The Power of Gratitude

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. As a busy adult, I have a stress to joy quotient related to every holiday. For Thanksgiving, my stress investment is an extra trip to the grocery store, and a tad more cooking and cleaning than usual on Thursday morning. The payback in joy is a nice relaxing meal with conversation, wine or beer, football, pie, perhaps a few games, maybe a movie, and lots of lounging on big cushy furniture around a fireplace, because the HUGE four-day weekend has only just begun. I don’t have to do laundry, homework, or bathe the children. No other holiday gives me as much joy in exchange for my efforts.

Of course, since Thanksgiving is dedicated to gratitude, I always spend a few minutes thinking about “what I’m grateful for”. But this year, for the first time, it struck me how powerful the feeling of gratitude really is. And, how useful it can be when it comes to success – both personally and professionally!

In our family, we go around the table and each person says something that he or she is grateful for before we start our meal. Some talk about love, health and family, others joke about beer and football, and some share a positive event from that year. More often than not, people are preoccupied with dinner prep, or uncomfortable speaking in front of the group, so although they do their best to say something appropriate, I wonder if the actual feeling of gratitude has a chance to emerge.

I know for me, more often than not, it doesn’t. I do my best to say something honest – whatever comes to mind at the time. And meanwhile, I’m watching to make sure one child has his drink in a safe place, the other is actually eating turkey before pie, and the guests all have drinks, silverware, and napkins.

But later, when I’m relaxing by the fire, I do have a chance to experience real gratitude. I watch the children play a game with their uncle. I’m grateful for the opportunity to sit back and enjoy their faces, pay attention to how small their hands and feet are, and listen to their voices and expressions, realizing how quickly they grow up. On the surface, this may seem like just a moment for me to notice and appreciate and smile.

But here’s the power: That moment of gratitude relaxes my muscles, changes my mood slightly, and when the kids come over to be close they get more hugs, cuddling, affection, and attention. How does that impact them?

My gratitude towards my brother (the uncle) for engaging with the children replaces my usual relatively impatient and critical “big sister” attitude with more appreciation, respect, and kindness. How does that impact him?

I notice that my husband does more than half of the food preparation and clean up, which gave me the opportunity to sit back and relax in the first place. I feel lucky that we work so well together on a meal. How does that impact our relationship?

Take this one step further. More appreciation in the house relaxes the moods of all the adults. They feel more at peace and have more patience with the children. The children feel safe in an environment where the adults are happy. Work gets done easier. Stress levels stay down. People are ok just being themselves. What are the physiological affects? The impact on everyone’s health? I could go on and on.

Maybe one moment of gratitude in one person doesn’t make a huge difference in the dynamics of a family, but it does generate a significant shift. It produces a slight change in energy level, and several subtle shifts in behavior, each impacting other people, and building stronger, safer relationships.

What if just one person experienced a genuine moment of gratitude just one or two times each day? Would that impact the family dynamics? You bet. And if family relationships are impacted positively, how does that, in turn, impact each person’s individual sense of well-being? And, how does each person’s individual sense of well-being impact their personal level of success in the world, or their ability to impact others in a positive way?

Your own gratitude can have a positive impact even if the others in your family don’t cooperate. Most people don’t pay attention to their emotions, so they react. They react first to their own thoughts, but if their own thoughts don’t produce any strong emotions, they react to the emotions of others. They enjoy themselves around the life of the party, they feel drained when loved ones argue, they respond positively to attention and appreciation from others, and they feel insecure when others overlook or ignore them. When you are deliberate with your emotions, you have the power to affect everyone. This doesn’t mean “faking” the emotion you want to create. But it does mean thinking the kinds of thoughts that allow positive emotions, like gratitude, to authentically emerge. And once they have emerged, allowing them to flow through you in your interactions with others, who will almost always respond positively, whether they realize it or not. If you feel genuine gratitude in a group of people, and interact with enough other members of the group while you are feeling it, you have the power to change the entire emotional state of the group.

This works in a family, in a classroom, in a group of friends, and in a group of people at work.

Why at work?

You may have noticed yourself treating your boss like a parent, noticing your employees acting like children, and dealing with peers that remind you of your siblings. In our teams at work, for better or worse, we replicate what we learned in our families. And even if we act “professional” on the outside, the underlying emotions feel very personal and all too familiar at times.

Gratitude is an essential part of any professional success formula. The formula works just as powerfully in any group. It goes like this:

1. Take the time to notice what you are genuinely grateful for
2. Make sure to really experience the gratitude at a physiological level. Notice your muscles relax, and your emotions change to compassion and appreciation.
3. Allow your compassion and appreciation to come out, both directly and indirectly, in your interactions at work.
4. Notice, over time, that people feel safer around you and that you build stronger, more trusting work relationships.
5. As a result of stronger, more trusting work relationships, notice your team extend themselves beyond the call of duty.
6. As a result of stronger, more trusting work relationships, notice your peers talking more honestly and directly with you.
7. As a result of stronger, more trusting work relationships, notice your boss relying on you more heavily for mission critical work, and providing you with more support.

Add that to the simple truth that gratitude lowers your stress and feels pretty darn good too; where do you get a more powerful business tool?

Why is Thanksgiving my favorite holiday? High joy, low stress, and practice with important business success skills, all while enjoying a game of Candyland and a slice of pumpkin pie by the fire. Who could ask for more?

Copyright ©2006, Nahid Casazza and Aspyrre, www.aspyrre.com

Instincts or Impulse?

You walk into the office one day feeling positive and exhilarated from a brisk walk in the fresh air, and as you pass the coffee machine you notice two co-workers speaking intently to each other in hushed tones. They notice you looking at them and stop talking, looking somewhat uncomfortable. The exhilaration you felt a moment ago dissolves, and a surge of adrenaline charges through your body. You have a strong instinct that you know who, if not what, they were talking about.

About an hour later, one of the co-workers comes to ask if you have a few minutes, and the adrenaline comes back. You do your best to maintain your composure, and the two of you go to a private place to talk. She begins, “We just realized that we completely forgot about Callie’s birthday last week, and we aren’t sure if she hid it from us purposely because she didn’t want us to make a big deal out of it, or if we should do something this week to make it up to her. What do you think?”

Hmmm…. could this have explained the coffee machine conversation? Relief sets in, and you continue on with the conversation at hand.

But what if you hadn’t had this conversation? What if you kept whatever story you originally created about the “coffee machine conversation” as your truth? How would you respond if that same co-worker sent you an e-mail requesting some information? Could this set off a chain of events, with your e-mail response coming across as a tad more abrupt than usual, eliciting some new adrenaline in your co-worker related to you? And could that lead to less-than-friendly behavior on her part, which confirms your truth for you, and so on, and so on, and so on?

This kind of emotional misfiring happens a lot in organizations, and even more so when we have so much work to do that taking the time to address what seems like a minor issue gets relegated to the bottom of the “to do” list.

As time goes by we begin to characterize and stereotype each other, and it’s hard to tell when someone is behaving “in reaction” to something they’ve created in their head, or “on purpose” based on clear and positive intentions.

If you observe emotional misfiring reeking havoc in your organization, what can you do about it?

1. Watch your assumptions, especially those you make about the character of another person.

2. When someone complains to you about a co-worker, help distinguish between actual behavior and assumptions made about the behavior.

3. Ask yourself, “If I knew this person was a decent person and only had the best of intentions” what are some possible explanations for the behavior?

4. Talk. All the time. Maintain ongoing dialogue with everyone who is important to you at work, so when something does come up, it can be dealt with naturally, and without an excessive amount of time or emotional investment.

In our coffee machine conversation example, a great way to casually check facts is to say something like “You scared me this morning when I walked in and you stopped talking – were you planning my execution?” Generally, humorous comments can give you an easy reality check. The person has an opportunity to respond in kind, without either of you feeling the weight of an “issue”. They might say, “well we were sort of planning someone’s birthday party – which can sometimes feel like an execution – but it’s a secret – so if you want in on it….” and your fears are quelled in a minute or two of light banter. On the other hand, if you try to “reality check” a few times and feel like you are getting consistently evasive responses, it might indicate that there’s something that needs to be discussed more seriously, and you can take it to the next level.

The most important thing to remember is that your truth may “feel” real – but feelings are created by thoughts, which are based on about 20% fact and 80% interpretation. Taking the time to question and reality check before jumping to conclusions can save you a lot of stress and friction, and pave the way to positive and powerful relationships with your co-workers.

Copyright @ 2006 Nahid Casazza Aspyrre

The Power of Questions

As a boss, manager, parent, teacher, or even as a coach, it's so easy and efficient to just tell people what to do. To give advice, suggestions, or the answers. Time is a luxury, so encouraging an employee to figure out a solution for himself, or helping a student learn through prompts instead of a lesson, can feel unproductive.

I attended the international coach federation conference last week, and one of my favorite events involved watching and critiquing master coaches in action. Master coaches are generally able to move a client from point A to point B in a conversation mostly through questions. The questionning process requires that they resist the temptation to tell the client the answer, and instead, use questions to facilitate the client to a solution that is co-created in the space between coach and client.

The skill of moving people forward through asking, not telling, allows the growing experience in the conversation to belong completely to the client. It's not an easy thing to do, but it's powerful, because any change that the client completly owns, sticks. And this skill is powerful for anyone in a "guiding relationship" with others. Here are some examples to think about:

1. Who is generally more accurate, the employee who is given work instructions and told to follow them, or the employee who creates the work instructions for himself?

2. When does a disagreement build a stronger relationship, when people agree to disagree and negotiate a compromise, or when they take the time to truly understand each other's perspective before deciding how to proceed?

3. How many times have people told you things that made brilliant sense, yet you didn't act on them?

4. How many times have you given great advice and watched people not follow it?

Good questions produce clarity, buy-in, commitment, and learning that sticks. But it takes time to learn how to ask the kind of questions that move people forward. You can usually tell the difference between a novice and a master coach because when the novice asks questions, the conversation often runs in circles and doesn't seem productive. A master coach, however, is able to move the coaching conversation through to a productive action commitment in 20 minutes or less.

Questionning well and efficiently takes practice - years of it. But there's no time like the present to start - and even a few well-placed questions in your dialogue with those in your charge, can make a world of difference.

If you'd like to practice using questions more in one of your "guiding" roles, here are a few to try on:

1. What would the ideal outcome be for you?

2. How much control do you have in this situation?

3. If you had more money, courage, status, time, what would you do?

4. What are some of the possible steps you can take?

5. How does it benefit you to not act?

Feel free to add to the list!

Copyright 2006 - Nahid Casazza - Aspyrre