The Most Profitable Thing You Can Do Today

Hi and welcome to this week’s He Said, She Said.  What if I told you that today you could implement something that would increase your productivity and the productivity of your employees.  That you could decrease employee turnover in good times and bad and that it wouldn’t cost you one cent.  Interested?  Joanna and I are too, and that is why this week’s topic is rekindling gratitude within yourself and others.  It is the “super power” we all possess and yet withhold from others for reasons we can’t even explain to ourselves.

Gratitude Is Not Thank You

(M)The biggest myths about gratitude are that it begins and ends with thank you; why should I comment as that is your job and what you are paid to do and it will make me look weak and stand out in the office.  None of those fallacies will serve you or your co-workers well.  Gratitude is awareness and appreciation.  It can be heard as a thank you, seen in a nod and a smile or felt as with a pat on the back.  Gratitude can be expressed in so many ways that it becomes a personal statement of your appreciation for others.

So what if it’s his or her job and that is what they are paid to do.  The employee is showing up on time for work with a good attitude, and caring about the work that he or she is doing.  Without that contribution, the company mission would not be reached, customers may be alienated or go to a competitor for a product or service, and I might be out of a job.  I’m grateful for my colleagues every day of my life.  Without them, my job would be harder or impossible to do and in a worst case scenario, I might not have any job at all.  Every single person from the cleaner to the chairman has a job to do and contributes to your welfare and success.  

A budget might not stretch to a bonus or even a continuous contract for some employees, but you will enjoy far more productive employees and receive greater loyalty from your freelance workers if they feel noticed and appreciated for their contributions to the project.

Do It Now As You Are No Fortune Teller

My mum married a good man, but he wasn’t the love of her life.  She said goodbye to her Squadron leader fiancé at 10:00 am and he was machined gunned to death after bailing out of his stricken plane by 11:30 am.  A brief love as many wartime romances had a similar ending but a love that was fully realized until fate played a hand.  Don’t wait any longer to praise members of your team or your co-workers.  You have no idea what the future holds or what many of them are dealing with in their private life.  What you do know is that you’ve always appreciated praise and gratitude and that you are capable of passing along that merit-based present to the people in your life.  Always be honest and specific in your praise.  If a person is strong in one area, then praise that area.  Encouragement leads to bravery in seeking once again to improve at the harder aspects of one’s job.  A soul must feel the refreshment of praise to blossom fully in the workplace and in life outside the factory gates.

The Only Place That Trickle Down Economics Works

As with every other aspect of a company, gratitude must be demonstrated again and again by the management of a business.  It is the manager who sets the tone and level of expectations of his or her employees, and thus awareness and appreciation from the manager will elevate employees to be the best employees that they can be for the company.  Gratitude creates stronger bonds within teams and between an individual to a company. No matter what your business is, it will experience peaks and valleys in a global economy thus it is essential to retain your best employees.  One cannot buy loyalty it must be earned.

A smart manager uses gratitude to both start and end his or her workday.  When I’ve pulled a team in for work on Weekends  I’ll come to work with Starbucks for the team members and if numbers are not prohibitive they’ll each get their individual favorite drink which I’ve noted in their contact information.  I don’t drink coffee, but I do drink Hot Chocolate so I’ll get myself the same size as my team, and we’ll drink together.  I said both thank you on an individual basis and that we’re in this together, with a cup and not a word being spoken.  Using gratitude we are one before the first work of the day has begun.

Henry Ford used to write checks on the factory floor and hand them to employees.  His sole concern was to catch employees doing things right and showing both an appreciation of that employee's diligence and recognizing that value to the organization as a whole.  A $100 check was a lot in Henry Ford’s day, but it paled in comparison to the value of a loyal, motivated employee to the company.  Odds are you are not a Henry Ford or an Elon Musk at least not yet so don’t get your checkbook out, but any employee who is doing something right and who has gone beyond the sometimes drone like trance when performing an everyday task is worthy of your deepest praise and admiration.    He or she is an unpaid leader of your enterprise and a valuable member of your team.

Think Before You Praise Someone

Gratitude is not "everyone get’s a prize."  Nor is it blinkers to personal triumphs small or big.  If someone does something that he or she thinks is great outside of work, and you learn about it then praise him or her for that achievement.  Your job is to maximize each of your employees, so the most effective leaders seek opportunities to give genuine praise to their people by recognizing personal and professional accomplishments.  It is praise that will foster further growth within an individual and improve that person's contribution to team projects.

X + Y = Oscar

Mr. X was an audio engineer who started work at a post-production facility.  He needed a job and had enhanced his resume beyond his ability level.  It soon became apparent no matter how hard he worked that he wasn’t learning fast enough.  Mr. Y could see that Mr. X was hard working and smart.  He just needed a chance to develop his skills, so Mr. Y decided to help him.  The problem was that the General Manager just wanted results.  Despite coming in on his own time and working weekends, the General manager was focusing his attention more and more on Mr. X waiting to catch him in a mistake so he could fire him.  Friday was always layoff day and today was Friday. The general manager stood nonchalantly across the room and watched Mr. X work.  Unbeknownst to the G.M. was the fact that Mr. Y was stood behind the racks of equipment telling Mr. X exactly what to do.  Mr. X survived the Friday cull, worked another weekend on his craft and went on to forge a very successful career culminating in winning an Oscar. 

Mr. Y never won an Oscar, but he had a friendship and a professional relationship that lasted for his lifetime.  I know this story because Mr. Y introduced me to Mr. X when I was a newbie at a post-production facility and needed some sound effects for a project I was producing.

Pay Yourself First

As you know, I’m a big fan of You Inc thus make sure that gratitude starts with you.  The first thing I do is get on my knees and say my prayers.  I thank God for being alive, for each of my boys,(always be specific) for my house and the tools and opportunities that I have been blessed with.  I also pray for the courage to walk the two steps I can see in front of me and to be able to hear how I can serve God better with my time.  I finish with “please let everyone in heaven and on earth to feel your loving arms around them”.  
 
Now it would be just as easy for me to wake up and focus on all the things that are not right in my life but it wouldn’t solve any of them and would on a conscious and subconscious level put me in a negative place.  Always be grateful for whatever blessings you have no matter how scant you may think they are because big things can grow from small things in your life and gratitude is the soil for personal growth.  It means you start on whatever your journey is from a position of strength.

Gratitude Is What You Make It

My Mother

My biological mother is famous and was awarded an MBE from the Queen of England.  Her talent is skin camouflage and until the advent of lasers was a profession that she taught herself, and she continues to help others all over the world even in her eighties.  She was born with a port wine mark that covered half her face.  Imagine a no mask phantom of the opera.  Her father, my granddad, blamed himself and drank a bit more than was good for him.  Her mother taught her to focus on the beauty within herself and within others.  The strength of her mother made the little girl shine and built up her resilience.  She did not at least initially shine enough to avoid the barbs of other children who could be cruel to the girl who looked so different from them, but she did shine bright enough so that her dad could put away the bottle and pick up and play with his little girl. 

She grew up to see the beauty in others and empower others to find beauty beyond and beneath the scars that might otherwise have stunted their lives.  Gratitude beats within all of us.  It is one of the most beautiful manifestations of love that we can give to ourselves and others.  My mother is living proof that you can start with what some may call a little but with courage can build into what all recognize as a lot.

A Most Unusual Tale Of Gratitude

Last weekend I made a new friend and even better I liked his wife as much as him so in reality I made two new friends.  This man is now enjoying his retirement with as much gusto as he enjoyed his working life.  As with most successful businessmen, he worked hard and with integrity, loved what he did, and he wasn’t in it for the money despite being able at all times to account for every cent of his company’s monies.  The result from this approach is 98 times out of 100 that the person makes more money than they will ever need in this lifetime. (If you’re wondering about what happens to the other two of the hundred.   One will marry the wrong person, and one will lose focus to the aptly named trappings of wealth instead of focusing on the business that created the wealth.)

My new friend was in the 98% and like his peers only wanted to pay the taxes he owed without giving away any more than needed to Uncle Sam.  Thus, when he came to pay his vendors who in their way had helped him to his fortune he showed some dollar bill gratitude.  To the vendor he owed $100,000, he paid $1,000,000 and so on and so forth.  

I hope these examples have given you an inkling of the length and breadth of gratitude and motivate you to start employing this choice in your daily life.  Now let’s hear what Joanna has to say about gratitude.

(J)Many studies show being grateful or having gratitude makes you happier* at home and at work, more productive1, less stressed2, healthier3, better able to work in teams? and more successful?. Wow - it can even improve your sex-life!?

The evidence is mounting that it’s a pretty important life skill to master. I wonder why more of us aren't actively trying to obtain it? Maybe we are too busy trying to obtain all the by-products of showing gratitude, without realising that just by being grateful we could achieve all these things in one fell swoop? Or maybe it’s more difficult to be grateful than first appears…

But what does it mean to be grateful anyhow? And what can I do to get it? Perhaps more importantly, how will I know when I have it?

So, what is gratitude anyhow?

Firstly, it’s an inner, true and conscious recognition of what we have in our lives for which to be grateful. Secondly, in order to really be truly grateful, we need to show our thanks. Simply saying our thank you’s is not enough. Giving them a bonus or wage rise won’t do it either.

Showing or sharing our gratitude could be letting someone know what difference they have made in your life either through something they said or they did. It could be making them smile in some way, maybe to return a smile they managed to give you. It could be saying thank you and adding a note of some skill, talent or attitude that you appreciate about them. It could be picking up that pen they left behind in the meeting room and ensuring they receive it back, thus saving them another trip to the stationery cupboard later. Why not offer to do that task you know they hate, but you know you excel at, for a valued colleague? There are literally a million little ways of displaying your gratitude, spontaneously or with a more forethought, and some will be more meaningful than others.

Simply put though showing gratitude is any act of giving, sharing of oneself or conscious acknowledgement of the value of another human being without the expectation of anything in return, either now or in the future.

How do I become grateful?

It’s true that many who have reached a level of gratitude which seems most serene have happened to have gone through some major life-changing event or a series of life-changing events which usually weren’t very positive experiences. I think it’s what people refer to as ‘life affirming experiences’ in some way.

Now, I am not, of course, suggesting you go about trying to recreate such hardships as to make yourself a more grateful being - but perhaps there is something to be said for empathizing with others who have and learning from their experiences might help you appreciate the amazing things in your own life, which others may not have or did not have at one point in their lives.

There is also a great buzz right now in the leadership development circles around creating your gratitude journal and ensuring you complete it every day. Research does indeed back up this practice as holding considerable merit and value in helping people make gratitude a part of their everyday life. So there are a million and one other articles about just this topic alone – but here are some means which I think are particularly pertinent.

One family I knew had what they called their ‘Thank you’ jar at home. Every week on a particular day each family member wrote down on a piece of paper something that had taken place for which they were grateful, folded it up and put it in the jar. On New Year’s Eve they opened the jar and spent the evening reading out each other’s notes. What a LOVELY way to spend the last day of the year!

Recently my great aunt suffered a stroke and it seems that, unfortunately, she will very soon slip away from us. The family partly started exchanging memories over facebook in order to help her with her recovery but it’s proven to have been a great way of reminding ourselves of why we’re each so grateful to have had her in our lives and what other family members appreciated about her too. We hope, in turn, it has helped her realize what a difference she has made to all of us and that she senses our collective gratitude.

And lastly my children used to like watching a kids TV program called Timothy Goes to School. There’s a particular episode where one of Timothy’s Japanese school friends comes into school to describe and show the tea ceremony known as ‘sado’.  What I love about this episode is it is one big exercise in gratitude – in even something as simple as making a cup of tea and sharing it with others – one can find so much to be grateful for. Taking the time to be truly conscious about something we might do every day and to note how it makes us feel, or how we can share those moments with others. Gratitude Gold, as far I am concerned.

How will I know I have it?

You’ll know when you have it because you won’t have to consciously think ‘how can I be grateful today?’ or ‘how can I show my gratitude?’. Soon you’ll be doing it without thinking. You’ll notice more bounce in your step, a more positive outlook on life, people may refer to you as being of a ‘sunny disposition’, you’ll get feedback on how much more often you smile, how much more energized you seem. You’ll notice a marked improvement in your physical and mental well-being. Maybe what once were slightly tenuous or tricky relationships you had with others at work will be less problematic than before. Perhaps those recent projects seemed to go much more smoothly than the ones previous – despite there having been just as many delays or issues that cropped up – but it all just seemed so much, well, nicer and more successful overall.

And once you’ve got it and you keep on using it you can’t ever lose it; in fact it just keeps on growing exponentially and the rewards keep on coming. It’s enough to make you grateful for gratitude! :-)

Friends don't let friends miss good articles so if you think this article worthy please do the right thing and like, comment and best of all share it with your friends and colleagues.  Thank you.

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Photograph References:

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON) Rick D. West high fives Commander, Naval Surface Force U.S. Pacific Fleet Junior Sailor of the Quarter Information Systems Technician 3rd Class Jenna Davis during a visit to Naval Base San Diego.  By U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James R. Evans [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

New Orleans, La., August 31, 2005 -- A firefighter holds an elderly woman rescued from the floodwaters caused by Hurricane Katrina.  By Win Henderson (This image is from the FEMA Photo Library.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Tarot Cards: By Flávio Britto Calil (cria??o gráfica para o Wikipedia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Boss Coffee: By ThisIsRobsLife (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Actor Frazer Brown holding an Oscar: By Ebayzme (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Tibetan Buddhist Monk holding ritual blindfold during Lamdre, Tharlam Monastery, Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal: By Wonderlane from Seattle, USA [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Chinese believe that a life can be read by looking at someone’s face.  This photograph is aptly called the Fountain of Youth. By Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia (The Fountain of Youth) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

References Joanna: 

* https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier

1 https://www.gridproductive.com/expressing-gratitude-can-productivity/

2 https://www.mindfullivingnetwork.com/health-benefits-of-gratitude-in-reducing-stress-and-depression/

3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2014/11/23/7-scientifically-proven-benefits-of-gratitude-that-will-motivate-you-to-give-thanks-year-round/#31e5593f6800

? https://www.plasticitylabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Gratitude-At-Work-Final.pdf

? https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2013/11/27/how-feeling-grateful-can-make-you-more-successful/#6ab2ed8a11fd

? https://www.extatica.com/better-sex-gratitude

(M) Sadly, Joanna's great aunt has passed away.  I never met her but any woman who can straddle generations and make each person feel loved and appreciated and who is still playing a round of golf one week before she died aged 96 is a woman who lived a good life.  We should all be so lucky to have a person such as this in our lives and what a great role model for all of us.  Joanna called her an indomitable force of love who's boundless energy would endure in the hearts of all who met her.  RIP Great Aunt Sylvia.