This is about Gratitude

It’s been an *interesting* week. I use the word advisedly.

Last weekend, we were away, my parents-in-law were celebrating their Golden Wedding anniversary, we had a wonderful weekend, a celebration of love with closest family. I've had a successful week with work.

A recurring theme this week has, however - from at various completely unrelated angles - been a reminder of the ever present, often ignored spectre of sudden, unexpected death.

Sorry.  Well, not really sorry, that’s why i’m bringing it up.  This is our fundamental human reality.

I won’t dwell on it mainly because people i’m close to are grieving and i won’t impinge on or trade off their grief, but it coincides with, or perhaps is the cause of, something tangible that i want to implement; but I'm not quite sure how and i am interested in your opinion.

A group of people I know were going to a memorial this week for a colleague who died suddenly, not long ago.  The conversation, in a WhatsApp group, turned to the question of why we go for memorial drinks to celebrate the life of someone we knew, worked with, loved; we talk genuinely, earnestly, lovingly - about how wonderful they were; and yet we recognise that we didn’t tell them those things while they were alive.

I want to do something tangible to foster an ‘attitude of gratitude’ within Intuizi. I'm genuinely super-grateful to everyone in my business for the work they do every day, every week - but i don't tell them often enough, and i think a semi-formal structure will help.

This is where I'm interested in your input.  My first thought was to have a quarterly ‘gratitude review’ asking each person in the business, anonymously perhaps, to send via a sheet or app, something they are grateful for about every other employee.  I sought the advice of someone who may know.  Patrick has spent plenty of time thinking about this, and implementing workshops and programs in mental health.  He also works on Tap and Praise, which enables people to leave messages of gratitude for key workers.  He suggested that we might look to do something daily, my immediate thought was that this might be too often, but i know with my own meditation this year that the more you exercise those mental muscles, the more you practice, the better you become. Like with anything else. 

With my immediate family, for the last few years, we’ve had this concept at friday night dinner of ‘highlight of the week’ - everyone shares the best thing that week.  Sometimes it’s obvious.  Sometimes it’s not.  It works best when we do it every single week.  Fostering, even forcing, an attitude of gratitude makes us think about what we’re happy about, what we’re grateful for, rather than what’s bringing us down.  And i see the results.  It really works.  So why not in business?  I kinda think daily may be too often, but maybe Paddy's right?  I asked his opinion as he’s an expert, afterall.

My thought, perhaps, is that on a weekly basis, as an exercise in fostering a positive attitude, a way of ensuring that we, as a team, are always encouraged to build one another up - we have a way to leave gratitude for every other member of the team with whom we interface.  We have to submit our thoughts via some kind of sheet, form or app.  We can chose to remain anonymous if we wish, or we can choose to be named (that might be impractical though, or undesireable - if 6 people are named and 2 anonymous, it may be obvious who those two are, and their anonymity is lost). 

I believe that it is human nature to see the negative, but if we train our minds to see the positives, then life is better; we feel better about ourselves and about others; we empathise more with one another, we help lift one another through praise and positivity.  Thinking about the best places i worked and the worst - well, the best place was the one where we were all bound by a spirit of being unafraid to try, not fearing judgment or failure, knowing that we each had one anothers’ backs - the worst place was one where people wanted to climb on one another in order to raise themselves up over the rest……

I don't know. It's an idea. Not all ideas are workable, even if they come from a good place. What do you think? Good idea? Practical? Silly? Cheesy? Forced? How might you do it?Any ideas on how to help foster an ‘attitude of gratitude' within a business - please write them below - don’t be shy - the more we share, the better.  A rising tide floats all boats :)

And I'm going to leave some thanks to some deserving people, below!