• Accentuate the positive. Express things in terms of what should be done rather than what should not.
• Two words: “Thank you.” Said publicly at the appropriate time, these two words are immeasurably amplified.
• Even the most staid and stoic adults secretly cherish the simple and silly when they let themselves do so.
• It’s not what motivates you that count. It’s what motivates the person you want motivated. You can’t motivate others; they have to motivate themselves. What you CAN do is help others realize their own motivations.
• Recognition is most effective when it is:
  • Timely or immediate.
  • Appropriate to the person, situation, and accomplishment.
  • Considered by others to be deserving.
• Three words: “I need you.” Said privately and honestly, these three words imbue devout loyalty.

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head is bloody but unbow’d.
It matters not how strait the gait, How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
~ W.E. Henley, (1849-1903), from “Invictus”