Compatibility interaction

Recognition × Recognition

This pair compares how much the person values the visibility of their personal contribution with how the manager singles out that contribution when a result is achieved.

This pair is one of ten active, equally weighted pairs. The other ninety crossings remain neutral in the current version.

Recognition×Recognition

Principle

The gap matters. There is no “good” side.

This pair compares how much the person values the visibility of their personal contribution with how the manager singles out that contribution when a result is achieved.

The engine keeps the absolute gap for distance and the signed gap to choose the direction of an insight. It never turns a high or low level into a strength or flaw.

Three readings

What the gap can mean.

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Manager below

When the manager singles out individual contribution less than the person would like, a significant input can go unseen, even when the team's result is praised. The effort-reward imbalance model helps explain why this gap weighs. It describes work as an exchange in which the effort given calls for three forms of reward in return: pay, career prospects or job security, and esteem [1]. Situations where effort stays high and the return stays low are treated in the model as particularly stressful [1]. A meta-analysis of eight cohorts followed over time, covering nearly 85,000 employees, associates this imbalance with a higher risk of depressive disorders [2]. These studies measure rewards as a whole, not the manager's recognition alone; they do show, however, that esteem is part of the exchange, alongside pay and prospects. What can help: recognition that names precisely what the person brought to the result, and the person making their share visible when several contributions are intertwined, for instance by describing what they took charge of.

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Close levels

When the positions are close, the way the manager makes contribution visible matches what matters to the person, whether they want the result recognised or their personal share. That closeness covers only part of the exchange. In the effort-reward imbalance model, esteem is just one of three forms of reward, alongside pay and career prospects or job security [1]; it is all of them together, set against effort, that is associated with the risk of depressive disorders in the cohorts studied [2]. Well-matched recognition does not therefore necessarily offset an imbalance elsewhere. Closeness also measures the degree of individual focus, not the manner: feedback research distinguishes task-focused feedback from person-focused feedback, and their effects differ [3]. Two managers equally close to the preference can therefore recognise people very differently. Finally, compatibility, relationship quality and the person's own rating remain three distinct readings: close positions on the two Recognition axes do not guarantee a good relationship, and a gap does not signal a deteriorating one. Scientific scope: the cited studies do not show that proximity of answers on this pair predicts performance, health or relationship quality. This is a descriptive comparison of two answers.

Manager above

When the manager singles out individual contribution more than the person would like, they may find themselves more exposed than they wish, particularly when the result is collective. This gap counts as much as the opposite one: the compatibility calculation uses the same size of gap in both directions. Research on feedback offers a useful angle here. A meta-analysis of 607 effects shows that feedback improves performance on average, but lowers it in more than a third of cases; its effect weakens when it draws attention to the person rather than to the task [3]. This research concerns feedback in general, not recognition specifically. It nonetheless suggests that recognition focused on what was accomplished, and shared with those who contributed, may suit someone who cares more about the result being recognised than about their own visibility. The manager can also simply ask what form of recognition is welcome: in public, in private or at team level.

Limits

What this gap cannot establish.

Closeness on this pair does not prove that a relationship works well. A gap does not prove that it works badly. Compatibility remains separate from relationship quality and the lived score.

In the active output, a relationship insight is shown only when the absolute gap reaches at least 3 points; at most three insights are retained across the ten pairs.

Define before interpreting

Each axis has its own definition.

RecognitionRecognition measures how important the visibility of your personal contribution is to you when a result succeeds. The axis distinguishes two forms of recognition: recognition of the result, which can remain collective, and recognition of the contribution, which names what you brought. The effort-reward imbalance model places esteem among the rewards that balance the effort invested, alongside pay and prospects [1]; a review of cohorts followed over time links a lasting imbalance to a higher risk of depressive disorders [2]. Your position on the axis expresses which form of recognition you prefer: the success itself, or having your contribution identified. The cited research examines recognition and workplace rewards generally, not the validation of this particular distinction.RecognitionRecognition measures how your manager makes your personal contribution visible when a result to which you contributed strongly is achieved: focus on the result without distinguishing who did what, or identify and name what you brought. The effort-reward imbalance model places esteem among the returns that balance the effort invested, alongside pay and prospects [2]; a review of cohorts followed over time links a lasting imbalance between effort and recognition to a higher risk of depressive disorders [3]. The axis does not measure whether your manager recognises work in general; it measures in which form, collective or by name, that recognition arrives.CompatibilityUnderstand the overall calculation across ten pairs.

Sources and evidence limits

These publications provide context for the concepts discussed; they do not directly validate this questionnaire, its scores or its compatibility formula. An abstract does not allow every nuance of a paper to be independently checked.

Siegrist, J. (1996). Adverse health effects of high-effort/low-reward conditions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1(1), 27-41. DOI : 10.1037/1076-8998.1.1.27
Rugulies, R., Aust, B., & Madsen, I. E. H. (2017). Effort-reward imbalance at work and risk of depressive disorders. A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 43(4), 294-306. DOI : 10.5271/sjweh.3632
Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254-284. DOI : 10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254