In this short Related Work podcast, I talk about the importance of noticing people, showing appreciation and saying thanks. Small actions can have a big impact, for them and you. And it can be contagious - a good contagion!

Related Work:

Grant, A. M., & Gino, F. (2010). A little thanks goes a long way: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(6), 946–955. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017935

Roberts, K. et al. 2020. The Little Things That Make Employees Feel Appreciated, HBR https://hbr.org/2020/01/the-little-things-that-make-employees-feel-appreciated

 Fradera, A. 2017. Small acts of kindness at work benefit the giver, the receiver and the whole organization. https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/07/04/small-acts-of-kindness-at-work-benefit-the-giver-the-receiver-and-the-whole-organisation/  (on Chancellor et al, 2018)

Ackerman, C. 2020. 28 Benefits of Gratitude & Most Significant Research Findings https://positivepsychology.com/benefits-gratitude-research-questions/

Fessler, L. 2017. Adam Grant recommends the best holiday gift managers can give employees. Quartz at Work. https://qz.com/work/1143760/adam-grant-says-gratitude-is-the-best-holiday-gift-managers-can-give-their-employees/

TRANSCRIPT: CAL Related Work 3

00:25:

So welcome again. Just a little bit of housekeeping to begin with. Apologies for the, uh, confusions in trying to get these related works up onto iTunes or out to podcast feeds. Um, it just took us a while to work out how Squarespace, how we set up a new page on Squarespace for the related work podcasts and how that interacts with iTunes. Uh, if only I had a PhD in computer science, oh dear! And I also just wanted to report on my being bold as my theme for the year. And it was just interesting. I had two occasions last week, where my gut reaction was to say, Oh, I couldn't do that. In the sense of sort of being a little bit daunted or am I really the right person? And then I reminded myself that this was supposed to be my year of being bold. And so I stepped up and said, yes, and they were things that I did want to do. Good things to say yes to. And part of that was also just accepting. It might not all work out perfectly. And it made me realise that that may be what holds me back from being bold sometimes But they'll both be fun to try and I'll learn a lot, either way, however, it works out. So there you go.

01:45

And now for the topic of this week, which is, I just want to talk about the power of actually telling someone what you appreciate about them or what you want to thank them for what you're grateful for. And I can just start off with a personal anecdote because just this last week, it wasn't such an easy week for me. There was a particular situation at work that came up and a personal situation with a friend of mine who was, had just been told that her sickness was terminal.

02:16

And, so it was a bit of a tough week, but the week ended on a lovely high because I ended up getting some unsolicited student feedback. One was directly via email from the student and another was indirectly far another colleague who shared the content of a Slack exchange that they'd had with the student. And they shared it clearly with the student's permission. And it was just really lovely, detailed, very specific feedback about what they'd appreciated in the semester just gone. And that just meant the world to me. And reading it just made me smile. I felt warm. I felt good. I felt proud of the work that I'd done in the semester. Even though it was hard. It was hard work. And it certainly made all that work that I've put into the teaching feel like it was worth it. And it was interesting as well because the person who was the, who shared the feedback via the Slack chat, I could also tell that they were feeling good about being able to pass that on and share it because they knew I would feel good.

03:29

And I was reminded about another situation that happened about, I think it was about end of last November and out of the blue, I got a text on my phone from someone who used to work in our group doing research, and they were saying, Oh, I've been looking to tell you some news. And, you know, I started reading this and I thought it was going to be something about a new job or some family news. And so what they wanted to tell me about was that they were starting a master's degree and it was in a complementary area to their main research topic. And it was going to support them in helping to shape their research and career in a slightly different way, moving forward and are very excited about it. And they discussed it a little bit in the text. So I'm reading through this long text and thinking, Oh, that's great all well and fine.

04:14

And then totally unexpectedly, they added: 'And today I answered an exercise about role models and I wrote about you' and they proceeded to paste what they had written for me to read. I'm not going to read it out here. But what I can say is that I was deeply, deeply touched and it genuinely brought some tears to my eyes. And so I told them that I was deeply touched as well and thanked them for it. And they responded: 'I thought that instead of making a pointless exercise on role models, I would let you know that everyone notices what you do for all.' And it not only made me feel good, but it also seemed like it made them feel really good because they were able to share this with me. And it makes me so grateful for all of these people that they took the time and put in the effort to give specific feedback. And it reminded me that that's something that I want to be doing more of as well for the people around me.

05:21

And I want to pick up on a last word from that text exchange, which was the word - 'notices'. We all Want to be seen and recognised in some way, and to be acknowledged for what we do, what we bring, who we are. And I think this is particularly important in academia. I mean, it's important for everyone, of course, but particularly important in academia when so much of our formal acknowledgements are from, you know, the grand gestures of paper acceptances or grant successes. And, we know the low rate of these, and we also know that we get a lot of emphasis put on these performance metrics and outcomes, and we often define our own self-worth in these ways as well. And so being acknowledged just for who you are, how you do things, qualities that you bring, you know, people seeing the effort that you put in, not just focusing on the outcomes becomes really, really important.

06:22

And this is increasingly being recognised in the research literature, getting onto our related work. So there's the importance of acknowledgement in business. Corporate context is, is increasingly being discussed in the literature and leaders in particular. We often take for granted that people know we appreciate them but how do people know we appreciate them if we don't tell them .Then there's a link to an article I'm going to put in that that has a headline that says or that states in it that 'managers consistently underestimate how important it is to show their employees that they're valued. '

07:04

And this isn't just for managers and leaders too, to show recognition or acknowledgement, or, or to say things, but we can do this for one another, for all of our colleagues, to anyone, acknowledge the difference, the unique difference that they make to us. And that can be our people that we share office with, or who bring us a cup of coffee, or who just make the day a better day or the cleaner who empties your bin. You know, when we, whenever we get back to the office to have a bin that can be emptied. To anybody, to our line managers to say thanks.

07:40

And there is a lot of research about this, and I'm not going to get into, there are some conceptual debates about what's the definitions of gratitude and what's the difference between gratitude and appreciation and so on and so on. And you can find some of this work in a lot of positive psychology literature that talks about gratitude and appreciation and gratitude interventions, where people deliberately pay attention to the things that they can be grateful for, and also tell people. One set of interventions that have been consistently shown to have positive benefits. There's a whole lot of work in the social psychology literature. Again, they often talk about pro-social behaviours. The organisational leadership literature talks about the importance of recognition and recognising what is it about people or what they've just done, or how they've engaged with the task that makes you grateful for.

08:38

And I think that regardless of the research-based definitions and the conceptual arguments, it breaks down more practically for me. So there's the thing of feeling the gratitude and, and, you know, your own seeing and, and recognising in your own head what's going on and where someone may be doing something that you really appreciate taking the time to reflect on what it is about, what they're doing that you appreciate. And even just doing this, the literature says has benefits for you as an individual. That, that act of orienting yourself to be more attentive to what you can be grateful for.

09:24

But the real power comes from the other-focused action arising out of that feeling of gratitude and the reflecting on what's going on. And that's when we actually show appreciation, show that person the appreciation when we actually say thanks, when we give specific and detailed feedback and comments, when we draw our attention to what we appreciate, and this is where we can particularly focus, not on outcomes, you know, not just, yeah, congratulations on getting that paper submitted, but I really recognise how much time and effort that took for you to systematically work through. And I can see what you've learned. Or whatever it is, like give some very specific detail feedback.

10:10

And this is valuable because across all of the literature, it points to benefits like increased sense of social belonging and connection. Promoting increased pride in helping people be proud in their work, recognising their social worth. In giving attention to the details and telling them what exactly, we can help them come to recognise and value their own strengths that people often take for granted. Because if you've got a strength, you think that everyone can just do it. And you don't realise that what you do is maybe special in the way that you do it. There's a whole lot of personal, emotional and physical health and wellbeing benefits that have been recorded, not just for the receiver, but for the giver. And interestingly, in some of the studies, for example, about writing gratitude letters to someone and reading them out to them, there actually have been more long lasting effects for the giver than the receiver. In the business context, there's literature that talks about increased job satisfaction, increased engagement, increased productivity. Now, of course, we're not going to do this as managers just to increase productivity, are we, but it is a nice side effect. And another great side effect is that these everyday small actions of saying thanks, showing gratitude, appreciation, they're contagious. So there are many studies that point to the ways in which receivers pay forward with similar actions of their own and other studies that also point to not just the direct recipients of the thanks or the appreciation, but even observers others, not directly involved being impacted and increasing their own behaviours in these ways. So this is one very real practical way that we can start bringing about, um, culture change.

12:13

So there's really no downside to saying thanks, to letting someone know what we appreciate. And it's one of those things that's really, really small action. It can take a couple of extra seconds to not just say thanks, but to say, thanks in a very specific and detailed way, small actions, big, big impact. Hey, can you thank today? How can you build this into your everyday practices? How can I build this into my everyday practices? I know that some people do things like, have a have a ritual of taking a bit of time every Friday afternoon, just to write a handwritten note, to think about who in particular this week they want to thank and write a handwritten note or send an email or someone who will start yet. I've heard of other people who start their day in the first five minutes of their day are just taking, taking some time to think about who to thank and sending them a quick email or having a quick chat. So let's be quick to, thanks quick to recognise, appreciate and say, thanks a little bit can go a long way. And in these times that are really challenging and difficult. These small boosts can make all the difference.

00:14:14

End

Acknowledgements:

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash (card and pen)

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash (blackoard)