"The Power of Genuine Appreciation: How to Avoid Diluting Your Gratitude"

I thought my arms were going to fall off. For the nearly 1,000th time that night, I picked up the bowling ball from the rack, took aim, and sent it down the lane towards the pins. I didn’t even look to see if I had hit anything. I had already knocked down thousands of pins during my marathon stretch and the fun of bowling had evaporated hours ago.?

Yes, arms. Plural. Both of them. Somewhere around game #30, my right arm was so sore from bowling that I switched to my left for about a dozen games and then began alternating game to game before accelerating to frame by frame and even ball to ball.?

Some background information is important here. When I was in high school, I attended a youth group lock-in at a bowling alley. The deal was that you could bowl all you wanted while the event was going: 7:00pm to 7:00am. I was excited by the idea of what was possible. Most of the other kids were glad to hang out with friends and play cards or otherwise socialize. Not me. I was stuck on thinking about how many games could I bowl.?I found a lane at the end of the alley and started by myself. As the night went on, people came and went and we played together, enjoying the social time and kidding around. Around 1:00am, people started to go to bed, and I was still at it. I realized that if I picked up the pace, I had a chance to make it to 50 by 7:00am.?

50 games in 12 hours = 4.16 games per hour. 10 frames every 14 minutes means a frame every 84 seconds or so. I had work to do. Hopped up on Jolt soda and bowling alley food, I was determined to make it. Just before the 12 hour mark, I threw my last ball. I had reached 50.?

The rest of that day was a mess. I hadn’t slept, I had eaten terribly, and abused the muscles in my back, arms, and chest beyond any normal exercise: Several hundred 12-pound bicep curls with each arm. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t interested in going bowling for years after that. Even still, I feel that I’m pretty well set on bowling for the rest of my life.?

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.?

In fact, the detrimental effects of dilution or saturation are present well before you might identify them. Ask a kid (or a stressed adult for that matter) if they’d like to eat nachos and ice cream for every meal this week and you’d get an enthusiastic “Yes please!”. By Day 4, it won’t be as much fun as it sounded in the first place.?

As with most things, the answer usually lies in the middle. It’s a metaphor and a life practice that you can find everything from cooking recipes to sports to time management and weather. It’s why Oscar Wilde said “Everything in moderation…..even moderation.”?

What about when you need a lot of a good thing…..but not too much?

In my life, I’ve been fortunate to serve in a variety of leadership positions. In these roles, it has been very important for me to show gratitude to my teams for their hard work. For in-person work, this can come in a number of ways: a handshake, a pat on the back, taking someone out to lunch, or working alongside them on a project or a task. This is much harder to do remotely. My team is hundreds of miles away from me. Unless I’m in town, I can’t show my appreciation in the same ways. Instead, I must use words and other less obvious actions to thank my team for the important and impressive work they do.?

And so I do. I endeavor to consistently verbalize my thanks and appreciation for them. I acknowledge their hard work and point to how it fits into what we’re trying to accomplish. I am confident in my ability to do this. The trick for me is not overdoing it. I certainly am sincere every time I say the things that I do, but I worry about how those words begin to lose their effectiveness.?

When is it too much? When does my gratitude become diluted??

Here are a few things that I do:?

1. Be Specific?

“Thank you for all you do” is not something you want to hear or repeat all the time. When I speak to the players on my little league baseball team after the game, I can’t tell them as a group “Good job today” without providing specific examples. It’s not enough for them. There’s much more value to transfer when you can point exactly to why you appreciate someone or their work. It’s the same with criticism. If you just told someone “I don’t like what you did on this project” without further context or detail, would that be helpful?

2. Pick your moments

There’s never really a BAD time to say thank you, but some are better than others. Also, as noted above, it’s not EVERY time. Taking this approach puts you into a position where a team might react negatively if you DON’T thank them after completing any task at all.?

3. Mean it.?

I was fortunate to spend time earlier this week talking with a member of my team, and we were discussing a similar but unrelated topic to gratitude. It was then that he shared what a wonderful piece of wisdom that I wish to share with you:

“What comes from the heart, reaches the heart.”?

I hadn’t heard that before, but I like it. I know that the quote, or at least the idea, didn’t originate with my colleague, but he’s carrying it out into the world.?

The other side of that is to avoid expressing empty gratitude. Sometimes you need to say “Thank you” out of courtesy or in quick passing, but that’s not what I’m talking about.?

The end of all of this is to be conscious of how you treat others, particularly those who are in your charge. It is certainly important to recognize the hard and impactful work done by the people around you (including your own bosses), but to do so in a purposed, meaningful way. Doing so has a positive impact on the person, but also the morale of the workplace, job satisfaction, productivity, retention, and more. I also believe that embracing and expressing gratitude is beneficial to me personally as well. Doing so helps me stay focused on what’s really important.?

Have you dealt with this issue yourself? I’d like to hear about it.?

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