically, is linked to pain and difficulty. Even those who love their job make efforts. It is therefore normal to need to be recognized. And recognizing someone means identifying them: when a child is born, they are recognized by their parents at the town hall. This is how they become part of society. At work, it's the same thing: recognition is not just something that feels good occasionally. It offers us a sense of belonging to a group and allows us to build self-esteem." But we are not all equal in the face of this desire: to be convinced of the value of their work, some need to be told ten times in a row. Others want to be recognized publicly and not privately: the trumpets of fame must sound.
"Good grades" that define our value
Work is linked to love for each of us. When we were little, our parents congratulated us for our good grades and scolded us for bad ones. Since then, we have all more or less tended to confuse the value of our grades, that is, the value of the fruit of our efforts, with our own value, the value we represented to our parents. Some people are more expectant than others, because "their self-esteem, their recognition of themselves is fragile or has not been able to properly develop," explains Hélène Vecchiali. "On the other hand, a child who has been dreamed of, desired, nurtured, and recognized in their efforts by their parents will spontaneously have anchored in themselves this feeling of being valuable. They will be less demanding."
Marion, 45, is one of those fortunate ones who do not neurotically doubt the quality of their work, but, she says, "if my superiors and colleagues didn't compliment me from time to time, I think I would be completely lost. For years, I've been filling out summary sheets on the computer without really knowing who reads them." This is quite logical, assures economist and psychoanalyst Corinne Maier. According to her, our professional life is increasingly virtual: "In an office, nothing is really concrete. We create intangible things, which are therefore difficult to evaluate. Unlike someone who repairs shoes or an independent person who makes their turnover, job satisfaction is less linked to the creation of an object. It also does not rely on the well-being that one can feel by accomplishing a task from beginning to end, since functions are "cut up," detached from each other and compartmentalized."
As a result, we have less than ever today the means to assess ourselves. We are lost in the blur of increasingly abstract and fragmented activities. Nothing tangible comes to comfort us. We depend more than ever on the opinions of others: they alone can support and reassure us in environments where layoffs are multiplying. In a company, recognition is also "an excellent way to boost teams," reminds psychoanalyst René Fiori.
Managers who are afraid to congratulate their teams
Why, then, are some managers and department heads increasingly hesitant to show it? Some are manipulators, of course, but the vast majority are more seized by fear. Demonstration with this company manager, however, very concerned about the well-being of her employees: "I no longer dare to express my appreciation because I fear that my words will be used to build files in case I have to, for economic reasons, part with employees whose work I appreciate." If I send an email of congratulations to someone, will they not keep it and use it in a lawsuit "just in case"...? Absurd fears that end up straining relationships, and that's a shame, notes Hélène Vecchiali, because "playing with or mocking the need for recognition of one's subordinates is a double-edged sword: even if they are discreet, senior managers themselves sometimes need to be recognized by those they supervise, especially when there is tension in the office.
In fact, everyone is concerned by this issue! Freud said that a balanced person works "well" and loves "well." Love and work are the two great crutches of the human being. One can help compensate for the other. We are all equal in the fact that sometimes, professional recognition helps to overcome difficult times in private life, and vice versa." Only, trust clashes with the principle of precaution, and the expression of recognition is sometimes no longer indexed to the quality of the work performed. Suspended from strategic calculations, it loses its great virtue: that of responding to the universal and profound need to be distinguished. Even if we have the feeling that the person facing us is less and less reliable, even if they are subjected to unbearable pressures, we would like to be able to, without distrust, give in to the temptation to savor their recognition, to savor this proof that our work is necessary to them in all its uniqueness.
Hélène Fresnel.
Psychologies.com
Posted online October 4, 2012.
"Actually, you have no skills. You're just lucky." Marc, 32, a sales representative at a large European bank, initially thought he had misheard. How could his "N+1" say that during his annual performance review, when he had "exceeded" his objectives? "I was the one on the team who made the most profit," he testifies. "At first, I was stunned. Then I wondered if he wasn't right." Gradually, Marc's self-confidence eroded. "At the risk of sounding ridiculous," he adds, he ended up calling former employers to ask them if he was really "so bad." They reassured him, but after a few months, only receiving polite silence despite his overflowing activity, Marc threw in the towel and resigned, convinced that if he had stayed, he would have fallen into depression.
A legitimate desire for social esteem
This extreme example is more akin to harassment than the everyday experiences most of us face. Yet, how many of us anxiously await those end-of-year reviews? How many of us watch for that opportunity to finally hear our supervisor highlight our positive achievements, say "thank you," give us a raise, who knows? In short, to reassure us of their confidence? Ultimately, why do we attach so much importance to it? After all, who better than ourselves can judge the care we have taken in accomplishing our daily tasks? The whole question is this: we have a visceral and timeless need for recognition.
Because, explains psychoanalyst and coach Hélène Vecchiali, "work, etymologically, is linked to pain and difficulty. Even those who love their job make efforts. It is therefore normal to need to be recognized. And recognizing someone means identifying them: when a child is born, they are recognized by their parents at the town hall. This is how they become part of society. At work, it's the same thing: recognition is not just something that feels good occasionally. It offers us a sense of belonging to a group and allows us to build self-esteem." But we are not all equal in the face of this desire: to be convinced of the value of their work, some need to be told ten times in a row. Others want to be recognized publicly and not privately: the trumpets of fame must sound.
"Good grades" that define our value
Work is linked to love for each of us. When we were little, our parents congratulated us for our good grades and scolded us for bad ones. Since then, we have all more or less tended to confuse the value of our grades, that is, the value of the fruit of our efforts, with our own value, the value we represented to our parents. Some people are more expectant than others, because "their self-esteem, their recognition of themselves is fragile or has not been able to properly develop," explains Hélène Vecchiali. "On the other hand, a child who has been dreamed of, desired, nurtured, and recognized in their efforts by their parents will spontaneously have anchored in themselves this feeling of being valuable. They will be less demanding."
Marion, 45, is one of those fortunate ones who do not neurotically doubt the quality of their work, but, she says, "if my superiors and colleagues didn't compliment me from time to time, I think I would be completely lost. For years, I've been filling out summary sheets on the computer without really knowing who reads them." This is quite logical, assures economist and psychoanalyst Corinne Maier. According to her, our professional life is increasingly virtual: "In an office, nothing is really concrete. We create intangible things, which are therefore difficult to evaluate. Unlike someone who repairs shoes or an independent person who makes their turnover, job satisfaction is less linked to the creation of an object. It also does not rely on the well-being that one can feel by accomplishing a task from beginning to end, since functions are "cut up," detached from each other and compartmentalized."
As a result, we have less than ever today the means to assess ourselves. We are lost in the blur of increasingly abstract and fragmented activities. Nothing tangible comes to comfort us. We depend more than ever on the opinions of others: they alone can support and reassure us in environments where layoffs are multiplying. In a company, recognition is also "an excellent way to boost teams," reminds psychoanalyst René Fiori.
Managers who are afraid to congratulate their teams
Why, then, are some managers and department heads increasingly hesitant to show it? Some are manipulators, of course, but the vast majority are more seized by fear. Demonstration with this company manager, however, very concerned about the well-being of her employees: "I no longer dare to express my appreciation because I fear that my words will be used to build files in case I have to, for economic reasons, part with employees whose work I appreciate." If I send an email of congratulations to someone, will they not keep it and use it in a lawsuit "just in case"...? Absurd fears that end up straining relationships, and that's a shame, notes Hélène Vecchiali, because "playing with or mocking the need for recognition of one's subordinates is a double-edged sword: even if they are discreet, senior managers themselves sometimes need to be recognized by those they supervise, especially when there is tension in the office.
In fact, everyone is concerned by this issue! Freud said that a balanced person works "well" and loves "well." Love and work are the two great crutches of the human being. One can help compensate for the other. We are all equal in the fact that sometimes, professional recognition helps to overcome difficult times in private life, and vice versa." Only, trust clashes with the principle of precaution, and the expression of recognition is sometimes no longer indexed to the quality of the work performed. Suspended from strategic calculations, it loses its great virtue: that of responding to the universal and profound need to be distinguished. Even if we have the feeling that the person facing us is less and less reliable, even if they are subjected to unbearable pressures, we would like to be able to, without distrust, give in to the temptation to savor their recognition, to savor this proof that our work is necessary to them in all its uniqueness.
Hélène Fresnel.
Psychologies.com
Posted online October 4, 2012.
