 (c) Toastmasters International [Originally published in Toastmasters International District 101 Blog 11/11/24]
“We should be thanking you.” Incorporating gratitude into speech evaluations helps you provide impactful workplace feedback and maximize your success. When a novice Toastmaster closes a speech by thanking the audience, their speech evaluator will often say that speakers should not thank the audience because, “We should be thanking you.” The evaluator is right. We should be thanking our speakers when we evaluate them. Speakers take the risk of going on stage to share something with us, their audience. We appreciate their bravery and often their message too. Thanking speakers is consistent with the Toastmasters Mission statement: “We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.” When you use gratitude in your feedback to speakers, you influence their next speech more powerfully. More importantly, developing this skill by practicing at club meetings benefits your professional success by:
Each speech evaluation you give at club meetings refines your ability to give performance reviews and feedback for teams and individuals. The positive, immediate, and concise nature of Toastmasters speech evaluations prepares you to give brief, impactful feedback in your workplace. Adding one piece of feedback – your gratitude – to your speech evaluations improves not only that specific delivery to your speaker, but also the daily feedback you provide in your workplace, growing your professional success. Where gratitude fits in a speech evaluation The first section on an evaluation form is the “You excelled at” section, where you note what you liked about someone’s speech. The Toastmasters Evaluation and Feedback training module promotes putting your feedback in the form of “I statements”
Expressing gratitude at this point in your evaluation makes your feedback to speakers more effective.
When you include expressions of gratitude in your feedback, your listeners – be they speakers, team members, or colleagues – will receive your feedback more positively. They will become more likely to implement your suggestions. Expressing gratitude in the workplace achieves this success in the following three ways. 1. Expressing gratitude improves your productivity Most of us think of gratitude as a gift we offer others (you are thanking and recognizing them). Did you know it is also a gift to yourself? Neuroscientists found that your mental health, executive function, cognitive processing, and ability to focus all improve when you express gratitude to others. People exercise, drink coffee, and take supplements to improve mental acuity. Sneaking expressions of gratitude into your feedback is cheaper, easier, and takes less time to create the same desired result. Expressing gratitude improves your performance. Moreover, leaders communicating gratitude to their teams improve both their own performance and that of their teams. The Wharton Business School found that when a leader started a shift by communicating gratitude to a call team, the team increased the number of calls they made on that shift and for weeks thereafter. Starting feedback by communicating gratitude will improve your productivity and overall performance. 2. Expressing gratitude improves your job satisfaction Neuroscientists also found that expressing gratitude improves your level of satisfaction and joy with the work you are doing. The moment you communicate your gratitude to colleagues, the pleasure you find in your work immediately grows. Moreover, that impact lasts over time, sometimes taking months to titrate back down to your pre-expression level. Whatever work you are doing, communicating gratitude to others improves your level of satisfaction in two ways:
When you incorporate expressing gratitude into speech evaluations, you will enjoy giving your evaluation and feel better about it. When you incorporate expressing gratitude into your professional feedback, you will feel better about giving that feedback and your work in general. photo credit: Toastmasters International 3. Expressing gratitude improves your work relationships In addition to the positive impact on your brain, expressing gratitude positively impacts the brain of the person receiving your gratitude. Brain chemistry and activity improve while you communicate your gratitude to others, impacting the limbic system where instinctive, subconscious opinions form. This positive impact on your brain and theirs improves the perception you each have of the other and builds trust in the relationship. Expressing gratitude in an evaluation makes you feel better about the person you are evaluating and visa versa. At work, you will feel better about your relationship with that colleague and they will feel better about their relationship with you. These improvements to relationships seem intuitive; when you express gratitude, you are finding something you appreciate about that person and that person is feeling appreciated by you. No matter how much a person frustrates you, if you can find a strength that you appreciate, you will improve that relationship immediately and going forward. Finding value in a colleague you otherwise do not like improves how you work together. Making a habit of expressing gratitude forces you to practice:
Expressing gratitude in evaluations develops your ability to positively impact brain chemistry and activity. In your workplace, expressing gratitude makes others more likely to support your goals, efforts, and requests, making them more collaborative with you. Incorporate gratitude easily into speech evaluations and other feedback Adding one sentence adds only a few seconds to your evaluation: “Thank you for sharing… [your story, your experience, this recipe]. This change frames all of the positive comments more positively, creating these neuroscientific benefits. The rest of your feedback, including your suggestions, are also received more positively and are more likely to be implemented. Speech evaluations develop this skill and make it a habit that carries to your workplace. Conclusion Including gratitude in your Toastmasters speech evaluations furthers the now 100-year-old mission of providing supportive, positive learning experiences in clubs. When giving a speech evaluation, learn to incorporate a thank you into your opening, noting specifically what you enjoyed about the speech and why you enjoyed it. This description of your gratitude will improve your brain chemistry and activity as well as that of the person listening to you, improving your relationship, your effectiveness at giving feedback, and your overall joy. By practicing at club meetings, you will master giving professional feedback that changes behavior and builds relationships. That’s a win. Originally posted on the Toastmasters International District 101 Blog, Nov 11, 2024
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This motto is what drives physician and other healthcare clinical training, though the method can unnerve patients - “This is the first time you are doing this?!” But the concept of learning, doing, and then teaching makes sense. You never really know something until you articulate it to others. Teaching someone else helps you realize your full understanding. As I promote using gratitude to improve your mental health and professional success, I also promote teaching youth these skills for their own success. What better win-win for working parents than to teach their children how to express gratitude! While improving their children's futures, parents will maximize their own Gratitude Bump™. SEE how to express gratitude to maximize your Gratitude Bump. Learn the 4 steps to include in your expressions. DO express it often. TEACH your children how to do it - this helps you catch any important steps you skip. When you teach others how to follow the 4 steps, you cement the method for yourself. Click below for your free Gratitude Bump™ card. This favorite tool of my clients who are parents gives the four essential steps that maximize your Gratitude Bump* to create your success today. Use it to teach your children while making this life-building skill a habit for yourself.
 photo: Columbia's Valegos College of Physicians and Surgeons The White Coat Ceremony Models Excellent Leadership
How business leaders can benefit from medicine’s celebratory ritual. Healthcare education’s unique White Coat Ceremony models how celebrating teams can promote growth and talent retention in your organization. Once a year, healthcare programs worldwide hold White Coat Ceremonies for students graduating or launching from classroom to clinical learning. The ceremony provides students personalized white coats and incorporates three key elements of celebrating teams:
The ritual of celebrating this transition improves student and even faculty success. Business leaders will benefit from adopting these three elements to develop teams that value learning, value each other, and enjoy improved productivity. WHAT IS A WHITE COAT CEREMONY? Arnold P. Gold, M.D. created the first White Coat Ceremony at Columbia University College of Physician and Surgeons in 1993 to emphasize “compassionate, collaborative, scientifically excellent care from the very first day of training in the healthcare professions.” These ceremonies shift the tradition of physicians taking the Hippocratic oath upon graduation to taking it before seeing their first patient, and taking the oath among peers and family. These ceremonies are now used in healthcare education programs globally. While Harvard’s medical and dental schools use these ceremonies to welcome new students, some place the ceremony at the close of classroom learning, where the students enjoy group learning, and before the start of clinical learning, where the students separate to work in clinical settings. This targeted timing maximizes the ceremony’s benefits. At one Masters of Science, Physicians Assistant ceremony in December 2022, 250 students, faculty, and families gathered in a large auditorium to celebrate their year of classroom learning. Alfred Sadler, M.D., the 2022 Keynote Speaker at California State University Monterey Bay Masters of Science Physicians Assistant ceremony, is founder of the Physician Assistant Program at Yale University School of Medicine in 1970 and co-author of (P)LUCK: Lessons We Learned For Improving Healthcare And The World. He spoke to a room of 250 students, faculty, and families. Dr. Sadler promoted the three key elements of celebrating teams:
All of these elements increase success and talent-retention. CELEBRATIONS REFLECT ON ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND LEARNING “The students were recognized for the effort that they had put in to prepare themselves for PA school in the first place and the work that they had done the past 12 months.” -Alfred Sadler, M.D. Keynote Speaker Sadler and other leaders recognized the difficulties the students faced, the accomplishments they made, and reflected upon the life lessons they learned along the way. Two students also spoke, touching on the special memories the students uniquely shared from having studied, recreated, and learned special medical skills. Speakers recalled late night study groups and unique obstacles, such as broad power outages, along with amusing moments and the gentle ribbing of a faculty member or classmate. They reminded the audience of uplifting moments, such as mastering surgical procedures and diagnostics. Faculty speakers reflected on how much the students learned in the last year, and the obstacles they overcame to do so. This year’s class experienced floods, regional power outages, and the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on health care, in addition to the rigorous academic program. APPLICATION - Any leader can incorporate reflection and recognition during or after a project. REFLECT - Reflecting on what was done well and what was learned develops a culture of learning, increasing talent satisfaction and innovation while stabilizing long-term growth. Have teams identify their hurdles and accomplishments:
RECOGNIZE - When recognizing a goal reached during or after a project, comment on:
CELEBRATIONS STRENGTHEN PERSONAL RELATOINSHIPS “The families were recognized for the support they gave their students.” -Alfred Sadler, M.D. Keynote Speaker The school first recognized families for their contributions to their students’ learning and success. Higher education comes at an increasing cost for families. The time commitment required to succeed stresses home life and relationships. Family time is often displaced by study groups and special meetings. Classmates and faculty can appear to hijack calendars such that family often feels left behind. Additionally, stressed students can appear overly demanding of their loved ones. They not only are less available to support families, but also require support themselves when they struggle with a rigorous and demanding 28-month program. Recognizing families first increases a family’s positive association with the program and their student’s demanding career choice. Including family in the ceremony’s recognition affirms their continued supportive role and encourages students to recognize their support going forward. The Program Director thanked families in detail for their support, drawing a standing ovation, cheers, and loving gestures from students to their families at the ceremony. At that point, the families knew they were fully vested in the rest of the ceremony to follow. APPLICATION - Work environments benefit from sincere recognition of and respect for a team member’s support network. While team members respond positively, the hidden impact on support networks is equally, if not more valuable. When support networks view an organization positively, they are more likely to support your team members’ success and relationship to the organization. Ask yourself, “what are my team’s families saying about me, our team, and the organization?” In my professional networking training, I ask leaders to consider the impression they leave behind them. Are those family members supportive of your team’s work or are you, the team, or the organization a thorn in their side? I call it the smile test. If they smile when they think of their loved on at work, your team’s productivity and retention will be higher. A few simple actions – sincerely and empathetically executed – will help show that you value your team’s support network:
Team members will work best when their families support their work and see it as a positive part of their lives. When you value your talent’s support network, you value your talent’s talent, and improving that retention improves your firm’s productivity and talent-retention. CELEBRATIONS STRENGTHEN TEAM RELATIONSHIPS “There was a great sense of celebration and accomplishment shared by everyone who attended and we all left with a strong feeling of gratitude for what had been accomplished together as a faculty - student - family team. By taking the time to celebrate, we all had a chance to feel the emotions together and as we talked at the end of the ceremony, this was very powerful.” -Alfred Sadler, M.D. Keynote Speaker The White Coat Ceremony tradition creates a strong bonding moment by celebrating students’ shared experience, closing their didactic training by affirming their relationships before they depart for clinical training at offices, clinics, and hospitals. Strengthening these relationships helps reinforce that students are a support network for each other throughout their careers, and that their training program is their common bond. These strong relationships increase career success for the students and improves loyalty (and future donations) to the school. APPLICATION - Whether your team worked well together or struggled to find harmony, celebrating togetherness at the completion of your project affirms teamwork going forward.
Celebrating helps to cement good will, especially when it includes expressing gratitude to your team. CELEBRATIONS CREATE PAUSE POINTS Pause Points are spaces for a team-wide deep breath after a milestone. They make your teams feel appreciated and valued, and provide opportunity for deeper learning and reflection. White Coat Ceremonies gather students, faculty, and staff to honor the students and their past year’s work, and blocked time off the school’s calendar after the ceremony for a small respite. APPLICATION - Pause Points validate the importance of the accomplishment you have just celebrated, and give opportunity to recharge before the next task. They create space for subtle learnings to reveal themselves through quiet, passive reflection. A pause could be:
By eliminating pressured focus and distractions, Pause Points let deeper experiences bubble up to conscious awareness, improving individual and group learning. Pause Points also improve talent retention. Your team gave you an extra effort during the project; giving back a little afterward is a concrete way to show gratitude and make your team feel appreciated. CELEBRATIONS BENEFIT LEADERS, TOO The faculty and staff who plan and lead the White Coat Ceremony also benefit from the ritual. They remind themselves why they continue to work hard every year to guide these students toward their healthcare goals. They reflect on the year and their own efforts. They celebrate the joys of watching the students step into their roles and learning. They pause from the rigor of running the program to relish the good fruits of their work. These effects improve the leadership team’s job satisfaction and productivity, increases their loyalty to the program, improves their bonds as a teaching team, and helps retain their talents. ***** Celebrating milestones creates opportunity to recognize and reflect on skills learned, goals reached, and relationships built. It develops a culture of learning and growth. It creates Pause Points for teams and leaders that will benefit your teams, leaders, and organization with increased productivity, loyalty, and retention. Adopting the White Coat Ceremony format can bring these benefits to your organization.  When you thank someone else, they benefit from your expression of gratitude, but so do you. In fact, your boosted brain chemistry is
Engage in good self-care this season by expressing gratitude to those around you. The Gratitude Bump improves your success and satisfaction by changing your brain chemistry and by changing the brain chemistry of others. Thanking others is the best way to care for yourself this holiday season.  Many of us feel distanced from our legislators. We don’t see them at the supermarket; we know highly paid lobbyists have access to their calendar. In fact, legislators LOVE meeting their constituents. Getting and preparing for a meeting with your legislator is quite similar to - and even easier than – getting and preparing for a job interview.
1. Prepare Preparing for a meeting with your legislator is simple. As the one calling the meeting, you get to set your agenda.
Similar to a job interview, doing your homework is key to your success. With legislator meetings, you have the bonus of bringing your team of experts with you (wouldn't that be nice for an interview!). Being succinct and clear improves your influence. 2. Set it up Request your meeting in writing; follow with a phone call. Note your issue (including bill number) and clearly state you are a constituent. Call the day before to confirm your meeting and:
Making a good impression with staff helps your success. Some organizations give employees equal say in hiring decisions. Similarly, most legislators rely on their staff to prioritize their time. Make a good impression for higher priority. In general, legislators love to meet constituents, making getting a meeting with them easier than getting most job interviews. 3. Perform Greet Staff Respectfully. Set a positive tone with everyone you greet on your visit to ensure your impression is positive. Introduce yourself to your legislator using your full name and where you are from. Address your legislator by their appropriate title (ask their staff or use this Emily Post list of honorifics). Thank them for their time and for meeting with you. Create Connection and Be Succinct. You will likely have 10-20 minutes to:
Listen. While you are there to be heard, you will better promote your cause if you also listen well. Ask for your legislator’s thoughts and experience on the topic (think “discussion” rather than “lecture”). Unlike interviewers, legislators will likely share people, places, and experiences with you. Building a positive relationship while succinctly focusing on your key message and asking good questions in an interview helps you land a job. These same skills improve your ability to advocate for your cause. 4. Nail the close Before leaving, thank those who met with you for their time and the meeting. Leave materials that are easy to comprehend at a glance. Promise to follow up where you can, such as sharing an article or resource. Ensure you have accurate contact information and perhaps permission for a group photo or social media post. Closing with next steps in mind grows your success with your legislator just as in a job interview. When thanking them, mention what you especially enjoyed learning and how you might follow up on something discussed. These strategies help with interviews, meetings with legislators, and all other interactions. 5. Follow up Build on your meeting by following up well. That evening, send a thank you email and follow with a handwritten thank you note. For social media posts:
A thank you that includes promised information, contacts, or resources builds on your positive impression for both interviewers and legislators. When you leave the meeting, you leave an impression that will start to fade. An email within 24 hours creates a ping to that memory that keeps it fresh. The handwritten thank you note provides another ping several days later, keeping you and your cause fresh in their mind. Effective follow up grows connection and keeps your meeting fresh in their memory, maximizing your impact with interviews and legislators alike. Most legislators love to meet with constituents. Taking steps to make interviews successful directly translate to maximizing your impact with legislators. The added bonuses are that you can bring a team and post on social media. Following these steps will build positive relationship with and increase your influence over your legislators. Photo credit: Ramaz Bluashvili  Create your own Gratitude Bump* by using someone’s name when thanking them. Even better, teach your children to do so for these three reasons.
Going back to school invites many opportunities to say “thank you,” to friends, family, neighbors, sitters, childcare centers, coaches, camp counselors, and, of course teachers and staff at your child’s school. We parents benefit from a reminder to “say thank you” to the many in our village who make successful parenting possible. More powerful, however, is the reminder to train our children to say thank you. The growing body of research on the benefits of expressing gratitude show that training our children to say thank you improves their academic and social success and their mental and physical health. As a parent, I appreciate how saying thank you makes them generally more pleasant to be around! These benefits comprise the Gratitude Bump* – the improvement to every area of their lives when they express gratitude. The Gratitude Bump* offers immediate and long-term benefits, and is limitless. You can layer Gratitude Bumps* on each other for ever-increasing benefits. You create the Gratitude Bump*, by using four key elements when expressing gratitude. One of these elements is saying someone’s name when thanking them. Saying someone’s name creates the Gratitude Bump* for three reasons. 1. Magic Words Your mother might have told you that “please” and “thank you” are the magic words, but there is a special magic in using someone’s name. People like hearing their own name. When you use their name, it is like a magic formula to endear them to you. Dale Carnegie’s famous insight, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language,” stresses the value you can create in that moment. That magic lasts in the long-run, too. Since their name brings strong, positive value to the conversation, you also increase the attention they give you. They will focus more intently on you and what you have to say. Thus, using their name is sort of a call to attention, and is most effective toward the beginning of your expression of gratitude or at any point you want them to listen to you closely: “Maria, thank you for…” “Thank you, Sam, for…” or “…so what I am saying, Jacinda, is thank you…” Saying their name directs their attention toward you and creates a positive connotation for what you are saying. The benefit survives the interaction, creating goodwill that lasts in the long-run. For children, this means their teachers, classmates, and community give them better attention in the moment and thinks more positively of them over time. 2. Focus on Gratitude Saying their name triggers your mind to focus on them. In that moment, your mind focuses on the other person and that you are grateful not for your receiving a gift, service, or kind word, but for their act of doing so for you. Focusing on the other person helps increase the Gratitude BumpTM by turning your focus outside of yourself. According to the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, This shift in thinking creates an immediate positive chemical shift in your brain chemistry that lasts beyond the conversation, providing short-term and long-term benefits. Most children are ego-centric. Training them at a young age to focus on others helps develop empathy, important for life-long success, and creates a habit of expressing gratitude, which also is important for life-long success. 3. Connection Builds Trust Saying their name builds trust and connection because they will perceive your expression as being more personal and more sincere than they would if you did not say their name, regardless of your actual level of sincerity. Increasing your personal and sincere communication helps that person hold you in higher esteem for longer, therefore improving your relationship with this friend, colleague, or teacher – yet another way in which using a person’s name in a thank you creates a Gratitude Bump.TM The immediate benefit of perceiving your interaction as more sincere and personal lasts long-term, too. Teachers and classmates who see your children as more sincere and personal will develop more trust in your children and build stronger relationships with them. Stronger social circles result in stronger academic success and greater satisfaction with school. A Word of Caution One caveat is that, as with all methods of communication, this one can be overdone. Overusing someone’s name tends to come across as sounding insincere or “salesy.” In a short thank you, saying someone’s name once is usually sufficient, and perhaps again as you close your conversation. Use your judgment to ensure you are making this tool part of your natural repertoire rather than adopting a message that sounds formulaic, and when training your children to adopt this element of saying thank you. Conclusion Children benefit at least as much as we do from saying someone’s name when expressing gratitude. It helps others focus and makes their attention more positive, puts your children’s mind in a healthy place while building empathy, and builds stronger relationships with teachers and peers. Teach your children to say someone’s name when expressing gratitude. They will create their own Gratitude Bump* to improve every area of their lives both immediately and in the long-run.  How to Convince Resource-Hoarders to Collaborate. Ego Gatekeepers and Power Gatekeepers require different handling to change their hoarding behavior. Resource-sharing increases productivity and collaboration. Resources such as access to physical or digital space, information, support teams, and cash make collaborative work environments run smoothly. However, some prefer to guard rather than share resources others need to perform. Those who guard resources often want something in exchange for providing access to the resource. They use the resource as currency, creating barriers to access and positioning themselves as gatekeepers. This gatekeeper mentality can clog the wheels of even the smoothest business systems. Understanding the big picture is the key to building a collaborative work environment. In Collaborative Leadership, Oxford Leadership Fellow Thomas J. Hurley notes that shifting from a “me” mindset to a “we” mindset is essential for collaborative work environments. But not all gatekeepers are open to making such a shift. I worked with one multinational corporation that experienced a weekly loss of $40,000 in short-term investment returns so that one field office could save $4,000. Let me explain: At the close of business each day, every field office forwarded its daily cash to the short-term investment group at corporate headquarters. While no single office held enough cash overnight to warrant investing the funds, the dividends were significant when the company pooled those funds to invest. One day, the short-term investment group noticed that one of the field offices was forwarding significantly less money to the pool. In response to their inquiries, the field office manager proudly explained that he had made the office’s financial operations more efficient, realizing significant savings of $4,000 per week. But the $4,000 saved cost the company more than $40,000 in short-term investment returns each week. To rectify the situation, the field office manager would have to dismantle the work he had just completed. How to best approach him with this request depends on whether he is an Ego Gatekeeper or a Power Gatekeeper. Managing Ego Gatekeepers Ego Gatekeepers, as the name implies, focus on building their ego. They want to know that others see them as important, valuable contributors to the organization. They like to think of themselves as indispensable to the organization's success and seek public approval. The most effective way to approach an Ego Gatekeeper with a request is to:
Managing Power Gatekeepers Power Gatekeepers focus on building and preserving power. They want power over their role and as much power over others as possible. The organization's success does not concern them. The most effective way to approach a Power Gatekeeper with a request is to:
As organizations grow, the need for collaborative work and resource-sharing grows. Teams that focus on the “we” are essential for long-term success because they share resources to best serve the organization. Team members who cannot move past the “me” mindset and who hoard resources as currency quickly become detrimental to the organization. Managing Ego Gatekeepers and Power Gatekeepers requires deliberate attention to promote collaboration. It is often easier to shift Ego Gatekeepers to a “we” mindset, thus improving collaboration and resource-sharing. But when the “me” focus of your Power Gatekeepers disrupts your “we” environment, encouraging them to leave for another organization is often best for everyone.  How to Celebrate Accomplishments Using Gary Chapman’s 5 love languages to celebrate your teams. You want to thank your team for their hard work on a special project. Should you throw a party? Give gift cards? A day off? Different people receive acts of appreciation differently. The way to maximize the impact of your recognition is to know your team and know what they like. Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages spells out 5 simple ways people feel appreciated and can help reveal how to reward and motivate your team. His context is family relationships, but his lessons translate well to the work environment. Chapman identifies the love languages as
The latter two, of course, require careful consideration when adapting to the work environment. Some of these create the best impact when combined, as you will see. THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES AT WORK 1. Acts of Service Acts of service include doing tasks for someone that alleviates their burden, even if lightly. For these people, bringing them a cup of coffee, or bringing their mail to them warms their heart. They might provide acts of service to others to show their gratitude (unless they are just savvy at identifying Acts of Service as another’s love language), and will show genuine pleasure when you or others perform acts of service for them. If your team worked hard providing financial data needed to close a merger but their regular month-end data is outstanding, steps you personally take to facilitate that effort is helpful and meaningful to the Acts of Service crowd. Note: simply hiring someone else to relieve them of their work is nice, and a gift on its own, but lacks the same meaning to this group of people as if you did it yourself. It is the personal extension of your own time and effort that has meaning for them. Say your juicing store held an event that kept your team outside serving customers. Starting on what would normally be their inside cleanup shows your gratitude for their effort, and means the world to Acts of Service types. As they wrap up their big project outside, you can share a thank you and say you cleaned up inside so they are free to go. Be sure to communicate that you did that as a thank you to them to get the full impact (otherwise they might think that your cleaning up inside is the new normal for big events). Other acts of service include:
Basically, doing any work you might think is beneath you will bolster the morale of your team and is considered an act of service. Make sure your act of service is an act of service rather than an act of self-indulgence. The point of your focus should be not on your ego but on your team’s sense of feeling appreciated and celebrated. 2. Receiving Gifts Token gifts of gratitude demonstrate thoughtfulness and are often stored like trophies. The Receiving Gifts lover is easy to identify as their desk or office is likely full of proudly displayed memorabilia with associated stories eagerly shared when asked; they might wear necklaces, lapel pins, or cufflinks that are mementos from special events or people. Things carry the importance of the giver and the story behind them. The more personal the gift, the more meaning it carries. If your team is small, or you are thanking just one person for their effort, an individual gift will easily suit that person. Keeping consistency among team members though, helps to reinforce the team identity, so be sure to balance this focus. Gifts can be delivered in a way to give them greater meaning. A public speech when granting a gift, or a personal note accompanying it will deepen the meaning for the recipient. When coupled with another Love Language (Words of Affirmation or Quality Time), the impact of the gift can be quite powerful. 3. Words of Affirmation Affirmation or praise can powerfully impact this group. If you see someone smile, blush, or express deep gratitude in response to praise, this might be someone whose love language is Words of Affirmation. Words of affirmation take two forms: private and public. Public affirmations make the person you are recognizing feel appreciated, and shows the team how you value that person. This helps the team learn to value each other. The award of most valuable player is a public recognition at the close of a game or season. The award helps other players identify what it takes to become the most valuable player. Granting the award comes with a description of why the person won it, with concrete examples of their behavior that made them valuable. For people who cherish Words of Affirmation, creating their moment in the sun gives them a boost for years to come. Combining words of affirmation with a physical gift of a plaque or other memento helps to memorialize the valued words. Private affirmations are helpful to reinforce what you have shared in public, and not all words of praise need or should be shared publicly. A quick one-on-one chat in passing can include a brief expression of appreciation that will motivate this worker for time to come. A reply to any report or communication that includes appreciate for the effort your team member contributed goes a long way to their feeling appreciated. 4. Quality Time (use with caution) We have all seen it. The favorite associate being taken to lunch by the V.P.; casual conversations in the boss’s office where there is laughter and storytelling – clear bonding. These interactions can smack of favoritism for reasons other than performance, but also create opportunities for the boss to learn from the team. Yet Quality Time folks see such time as proof that they are important and are valued and can benefit you when used wisely. Thus, such time is helpful when shared equally. At an event, take time to interact with each team member (when possible). Visit each table, making eye contact and interacting with each person present at the table. If the event is too big, add smaller team events where you can interact more closely. In a public space, you can still create one-on-one conversations with good eye contact and respectful posture to build connection. If shared over a meal, all the better. Including different team members in your golf round at the annual retreat works, too. Ensure that your behavior and circumstances are strictly professional and not misinterpreted. Know your team before launching expensive celebrations. Company-wide parties are sometimes perceived as wasteful, being so broadly shared that they lack personal gratitude. Ensure any large group gathering serves the purpose of celebrating those team members you want to feel appreciated, and does not appear to be your personal party for your own friend circle. If you want to treat team members to special outings, follow these tips to keep Quality Time effective and professional:
If you only take individual team members of your own gender on one-on-one events, you risk creating resentment or subjecting yourself to hostile environment claims. Ensure the access you create for some is appropriate for all, and then provide it to all. 5. Physical touch (use with extreme caution) People who respond to physical touch find a sense of connection and bonding, which makes them feel a sense of belonging and appreciation. This love language is most often addressed in romantic relationships, making it a sensitive topic for the professional environment. Professionally, handshakes are the safest and most effective method of communicating gratitude through touch. A hearty handshake with good eye contact and words of appreciation will carry great weight with those who value physical touch. At the close of a big project, handshakes all around are a great idea. Be sure to make the most of that moment by making eye contact, smiling, and expressing your gratitude and congratulations. With people we see daily in the office, we rarely use gestures in our greetings, which can give them greater significance at the close of a project. Avoid saying “I’m a hugger,” and expecting others to welcome your hugs. Handshakes are the safest form of touching in a professional environment. If someone responds to your attempt to shake hands by presenting a fist bump, high five, hand-on-heart, or other, more limited gesture, respect that gesture and respond in kind. If your goal is to express gratitude and create a bond, responding to their gesture will be most effective at reaching that goal. COMBINE LOVE LANGUAGES FOR EFFECT As you learn your team’s love languages, you can create moments of celebration that check off everyone’s need to be appreciated. Margaret Thatcher used to cook dinner for her ministers in her home. I know other leaders who BBQ dinner for their teams, donning an apron to serve others. But acts of service can include personally arranging something they would appreciate. You can include a public toast recognizing each team member, use individual conversations throughout the night, and send people home with a special thank you gift and heartfelt handshake, and you will have touched every team member’s needs in some form. The better you know your team’s love languages, the more closely you can tailor the event to making them feel appreciated. ******** Once you recognize the need to celebrate your team, Identifying the love languages of your team members will help you celebrate and motivate them. Creating moments where several languages can be combined to express gratitude and appreciation, as part of a team celebration, improves talent retention through bonding.  Megan Mayer celebrates a successful year with her 2020-2021 team. She treated them to a lunch where they shared reflections on the year and she shared special contributions each team member brought to the team. Throughout the year, she sent gifts in the mail to team members, such as a box of ginger bread mix, since they could not meet in person. Gifts of sunscreen might have been nice for this lunch! A volunteer group (not an employment relationship), everyone hugged as we departed.  photo credit: Miro Shnichenko When you have lived as long as I have (please don’t ask…), the phrase “He’s a good guy” becomes a bit of a red flag. It is often used to defend someone who is good to the speaker but not so good to others, particularly those in another demographic group. The phrase can imply that perhaps the target deserves the harassment for some reason – they must be a difficult person.
In their hbr.org article, Stop Protecting “Good Guys,” Resa E. Lewiss, MD, W. Brad Johnson, David G. Smith, and Robin Naples, M.D. articulately describe the problematic nature of the “Good Guy” defense for workplace harassment in STEMM industries, and offer suggestions for addressing the problem. Their affirmative steps to improve situational awareness are helpful. They also recommend checking your own impulse to gaslight and behave differently. My husband, a retired physician, taught me the phrase “check your own pulse first,” which I would add to their recommendations. When you want to gaslight by using the “good guy” defense, ask yourself, “Why do I feel the need to defend this behavior?” Explore your own feelings before considering the other players. Check your own pulse first, then check theirs. Having empathy exclusively for a harasser will hurt the person harassed, will hurt you and your organization, and will ultimately hurt the harasser. Try to develop empathy for the “other’s” perspective, especially if you are inclined to use the “good guy” defense for what you know is problematic behavior. When someone is good to you, that does not necessarily mean they are good to all. On a lighter note, as a retired attorney, I noticed these authors focused on STEMM industries. They may have left out the legal field because it is not a science, or maybe because you just don’t often hear people describe lawyers – in any circumstances – as “good guys.” We tend to get a bad rap! Take a moment to read this article and take your own pulse to see if you rely on the “Good Guy” defense when you should not.  Have you been asked to write a letter of recommendation? Was it…
- to recommend a colleague or someone you supervised? - as ghost writer for your supervisor to recommend a coworker? - for yourself when you asked for a letter of recommendation? When I receive an uptick in queries about letters of recommendation, it means more people are closing in on positions, which is great. What can be tough is navigating the delicate world of letters of recommendation. Two articles nicely address important issues for drafting letters for yourself or others: When Someone Asks You for a Reference by Rebecca Knight in HBR at https://hbr.org/2015/10/when-someone-asks-you-for-a-reference And How to write a letter of recommendation – for yourself by Dr. Adaira Landry & Dr. Resa E. Lewiss in Fast Company at https://www.fastcompany.com/90757084/how-to-write-a-letter-of-recommendation-for-yourself Key takeaways are: 1. Give Context Establish how the letter signatory knows the person being recommended 2. Give Data Save superlative conclusions about character for your close. For the body of your letter, provide objective accomplishments that show someone’s capabilities. 3. Be Honest Preserve your reputation and only write a letter if you can truly recommend the person. Conversing with the requester about strengths and job requirements will help you decide if you want to put your name on the line. Politely refuse if you would not hire the person for that role. If someone writes a letter of recommendation for you, be sure to follow up with a thank you and an update on the position. If they care enough to write the letter, they surely are interested in the outcome. What are your experiences requesting or writing letters of recommendation? |
Megan Mayer
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