The best 60 seconds you can spend at work

There are few things in life that you can do repeatedly in 60 seconds or less, that will bring you and others pleasure and cost next to nothing.

Hey, stop giggling, I'm talking about gratitude at work, and it just so happens that tomorrow is International Thank-You Day. LinkedIn loves a Day, of course, so here are some related, topical thoughts.

Leaders will know that you are always being asked to do more with less, making difficult decisions in the process, AND keep your teams happy and engaged at the same time. It's a paradox; not an insoluble one, but for sure a challenge that requires a series of interventions if you want to succeed on both fronts.

At Sage, FinOps achieved like-for-like efficiencies of more than 20% while driving eNPS to a high of 62 and keeping it above 50 for several years, until the metric was ditched company-wide in favour of an simpler/easier one??. eNPS/eSAT and colleague surveys in general is a topic for another day, though.

One of the interventions that supported these results was the widespread use of social gratitude and recognition via the Mo platform (others available). Social gratitude, when properly enabled, is quick to do, has no incremental cost, and has a scientifically proven positive impact not only on the recipient of the gratitude, but also on the giver. At one point, FinOps were sending over 2/3 of the entire Sage Group's thank-you messages on Mo, across a full year, while representing < 5% of colleagues.

FWIW, then, my top tips for creating and sustaining a culture of gratitude:

·???????? It’s YOUR job as leader, not an extra-curricular opportunity for someone else – few people will get out of their comfort zone and use the platform if they don’t see you doing it regularly and authentically

·???????? You’ll feel lonely/silly doing it for a bit – it takes a while to get going and you may feel like you’re praising into the void before it takes off in the team; persevere

·???????? You can’t do it too often or for too minor things – the whole saving-up-praise-and-then-they-will-really-appreciate-it thing is Boomer nonsense; people like it because they feel seen and appreciated, just like you do

·???????? It is obviously better if you link to values and strategy – reinforce the behaviours you want to see more of, especially beyond your direct reports, in parts of the team that maybe don't get much attention

·???????? Throw some token cash in – use a hashtag or some other way of tracking your team's messages and then have a small prize for the best achievement of the month AND the best message to incentivise the senders as well

·???????? Make it public – use your blog, Teams group, Newsletter, email update, All Hands or however you communicate to your team to highlight the platform and the recognition that others are sharing

·???????? It’s okay to fall out of the habit (at times) once you’ve got momentum – I did, several times. In fact it’s actually a good way to check sustainability and that your team are doing it because they see the value, not just to keep you happy, so you can pretend it was on purpose

Do all that and you'll be well on your way to a virtuous circle of mood boosting social recognition across your team, which will bring a set of tangible rewards and benefits with it.

Further reading:

Leading with Gratitude (hard recommend): https://thecultureworks.com/leading-with-gratitude/

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez ???? on Unsplash