A few years ago, I published an online course about the Four Accelerators to a Sustainable Workplace Culture. What’s funny is that when this topic was a keynote talk and not yet a course, I called it “The Four As of Unsustainable Culture,” and the 4^th A that created an unsustainable culture issue was “assholes.” (I’m obvs a big believer in finding the right audience for the authentic you 😹)

Maybe I’ll talk about assholes in another issue, but today I’m going to talk about one of the other As: Acknowledgment.

Look, we all want acknowledgment. We’re human. When a narrative was being perpetuated that the millennial generation required too much praise, I always pushed back. First, on the idea that only millennials demonstrated this trait, but even more fundamentally, that what they wanted was praise necessarily. Rather they wanted acknowledgment. And acknowledgment can include praise but doesn’t have to.

Long ago, when I was in a traditional high-tech company, we rode the dot com boom up and then suffered the long spiral down of the dot com bust. In 4 years at the company I had 6 bosses, some of them quite interim. One of those bosses barely had time to make any impact, but in their brief managerial appearance in my life, they gave me a bit of advice that has stuck with me for more than 20 years: He told me that every team member has that thing that they care about more than any other thing. If you can figure out the thing for every team member…the thing that makes them feel acknowledged…you can know what levers and knobs you have to work with to have the happiest overall team.

Often, managers assume that money is the #1 motivating factor for all employees, but my experience is that it is not.  Sure, some folks are money driven. A raise or bonus is the thing they want above all else. Some are status driven. A title or better office means the world to them. Some people are praise driven (and even within that group, some like to get that praise in front of the team, while others like to get it in 1:1 meetings or in notes of appreciation). Some people are path driven…can they see a path to growth, learning, advancement? They want to be sent to that conference or included in meetings where they can be a fly on the wall soaking up knowledge. Some are challenge driven. If it’s not the hardest problem that they are asked to solve because no one else can, they are less motivated.

While I (and all of us) may have smidgen of more than one kind of acknowledgment, I think that thing for me might be that I care about being seen. Nothing thrills me more than when a client tells me that I helped them see things from a different (and helpful) perspective. Or when a boss/peer doesn’t just understand the tasks I’m good at, but the reason I’m good at them.

AI chatbots can be seductive because their default mechanism is exactly this kind of validation. In doing my brainscape work with my tool of choice, Claude, I’ve given it lots of guidance about how to work with me…don’t tell me answers, ask me generative questions. Don’t write for me, point out where I need to write better to meet my own standards. Something I keep saying I need to put into Claude’s memory about working with me is that it doesn’t have to tell me every question I ask or point I’m trying to tease out is “genuinely sharp” or the equivalent, but I haven’t done that…yet. And a lesson I’m getting from this week’s Buffy re-watch is that maybe I haven’t done that simple thing yet, because I secretly like it.

Even as I roll my eyes at it.

Why talk about acknowledgment this week? Because this week I re-watched Season 3, Episode 5, an episode entitled “Homecoming.” On the surface this episode seems like it’s about a catfight…not Buffy’s usual fare (and not something I would typically enjoy).

Cordelia’s whole life seems oriented towards gaining popularity and its benefits…e.g. being on the cheerleading squad and, naturally, being Homecoming Queen. Buffy used to be a Cordelia at her last school…until her destiny as Slayer became her number one responsibility. One which people must know she is fulfilling very ably but mostly neglect to acknowledge. So, in a moment of pique (but at its heart, a moment of vulnerability) Buffy decides to campaign for Homecoming Queen too, against Cordelia. It’s not pretty. In fact, it’s catty.

But throughout the shenanigans in the episode, we learn a little bit more about how each girl came to consider being crowned Homecoming Queen a form of acknowledgment that really matters to her.

Cordelia has been the popular beauty queen for so long that people look at her askance when she says something smart. People have no expectations of her intellectually, so if she doesn’t meet their expectations of her as popular Queen Bee, what does that leave? In Cordelia’s world, titles like Homecoming Queen are currency. Public praise and recognition are her thing.

Buffy? She constantly fights to keep some semblance of a normal life, so she explains:

There is unexpected poignancy in the episode. The poignancy of each girl, strong and sure though each may be, still looking outside themselves for acknowledgment.

In Buffy’s world, winning the title would demonstrate that all her hard work to build a fuller life than her destiny might afford her has paid off. That the challenge that drives her can also reward her. She’s driven by the challenge, yes, but she wants at least some aspect of her work seen and appreciated.

I don’t think I ever met a person who truly didn’t care what anyone thought. I’m not saying people care about what everyone thinks. But most of us care what someone thinks. If you don’t, you might want to review the definition of a sociopath.

Knowing that human need, without judging that human need, gives us so much opportunity to spread kindness. In a world that plagued by monsters and demons, we non-Slayer types can fight back not with stakes and crossbows, but with empathy and yes, acknowledgment.

In the course I mentioned at the outset here, I shared a lot of practical tips to upgrade a practice of acknowledging people in the ways that are most meaningful to them. This can apply to a partner, employees, peers, bosses, vendors, kids, anyone!

I think one of the reasons I have a soft spot for Claude validating my questions is that I mostly work alone. I’m no longer working in an environment where positive feedback is easily or readily exchanged. I mean, as an undercover introvert, there are also benefits to not working amongst people every day, but the lack of that in-person head-nodding energy exchange may be at the root of my above-mentioned procrastination.

If I’ve learned one thing from Buffy*: The opposite of acknowledgment is invisibility, which is demotivating, even dehumanizing. One thing I’ve been increasing lately is in-real-life connections with people. Or if it has to be a virtual connection, doing more kinetic things, like a walk and talk while on the phone, rather than another Zoom. Maybe if I get a little more of that energy exchange going on with humans, I’ll finally get round to telling Claude it doesn’t have to tell me I’m smart 😹

When’s the last time someone acknowledged you, saw you, praised you in a way that felt utterly personal and right on time.?

* Season 1, Episode 11 of Buffy is about a teen who is so unacknowledged she literally disappears. Her next step is to seek negative attention, because it’s better than none.

Bonus: Here’s what my Clipboard in the Menu Bar tool looks like. Let me know if you’re interested in a session to start creating your own tools to smooth over a little bit of friction, scratch a longtime itch, see one of your ideas stood up on its feet, or learn something new you’ve been dreaming of learning. What I like to call AI for self-actualization, not self-replacement. Enrichment, not efficiency!

Glen Hansard was a true artist and troubadour. If you’re not that familiar with him, beyond maybe the song “Falling Slowly” from the movie and musical, Once, then I can’t think of a better tribute than to watch this performance of his…ironically a musical tribute to a fellow musician gone too soon.

I watched Season 3, episodes 5 (Homecoming recap) and 6 (Band Candy recap)…which aired on November 3rd and 10th, 1998 respectively.

The core #BuffyLifeLesson in “Homecoming” is that acknowledgment matters: That going without it makes us do unwise things, and that you don’t have to care about the same kind of acknowledgment as someone else to respect their needs.

The core #BuffyLifeLesson in Band Candy is that performing adulthood sometimes feels like a mask. Everyone I know in my age cohort has uttered this phrase at some point; “I feel the same (mentally) as I did when I was in my 30s.” Just as it made me a better manager to remember what it was like when I was the most junior employee, it makes me a better adult to not let myself get too far away from how it felt to be younger. For me that might manifest as still seeing Disney movies, reading YA fiction, and listening to new-fangled music…and definitely it means trying new tech tools. It’s a spirit of expansion and learning (and believing I can learn) that I don’t want to lose.

I’m here every week, using pop culture (and Buffy the Vampire Slayer right now) as a jumping off point for everything I’m thinking about professional leadership, personal development, political philosophy, and pop culture. I would love you to join me by subscribing. And I would love you to share the link with other nerds like us!