During the early days at MINDSCAPE, while we were working hard to not just survive but thrive, I started noticing some patterns that weren’t helping our growth. At the time, our team was made up largely of software engineers and UX designers, all of whom were fantastic at their jobs. These were people trained to find problems and solve them, a skill set that’s crucial when you’re trying to deliver frustration-free experiences for clients.
But there’s something that comes with that mindset—a tendency to focus heavily on the negative. Combine that with the fact that we’d hired a group of highly competitive individuals, and things got interesting. We had a room full of people wired to identify issues, and because of their competitive nature, they loved pointing out those problems—often to each other.
As you can imagine, this didn’t exactly create a motivating environment. What started as an effort to improve our processes was quickly becoming toxic. Personally, I also tend to lean toward fault-finding, so I had to fight hard not to get swept up in the same negative focus.
After some in-depth conversations with our leadership team, we realized we needed to shift the energy in the room. One of our leaders came up with an idea: the “U Rock” award. It was simple but effective. The concept was that anytime a team member noticed someone living out one of our core values, they’d nominate that person for the award. At our monthly meeting, we’d share all the nominations, and the team would vote on a winner. The winner got $100—and at first, the person who nominated them did too. But once it became routine to recognize positive behavior, the team actually voted to end the cash reward for the nominator.
What really mattered was the recognition itself. The winner also got a landscape rock with a big white “U” on it, which they’d proudly display on their desk for the month and sign before passing it on to the next person.
This small shift made a huge difference in how we operated. Instead of people defaulting to fault-finding, we started looking for what people were doing right. Our team, naturally focused on finding problems, began intentionally identifying behaviors that aligned with our values. The competitive nature was still there, but now it was directed at something positive.
That simple “U Rock” award helped us move from a team of problem-spotters to a team that recognized and celebrated progress. We still solved plenty of problems, but now we made sure to acknowledge the wins along the way—and that changed everything about how we worked together.