For our final four-part series of 2023, we’ll investigate gratitude: specifically, the benefits of cultivating it for you and others, and the obstacles to doing so. In this first article, we’ll look at common misunderstandings about what it means to be grateful and how you can become a more grateful person.
It’s almost the end of the year, which means it’s time to take stock of how things have gone in our professional and personal lives, and how they might be better in the future. For many of us, it’s also time to think about where we want to donate money or time.
Giving both of these is a wonderful gesture. But I want to propose that you also take some time to think about one of the most essential things you can give others (and completely free of charge!): gratitude. Could you do more to cultivate a gratitude habit?
In the abstract, it may seem obvious that feeling grateful is a good thing. You know that its opposite, feeling envious or resentful for what you don’t have, can be toxic and useless.
Research has consistently shown that employees who feel valued—that their team members and leaders express sincere gratitude for the employees’ unique contributions—experience greater job satisfaction and are less likely to change jobs than their unrecognized peers.
But cultivating gratitude is more than accessing a feeling or saying nice things. It requires specific action. Let me explain.
Giving Compliments ≠ Showing Gratitude
One of the most common misconceptions is that you express gratitude through compliments. If you’ve ever received a canned “Great job!” from a boss as they hurried through the office with their eyes glued to their phone, however, you know this just isn’t true.
A compliment is a generic recognition of something tangible: a completed task, a persuasive presentation, a thoughtful gesture. Gratitude, on the other hand, speaks to (the intangible) why: why you are thankful for the completed task, persuasive presentation, or thoughtful gesture. It’s an acknowledgement of the time and effort it took for the act to be accomplished and being sure the person knows the personal impact it had on you. Gratitude, at its heart, is personal.
Other articles you may find insightful: |
People are always glad when their hard work is recognized, to know that it matters in the abstract. But to know that it matters personally to someone creates a far more powerful feeling. To know that someone else—perhaps you?—are interested in how they made their contribution, regardless of how large or small, signals a level of honor and gratitude that goes well beyond compliment.
Think about your own experiences. At the moments you have felt most honored by a leader or fellow team member (or even family member), was it because they thanked you for your performance, or because they made it clear that they personally valued your effort, that it meant something to them?
I recognize this topic may create some angst. Sincerely expressing gratitude requires a degree of vulnerability. This is especially challenging, frankly, for many men, who have been socialized (or expect themselves) to be stoic and unemotional in all interactions.
Sadly—and falsely—trying to establish even the most basic human connections, like through showing gratitude, are all too often coded as “soft stuff.”
As Michael J. Keegen, Leadership Fellow & Host at the IBM Center for the Business of Government, explains, this couldn’t be further from the truth. “For some leaders, learning to practice the soft stuff like this might feel too mushy and touchy-feely,” writes Keegen. “It might be tempting to tune this out as irrelevant to the bottom line, especially for those who need to hear it the most. But making human connections is the job of leaders, and helping employees feel valued and providing a little boost of joy at work can make a huge difference.”
Nobody expects you to bare your soul. But if an employee or team member has made your life easier in some way, letting them know you appreciate them can take both of you far.
Gratitude is emotional, while compliments are intellectual. Which is one of the reasons gratitude can be so hard—but so rewarding.
"When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude."
– G.K. Chesterton
How to Cultivate a Gratitude Habit
Gratitude is more than just reminding yourself that you appreciate people and things. It’s an internal and external process. Like any other skill, it requires doing—and thus, practice.With that in mind, here are six tips for practicing (and expressing) gratitude in your workplace and beyond.
- Turn on your gratitude mojo. Transform gratitude from an advice-column platitude to a guiding personal ethos you tap into day to day. Make it cool to be grateful—because it is! It’s the fuel that propels performance and passion. Robert Fulghum may have been right with his declaration that everything we need to know about life we learned in kindergarten. But it’s always those basics that so easily get sidestepped.
Find every reason you can to genuinely thank others for who they are, what they bring, and what they contribute. Find reasons to demonstrate your gratitude to those with whom you lead on a daily basis. And heed the famous words of no less than JFK, “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
- Actively seek out good news. It’s all too easy to list the things that seem to be going badly. So here’s a challenge: seek out things that are going well. There are opportunities around you—in every project, for every customer, for every new employee, for every achievement, at the discovery of every solution, to reveal transformation.
Even the smallest of change is to be celebrated. When people reach new plateaus, don’t miss the opportunity to recognize them and reveal their achievement to others.
- Take inventory of what you’re grateful for. If the list is hard for you to create, take it as a sign that it’s time to take stock of your blessings and strokes of good luck. Fact is, you simply wouldn’t be where you are today if it weren’t for the people who guided you there. Those providing guidance may have been mentors, friends, family, or colleagues, or even random figures who came into your life at an important time. Take time to appreciate them and be grateful for every good turn they’ve done for you.
- Pay it forward. When you feel grateful for the contributions others have made to your life, it makes you want to return the favor in kind. Seek out opportunities to give to others who could use your guidance or connections. Whether you’re a seasoned incumbent leader or an emerging leader with minimal experience, you have something to offer someone, further perpetuating the virtuous cycle of gratitude.
- Be curious about others’ work. One of the most grateful questions a leader can ask someone is, “Can you tell me how you did that?” Regularly provide employees with a low-pressure opportunity to talk about their contributions and what they mean to you and/or your organization.
This doesn’t have to be a formal process; stopping by someone’s office or desk to tell them how much you appreciate their effort and want to know more about it is often more than enough. Watch how animated and energized people become as they tell you their story.
The bonus? In a virtuous cycle, this recognition can increase the employee’s morale, leading to their continued strong performance. “Rewarded behavior gets repeated. Delaying expressions of gratitude prevents effective positive reinforcement,” explain gratitude gurus Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, authors of the book Leading with Gratitude. - Create a community. Feelings of gratitude are much more likely to arise among people who have some established level of connection. Sure, you can work with acquaintances (or even strangers), but you rely on people you know and respect to a much higher degree. This means you should make time, and provide resources for, social opportunities.
At work, create social rituals that bring people together at regular intervals just for fun. Encourage people to get to know each other outside the confines of work, too, by sponsoring outings. The location doesn’t need to be fancy; far more important is the community that’s created.
Tip
Early on, if you think expressing gratitude to others feels awkward or “unlike” you, rest assured you’re not alone. At the beginning, practicing gratitude can feel awkward, especially if you’re more reserved. Go slowly if you need to. The process is the point, as the saying goes, so don’t sweat it if you fumble things. Better yet, look at your efforts as an opportunity to learn and grow—i.e., something for you to be grateful about.
In a way, getting yourself into the habit of being grateful means embracing a new outlook on life. But this effort is a lot less challenging than it may seem. Part of the power of gratitude is that you can access it anytime, anywhere, and under any circumstance. (In fact, it’s exactly when you’re feeling the least grateful that flipping on the gratitude switch.)
For Chris Littlefield, the CEO of the Beyond Thank You workplace consultancy, gratitude starts at the dinner table. Every night, he, his wife, and his young daughter mention at least one thing they are grateful for. The results are delightfully varied; “it may be our health, the food on our table, or getting to play with Legos for an hour earlier that day,” he reports. With minimal effort, he is able to cultivate a gratitude practice—all while modeling gratitude for his daughter.
What if we what if we didn’t wait till November or December to flex our gratitude muscles? What if we made it a day-to-day priority all twelve months of the year?
Your employees would undoubtedly be grateful. And, chances are, so would you.
Make Room for Better Gratitude Habits
Gratitude in the workplace fosters better collaborations, more open communication, and gives team members the opportunity to lift one another up. If you’re a leader seeking a way to drive morale and spark joy among your team, consider incorporating acts of gratitude into your daily processes.
Navalent can show you effective ways to cultivate gratitude in the workplace – to bolster employee engagement and productivity.
We’re transformational innovators that have helped numerous organizations understand how to lead more effectively. We’ve:
- Spearheaded over 1800 transformational projects
- Coached over 600 C-Suite executives
- Performed over 220 organization diagnostics