The Attitude (and Spirit) of Gratitude

Feeling valued

50%. 

According to a study conducted by Workhuman, 50% is the approximate number of people who feel “somewhat valued” at work and 1 in 10 don’t feel valued at all. 

These numbers fluctuate plus or minus 10%, depending on the studies you find, and are heavily influenced by the generational cultures currently in the workplace - there are currently five generational cultures in the workplace - FIVE!

Regardless of the precise statistics around feeling valued, there are two things we can be certain about; feeling valued at the workplace is important to people and many people do not feel it.

 At CultureStoke one of our main cultural drivers is building a Spirit of Gratitude in your organization.  

This is important on many levels, but today we are going to focus on the individual. We are going to set a scene for you, and as we do I want you to ask yourself “Does this sound familiar?”

You're holding a large meeting - it could just be your team, a portion of, or the totality of your organization. One of the agenda items in this meeting is handing out the Team Member of the Month/Quarter/Year award (or whatever is equivalent in your organization). The name is called, obligatory applause is given and the side-eye starts to get strong. You might hear people grumble things like “suck up,” “teacher’s pet,” or other disappointing comments.

Sound familiar?  Maybe you’ve seen this?  Maybe you’ve done this?

In either case, this is unfortunately not an unfamiliar scene. 

This begs the question…why? 

What would motivate someone to feel compelled to drag someone, ostensibly a team member of your organization, down? 

The first option is that favoritism is real, and that person is genuinely being recognized because they are the favorite. We won’t deny this does happen although it certainly doesn't help your culture, but that’s for another newsletter. 

What is more likely is that the reaction has little to do with the person getting recognized and much more about those who feel they aren’t. When people do not feel valued (read: they do not feel seen, heard, understood, valued, or appreciated) our nature can be one of comparison. “I do as much as or more than they do, and you don’t see me getting a big fancy award!” 

With this in mind, we are very intentional about the words we use when we say “building a spirit of gratitude.” It is not an event-based recognition system. Building a spirit of gratitude is a practice - an embedded part of your cultural bedrock - where everyone (at every level of the organization) is looking for opportunities to recognize and express gratitude for people “doing the right things, right!” 

Too often we make assumptions that people know we appreciate them and therefore we do not need to say it and/or show it.

Here are three recommended (foundational) practices to help you start to build a spirit of gratitude in your workplace:

1.     Add gratitude sharing as an agenda item in most (if not all) of your meetings. 

More often than not, people need a platform in which to share gratitude. Adding it as an agenda item is a great way to build in some systemic gratitude. If there is none for the day, that’s fine!  Keep asking. Give it some silent space too.  Much like office food or questions after a presentation, most people are looking for someone else to break the ice. Silence is a great way to get people talking. Although people may get nervous about going first, most people prefer to avoid awkward silences. 

2.     Add calendar notices to prompt you to go looking for someone to appreciate:

This, on the surface, may seem a little disingenuous. After all, gratitude should be organic and meaningful. And if you thought that, you are 100% right!  However, the fact of the matter is that more often than not, people are doing really great work, not just what they are doing, but how they are showing up. Having a reminder to go looking for that instance is less about the actual act (that is important too!) but more about the skill building. You see, sharing gratitude is a skill. Much like any skill (surfing, playing music, cooking, etc.), it takes two things to get good at it. First, the decision to act (“I am going to do this!”) and practice (“I am doing this”).  A cautionary tale: Don’t thank people meaninglessly. People can see through that. I promise you someone, somewhere is doing something worthy of real and meaningful gratitude.

3.     Practice knowing how to share gratitude verbally: While it is true some people really do not like to be shown gratitude publicly, we have found that this is typically learned behavior because they don’t want to get the treatment in the scenario we mentioned above.  Sharing meaningful gratitude consists of four elements: their name (super important), what they did (behavior + activity), the impact on the organization (what was the result), and the impact on you personally (why and how, what they did meant so much to you).  Practice that structure and we promise it will start to come naturally!

Here's an example of somewhere "south of strong" and "strong" gratitude sharings:

Somewhere south of strong:

"Marty, thanks for getting the website done."

Strong:

"Marty, thank you so much for working so diligently on making edits to the website.  Our brand and tone are super important and the time you have put in to ensure that our website conveys the right message to our community and potential clients is appreciated.  Doing edits like this is not my strong suit, and it means a ton to me that you are able and willing to take this on to ensure our website is launched and launched right!"

Building a spirit of gratitude is not some hippy-dippy, new-age thing. It is rooted in the psychology of what makes us human and more importantly, what shapes our behavior going forward. 

Remember this… appreciate what you want to see more of and you will see more of it!

With stoke + gratitude, 

Marty Imes x Wes Love