If you want your team to be engaged, committed and good followers say 'thank you'! You expect team members to be cohesive and achieve great things; when they do, thank them. As General Colin Powell (US Army retired) once said “Organization doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.” 

That's all very well when your competitors are underpricing you and your trying to cut costs to the bone. Can you really engage at the level required. Can 'thank you' suffice?

Well according to O.C. Tanner appreciation of staff creates the right conditions, for engagement and productivity to reach maximum levels. Employers can increase staff engagement by 20%-30% by simply saying "thank you" to staff according to the results of their survey of 10,000 employees across 13 countries. In addition, Chester Elton, one of the authors of The Carrot Principle, said: "We have always known appreciation positively affects employee engagement. What we wanted to determine with this study is whether of not this holds true on an international scale - and the answer is yes."

But Adrian Gostic, the other author of The Carrot Principle, added: "While employees in China and Russia value team recognition more highly than individual acclaim, the more modest British (ahem) prefer recognition from their boss. It is clear every country places a high value on the power of recognition."

The study also shows engagement leads employees to feelings of pride, trust, opportunity and wellbeing and reports simple appreciation of staff took the engagement levles of low-performing companies up to 63%. For more on this go to:http://www.towersperrin.com/tp/getwebcachedoc?country=usa&webc=GBR/2009/200909/TurbochargingPt1.pdf