How to Inspire Excellence in Teams Through Amazement and Admiration

Summary

In this article, you will learn:

• Why the innovation firm Fahrenheit 212 established its ambitious credo

• How high expectations, admiration, responsibility, and consistency are keys to team excellence

• What you can do today to apply these principles and ignite your innovative culture

Reading time: 5 minutes 48 seconds.

Amaze Each Other Daily

I moved to New York in 2013 and joined the innovation & strategy consulting firm Fahrenheit 212.

The company had many strong brand and culture components, including a distinct visual identity, a clear value proposition, differentiators, rituals, values, and an emotional connection with its employees and clients.

Like most distinct cultures, Fahrenheit’s shone through the language spoken within. A unique lexicon reflected the firm’s values and bonded the team. I used to call it “Fahren-speak,” a nod to Mamet-speak, the playful term that describes David Mamet's unique style of writing dialogue.

Some expressions were organically developed and implanted into the culture, while others were strategically crafted and inserted.

A phrase that stood out as early as the interview process was the credo, “Amaze each other daily.” It was explained to me as an ethos, and years later, it would make its way onto a prominent wall of our London office, lit in bright orange neon.

Fahrenheit co-founder Mark Payne coined the expression in a personal context before he brought it to work: As a musician and sportsman, Mark noticed how recognition and praise meant so much more when it came from his mates than strangers in the stands.

Earning appreciation from those you care about is more meaningful emotionally and harder to do functionally. You know you’ve done something great when you impress those who already know what you can do, whether it’s a killer guitar solo or a perfectly pitched sequence of strikeouts.

“Amaze each other daily” soon made it into the team at Fahrenheit to continually raise the bar of performance and chase the powerful feeling of excellence and accomplishment.

It was a call to action that set the pace for years to come.

Words Matter

Breaking this expression into its parts reveals some of the secret sauce that made the Fahrenheit team impactful for many people over many years.

Let’s get into it.

Amaze

First off, this word sets a high standard for impact:

Don’t just be good.
And don’t be great.
Be amazing.

Digging deeper, when you amaze somebody, you surprise them in an energizing way. You stimulate feelings of wonder and delight. Perhaps you share a surprising fact or a clever insight. Or maybe you go out of your way to support or elevate another’s idea.

You exceed their expectations.

***

When you amaze, you generate admiration, creating a culture of respect and positivity. Through admiration, people recognize and value each other's contributions, boosting motivation and happiness at work.

Collaboration thrives, and conflicts recede. 

Admiration builds trust and instills individual, team, and organizational confidence.

Each other

Looking closely, you’ll notice that the expression “Amaze each other daily” is about giving, not receiving.

It’s not “be amazed daily.” While a vital notion about openness and curiosity, it’s separate from the intention.

The credo puts the onus on the giver. It’s about taking responsibility. It’s about being of service. And when everybody sees their role as a giver, everybody receives a lot.

The team benefits exponentially.

***

In discussing the phrase, Mark reminded me of an important nuance: “Each other” is directed internally. The call to action was not to amaze your clients but your peers. It was to amaze the people working alongside you in the trenches of strategic innovation and applied creativity.

We prioritized earning admiration and recognition from our colleagues before seeking it externally. This internal validation became quite addictive. Although client validation held the utmost significance as a professional services firm, incorporating this ethos into our daily routines brought deeper satisfaction and generated more profound results.

In this way, “Amaze each other daily” was as much about the experience of working as the outcomes we produced.

The emphasis was on the how as much as the what.

Daily

The expression doesn’t just suggest amazing each other as a principle to strive for but as a ritualistic practice.

In the firm's early years, the leaders could have their eyes and hands on all the work produced for clients. But at scale, it’s just not possible. By creating a culture of striving and continuously raising the bar, the leaders wouldn’t have to be in the room to push for greatness. The mentality was baked in.

“Daily” suggests an audacious, perhaps impossible, goal of delighting and exceeding the expectations of your colleagues with a consistency that only magicians can enact.

Consistent attitudes and behaviors shape your identity, so you will be transformed if you do anything daily.

***

One of the most interesting things about the credo is that it’s “perpetually renewing,” as Mark described it. He meant that once you amaze your team with an idea, you’ll need to generate something new, usually better, to amaze them again.

A high-performance culture was shaped by embedding this mentality into the day-to-day work and not using it as a one-off rah-rah offsite gimmick.

As a daily practice, the ethos built muscles of creativity and originality. While competitiveness would sometimes surface, it was typically a healthy variation smothered by admiration.

Applying the Ethos

It’s fun to deconstruct and scrutinize an idea like this, but putting it to work is way better.

A combination of consistent behaviors at Fahrenheit 212 ensured we’d apply the ethos consistently. We programmed it into our working methods through training, rituals, and incentives.

The tactics were organized into four major areas: Debating, Reviewing, Celebrating, and Tracking.

1. Encourage healthy debate in the spirit of pushing for amazement.

When individuals feel empowered to share their opinions and insights, you can harness the team's collective intelligence and translate it into exceptional results that exceed expectations.

To do this, create an environment that welcomes and values respectful debates as they catalyze refining the quality of insights and ideas.

Start by teaching your team how to debate with a positive and constructive tone, and you’ll successfully leverage differing viewpoints, which is critical to creative work and arriving at excellent outcomes. Rapoport’s Rules are a great resource to train the skills of productive and compassionate debate.

2. Regularly review work to apply a growth mindset and strive to improve continuously.

Rituals of work-product reviews and project post-mortems hold immense value in driving continuous improvement and achieving peak performance.

By consistently conducting these assessments, teams can reflect on their work, identify areas for enhancement, and celebrate successes, fostering a culture of accountability and learning. This approach enhances team efficiency and boosts morale and teamwork as members collaboratively refine their processes and outcomes.

To get started, schedule regular reviews or post-mortems after significant projects or milestones. During these sessions, it's crucial to encourage open and honest discussion. Focus on what’s positive and what could have been improved. How might you have elevated the outcome from great to amazing?

Leaders can facilitate these rituals by setting an example and actively participating, demonstrating their commitment to continuous improvement and team growth.

3. Celebrate amazing work as a habit.

When team members recognize and praise the great work of others regularly, they nurture a culture of appreciation, motivation, and camaraderie.

The admiration generates a cycle of positivity that benefits both the individual celebrating and the one being celebrated while also enhancing the overall team dynamics.

And because you know your colleagues will push you to be great and let you know when there’s room to improve, the praise is especially meaningful.

You can start by creating scheduled moments of recognition in a cadence that works for your team. Program it into your operations as a way of working and being, not a one-off moment.

For example, you can systematize recognition into your all-hands sessions and create a bespoke, internal awards program. Also, you may try setting up a weekly gratitude ritual for individuals to celebrate one thing that one person did to amaze them.

4. Score and track amazing accomplishments.

Scoring and tracking accomplishments contribute to organizational efficiency, goal attainment, and overall team success. Granted, this is often a subjective exercise and can be subject to controversy. Leaders must set and uphold the standards they hope and expect to be beaten.

Scoring and tracking accomplishments can empower individuals to take ownership of their responsibilities and promote a culture of accountability. Crucially, it reminds the team what it means to deliver amazing results.

Keeping records privately can help ensure that your team continually raises the bar by providing a traceable history of progress. Some may also choose to do this publicly as a form of proud PR. There’s nothing wrong with being noisy about your wins.

You can implement this practice by integrating it into your performance management approach. By actively tracking amazing contributions, teams can glean valuable insights for continuous improvement and create tangibility around milestones for both personal and collective achievements.

A challenge to you:

I worked with Fahrenheit 212 through many chapters, including before and after Capgemini acquired it and through its integration into Frog.

While this article is a trip down memory lane for me, I hope you see it as a call to action for you.

If it resonates, I would like you to embrace the aspiration to achieve excellence as a collective pursuit, where each team member's dedication and contributions inspire others to strive for greatness.

This mindset fuels an ongoing cycle of improvement as the desire to impress and outdo one another will drive your collaborative efforts.

Be of service to each other.
Surprise each other.
Admire each other.
And do it every day.

*

Special thanks to Mark Payne for helping me with this article in three ways: the ethos itself, helpful composition notes, and being the original Head of Magic, which allowed me to one day wield the scepter.

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