How can recognition programs be used to encourage employees to work toward team-oriented goals? Any examples you can point to? Just have a team award and specify what this is. At Rich Products Corp. in Buffalo, a team of eight was sent with their spouses on the corporate jet to go anywhere in the world. They all picked an island off the coast of Portugal to go for a week. That also built some esprit de corps.

What one thing can managers do better in terms of rewarding and recognizing individual contributors? Make it personal. So often managers say they're going to give everybody Starbucks cards or give everybody hockey tickets. But they do that because they love hockey themselves. Learn what's important to the individual contributor. Make it personal. Like a paid day off that doesn't count toward vacation.

Some people love being in the spotlight. Other people are terrified. Make it personal; get to know them, whether it's by taking them to lunch or conducting a survey.

So many people are bad managers not because they want to be but because they lack the training to be good managers.