LEXICON

Gratitude

• Warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits
  • Given and received with grace & honor

Grace

• Elegance of form, manner or action

Honor

• Honesty, integrity in one's beliefs and actions
• High public esteem
• Courteous regard

Sanction

(A rare 'Janus' word meaning both one thing and its opposite)

• Restriction, prohibition (negative)
• Permission, approval, endorsement (positive)

INSIGHT

In gratitude there is the sharing of a warm and deep appreciation of kindness given and received- an emotional connection between two parties.

Workplace rules of conduct which generally reinforce the idea of 'business at arm's length' discourage or even forbid ('sanction' in the negative connotation of the word) such connections, for legitimate, important and understandable reasons.  Risks such as unfairly-preferential treatment ('favoritism'), loss of independence or unwanted attention, are presently perceived as too great to overcome.

Perhaps before we can inspire true experiences of gratitude in the workplace, we need to permit ('sanction' in the positive sense) ourselves the emotions and methods of expression necessary to share them.

The question, therefore, could be: 

How might we permit the emotions and methods necessary to express authentic gratitude to coexist with the detached professionalism that defines our modern workspace?

INTERVIEWS

Two individuals shared their thoughts with me about gratitude in the workplace.

Highlights:

• Gratitude can be a form of validation.  When an employee has stretched themselves in an attempt to accomplish something particularly important, valuable or outside their normal area of responsibility, whether they succeeded or not, gratitude can acknowledge, recognize or affirm their effort, encouraging the behavior.
• Employees should be consulted on how they like to receive gratitude.  Public recognition might be perfect for one individual, embarrassing for another, and might even carry a terrifying feeling of exposure for a third.  Asking in advance ensures that the gratitude fulfills its intended purpose rather than causing harm.
• Employees may need training on how to express gratitude.  There are gaps in some employees' ability to socialize.  They know neither how to give nor receive feedback including criticism, compliments or gratitude.  Many struggle with 'self-advocacy'.  Some don't believe what they hear and 'second-guess' it, trying to understand what motivated the comment.

Employees represent a wide and varying spectrum of personalities, talents, skills and experience.  Methods of communication, especially expressing gratitude, need to align well with all of them, individually, to be effective.