As we near Thanksgiving Day this year, which reminds us to be grateful, I thought it would be appropriate to offer a gentle reminder to show our gratitude for the people on our teams.
According to my good friend John Spence, named one of the top 100 business thought leaders by Trust Across America, if team members don’t receive genuine, specific appreciation for a period of 7-10 days, their engagement levels decrease noticeably.
A simple way to keep engagement levels higher is to make sure we show appreciation as frequently as possible.
Some leaders hear this and think that they should put a note on their calendar to go around appreciating people for whatever they notice. But that is not likely to be very effective.
A better approach is to create a new habit of mind – a habit of catching people doing things right.
Although simple, this is certainly not easy. The human brain is naturally hardwired to pay more attention to what’s wrong than to what’s right. This was pretty important for us as a species for quite some time back in the day when we had to be constantly on the lookout for animals that could eat us.
With practice though, we can improve. And it could start by noticing little things that you appreciate.
You could make a note on your calendar to take 2 or 3 opportunities to observe team members and look for things you appreciate about their work, or about how they’re living the values of your organization.
You could make a new habit of simply asking in your mind, “What’s right about this?” when reviewing a team member’s work or behavior.
You could have a brief weekly meeting that starts with pointing out something positive you’ve noticed for each person in attendance.
You could make a commitment to celebrate all goals achieved, not just goals exceeded.
Gradually, we want to create a habit that allows us to be on the lookout for people doing things right so that we never miss an opportunity to show a team member genuine, specific appreciation for work or behaviors that we’d like to see more of.
What are some of the ways that you’ve found helpful for showing genuine, specific appreciation every 7-10 days?
Image Credit – http://www.canada.com/Want+need+couple+traits/7411594/story.html