Chester Elton:
So many people, when they think about gratitude, they think of it as being a softer side of leadership, that it’s a nice to have, not a must have. We thought, well, why do people think that? Because in every study that we look at, whether it’s employee engagement or productivity or innovation, feeling grateful, being recognized for your work, believing what you do matters and being recognized for making a difference, was always so key. We took a deep dive and we said, “Why is it that people don’t give recognition? What are the barriers?” And that’s what we came up with, that gratitude gap, that leaders, 70% said, “I’m really good at it,” and only 23% of their employees agreed. That’s what we call the-

Joel Miller:
Oh, wow.

Chester Elton:
Yeah, that’s what call the gratitude gap.

Joel Miller:
That’s Chester Elton. He’s the New York Times best selling co-author of Leading With Gratitude. He’s a leadership consultant working with a number of top firms, and he is number three on the Global Gurus top 30 leadership professionals for 2022.
The big question for us is why should we care about this gratitude gap? For one thing, and Chester’s Canadian, so he’s a month ahead of us on this, but we Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving this week. Given that, it’s probably easy to fall into a should attitude about gratitude, that it’s a moral positive thing that you ought to do because it’s the ought to kind of thing do. And that’s true, and I’m not here to undermine that. But I would like to take a little license to be a tiny bit crass and just make this observation. If you can close that say 50 point gratitude gap, you’ll make more money. Your employees will be happier, they’ll stay longer in your business, they’ll work harder, and you’ll get better results, which is to say that you can experience some pretty big wins just by showing gratitude.
I want to talk to you about the gratitude advantage, which is to say, I want to talk to you about the upside of practicing gratitude as a business owner in your organization. Now, the research on gratitude is pretty clear. Gratitude can help reduce our stress, gratitude inoculates us from negative emotions, gratitude sustains our relationships, and it also improves our health. But gratitude is also something that is actually pretty rare in the business space.
The first time I started hearing about this was from the work of Jeremy Adam Smith. He’s the editor at The Greater Good Magazine, which comes out of UC, Berkeley. They do a lot of research, and have for quite a while now, on gratitude and specifically how it shows up in relationships, the workplace and so on. And what Smith has pointed out is that work is actually one of the last places people feel gratitude.
You can see it right there in those statistics that Chester brought up at the top of the show. When he says that there’s a gratitude gap, that leaders say, “Yeah, we’re doing great on gratitude,” but the employees say, no, we’re not, there’s a big gap there, there’s a big problem. But of course, that also means that there’s a great opportunity. And if leaders are able to close that gap, like I said a moment ago, they will get better engagement, they’ll get better results, and that means that their teams will excel and they will excel also.
Hi, I’m Joel Miller and I’m the chief product officer here at Full Focus. Today on the Business Accelerator podcast, we are talking about gratitude. Here’s how we’re going to unpack this: I’ve asked Megan Hyatt Miller, our CEO, and also our chief revenue officer, Courtney Baker, to come on and chat about how leaders can model gratitude to their teams. The law of replication is real, and when a leader sets the pace for gratitude in an organization, they can expect to see some real wins.
Then we’re going to come back to the conversation with Chester Elton. He’s going to walk through some myths about gratitude and also some practices that leaders can implement right now to see some big changes in their organizations. Let’s jump into this conversation with Megan and Courtney. They’re going to talk about five ways you, as a business owner, can model gratitude inside your organization.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Okay, Courtney, I have to be honest, you know this about me, but probably all of our listeners don’t know this about me. One of the things that I hate, might even be my top thing that I hate, is entitlement, especially in a professional context. Although it’s a close second with my own kids, but nevertheless. Does that drive you crazy too?

Courtney Baker:
It does. I do know this about you. I would say this is your number one, from my perspective. When I think about you, it’s like, do not come to me in an attitude of entitlement. You are not going to be successful with that here. And I would say definitely, yes, certainly it’s bothersome. It definitely drives me crazy. I’m trying to think if there’s anything that drives me more crazy, but in this moment, I can’t think of anything else. I’ll go with, yes, yes. It’s frustrating, to say the least.
I think the even more frustrating thing is when you find yourself, all of a sudden, I have all this entitlement of a little bit of, wait, are they modeling that from me? Where is that coming from? And so it’s almost like I do hate it, and other people I think really quickly have to say, “Well, where is this stemming from?”

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, that brings up my least favorite law of the universe, the law of replication, which basically states that whatever I do, whatever behavior I engage in, whatever my true values are as a leader, are going to be consciously or unconsciously replicated in the people that work for me. And so if I have an entitlement problem in my company, it’s possible that there is an entitlement problem in me.
And I think you’re right; part of the reason this drives me crazy is because it’s ugly in other people, but it’s really ugly in myself. And part of the reason that it’s ugly in myself is because I think gratitude is so important. This is something that I really learned from my dad, and I think it’s woven into the DNA of our company, that this life is a gift, everything we have is a gift, that regardless of our effort or whatever, there are so many things that are outside of our control. And from a faith perspective, which we’re coming from, we know not everybody is, and that’s fine, but we believe that these are gifts from God, and so the idea of entitlement is so at odds with gratitude. And I think personally, speaking for myself, so at odds with who I aspire to be that when I either encounter that internal conflict within myself of entitlement or I see it in others, I’m like, oh, we got to get rid of that. We got to root that out because you really can’t have gratitude and entitlement coexist.

Courtney Baker:
I think that’s so true. And I also find it’s almost like a slippery slope that you can get into where I find in myself that I am… I don’t know if you know this, Megan, but I got a few things happening over here in my world. And you get busy.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
No, you do.

Courtney Baker:
And you’re just trying to get the things done, and so you take a pass on gratitude, not because you don’t want to be grateful, you probably do, you’re just busy. And then slowly, over time, it erodes into this, actually, all of a sudden I’ve slipped into entitlement. Maybe not intentionally, but just find yourself there.
And it’s especially hard when you have someone else have to be the one to show you that. It’s like, ah, man, that is painful. And so I think what we’re going to be talking about today is a really nice intentionality to that. Even if you’re not like, “I’m not really naturally in an entitled place,” I do think we all have those seasons where we naturally slip there sometimes unconsciously.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yeah. Well, I know that I do. And I think actually this is a real danger of success, it’s a danger of leadership when all of a sudden… It doesn’t really happen all of a sudden, but it can feel like fairly quickly you have a whole group of people around you, and their job is to make what you want to do happen. That’s a crass way to say it, but you’re the leader of the company, you have a vision, everybody else is helping to make that happen. And instead of seeing that as a profound gift… And I’m being confessional about it when I say this, that’s how I want to see it. But sometimes I’m like, okay, why didn’t they get me that at this time? Or why didn’t they know that I would need that? And it’s like instead of just being so humbled and grateful to have an amazing team who are all committed to the same thing and working together. And so I think, in a way, gratitude is not only something we want to install in our organizations, but it’s something that we want to practice intentionally ourselves all year long, not just this time of year, but all year long because it’s really the antidote to arrogance and entitlement in ourselves as leaders, which is also going to help keep that from taking root in our organizations.
Today, we’re going to talk about five ways that you can model gratitude as a leader inside your organization. The first way that you can model gratitude is by recognizing the value. And Courtney, I think this really starts with believing in what you’re selling. And I think it’s interesting that about half of HR managers say that the workplace gratitude actually improves profitability.

Courtney Baker:
I do find that really interesting, and I have to believe that it is true. My ability or what my drive to contribute is higher when I’m grateful for something, when I… I don’t know, it’s like the entitlement side of it, it makes it feel so transactional, your employment of I’m going to do X, and in return you’re going to give X.
I think most people spend the majority of their time at work. Hopefully, you’re getting a good night’s rest, but statistically, you’re probably at the office more than anywhere else. And if that’s the case, if you have an attitude of gratitude… I didn’t mean to do that, a cliche there, but let’s go with it. It’s going to affect every part of how you’re showing up, what you’re contributing. And so I can only imagine that it improving profitability is just natural when you do that.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yeah, I think so too. It reminds me of a quote by Jeremy Adam Smith. He said, “We don’t just work for money, we also work for respect for a sense of accomplishment, and for a feeling of purpose,” which I think is so true. I think there’s a whole lot of conversation about engagement inside organizations and how do you drive engagement? And I think recognizing the value in people and in their contribution is a huge reason that people are or are not engaged. And if people feel like their work means nothing and nobody really cares or notices what they do, then it’s very demotivating. But when you see somebody who’s catching you in the act of doing something great on a regular basis, it’s very motivating. You’re reinforcing that behavior.
And so one of the things that helps me with this is I really try to just attune my attention to people doing excellent work or excelling in their work. And in particular, it’s very easy, I find… Courtney, I don’t know what your experience is, but it’s really easy to recognize leaders because they usually get most of the credit. Honestly, they’re usually initiating things. And at some level, they do get the credit. But the people who are working for them in more individual contributor type roles often don’t get seen as often. And I think part of our work is leaders is people value what we esteem.
And so when we say, “It really matters to our executive assistant that you are able to rearrange the calendar to accommodate…” You were talking before we got on about a kindergarten field trip with your daughter, Kit. Well, that’s really work that matters, and it’s also work that is often invisible to other people because it’s more between one person and another than an entire team of people. And so I think if we can call those things out and really recognize and affirm their value, it helps us practice gratitude, but it also helps people feel recognized in a way that’s important.
Okay, the second way to model gratitude is to step outside of your comfort zone. And this is when we’re going to take a little trip to the honest planet because the truth is expressing gratitude, like stopping someone and really recognizing what they’re doing, or maybe you stand up in a meeting that you’re leading and you call people out or you’re affirming them. This something that we do on a quarterly basis, we give people awards that correspond to our core values. I love that. It’s a little bit vulnerable, don’t you think, Courtney?

Courtney Baker:
I do. And I think what you said a second ago is so true, is sometimes, especially the higher up in an organization or if you’re a small business owner, you just lost the visibility into the actual ins and outs of a role, and so you’re dependent on either somebody feeding you that information or just hoping that the way that you see it is correct. And so that makes it even more of a step out of your comfort zone because you’re so far removed from the actual execution of the thing that you’re probably praising. It is a little bit of, okay, I hope I got this right. I hope that what I’m praising this person for is actually what they did. Or the other thing that sometimes I find is that puts me a little in my discomfort zone is wanting to make sure that I recognize all of the people, that I don’t just think the one person when really there were three people that should happen.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yes. Oh, that’s the worst, isn’t it?

Courtney Baker:
Yes. And so I do think there’s a sense of like, oh, I don’t want to do it wrong, and so I don’t do it. It’s going to happen, it’s not worth not doing it. But just being willing to be like, “You know what? Some of that’s just going to have to be part of it,” and still make the step outside of, for me, my comfort zone.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I agree. You know what’s funny? That Templeton study that we were talking about at the beginning of this episode found that only one in 10 of us actually communicates gratitude at work on any given day. A third of us are afraid to do it just in general, and then only one in 10 of us actually express our gratitude, which is sad. I think, in a way, if you’re a business owner or you’re the CEO or a leader of a team, you’re the cheerleader in chief and you almost have to embrace a certain level of silliness with the vulnerability and just be willing to come in and be like, “Hey, you did it.” Or call somebody out or send them a thank you note or whatever.
But there’s such a huge boost to morale when the leader is willing to get outside of his or her comfort zone and cheer people on and recognize people. But you do have to be willing to make mistakes. You have to be willing to just be in the spotlight a little bit in order to really turn the spotlight on somebody else. It’s just good to know that that’s a normal hesitancy that people have. But also, if we’re going to build a culture of gratitude, we’re going to have to get out of our comfort zone.

Courtney Baker:
Do you think our parents… Obviously we weren’t working when we were children, at least not legally, that they weren’t there to guide us through how to do gratitude at work, and so we just decided to opt out. Or is this just we’re actually not giving gratitude in our entire lives, also not in the office? And I’m just really curious of why that is the way it is. Or is it just that’s the way that it’s been modeled for so long, of, hey, this is what successful people do in the office, and it looks like X, and we’ve just continued to replicate that?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think that’s right. If I had to guess… I don’t know what the data would say, if there is data on this, but I would guess that it’s the last thing that you said, that there’s just been-

Courtney Baker:
We can’t go to therapy and blame our parents for this too? I’m just kidding.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I don’t think so. I think we’d have to blame scores of parents who are leading businesses because I think that this just goes back to an old corporate culture where you don’t really show emotions, you’re trying to be tough. There’s just not a lot of space for humanity at work. And I think that has really shifted, especially post-COVID. The expectations are just very different around how leaders relate to their teams from a human standpoint. And I think gratitude is a part of that. I think we’ve got to fold this into our leadership style, even if it’s not something that we came up with or something that has been part of our natural MO. This is critical for leading post-COVID and really driving engagement through gratitude.
The third way that we build a culture of gratitude is that we have to spread the credit. This is what I was talking about earlier, especially if you are the business owner or CEO, it’s really easy to just praise your executive team or your leadership team or your right hand person because that’s the person that is reporting to you that you’re seeing their effort on a daily basis, what it took for them to get their team to accomplish that. But in reality, the people that need recognition the most are the people who are the individual contributors. Not that you can’t recognize your leaders, of course you can, but it’s really important to try to be intentional about recognizing as many people as possible, in particular, the people who are most likely to be unrecognized, the people whose work might be a little bit more invisible or maybe they’re doing creative work and they’re not in the office very much, and so you forget they’re there if they don’t report to you. They’re very likely doing mission critical work on a daily basis, and without them, you really couldn’t accomplish the big things that you’re making happen. And it means so much when they know that you see them.

Courtney Baker:
I find that this is one of those skillsets that becomes hard when you’re working out of a sense of fear or you’re afraid, or maybe there’s a fear of failure to turn around and basically give away… It almost is scarcity, thinking, oh gosh, if there’s praise, it better be coming for me, and so it’s like you want to hoard it. It really is one of those checkpoints, if you ever feel this come up, of being like, why am I afraid to turn around and say, “Look at these people. Look at the amazing things that…” Basically to give away the praise. “Look at these people.” It would be fascinating to do some studies around work cultures and how healthy an organization is tied to their ability for leaders to turn around and praise others.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, I think this goes back to that idea that we were talking about at the very beginning, this idea that everything is a gift and that even the people that we’re entrusted with, maybe especially the people that we’re entrusted with in our organizations that are on our teams, is a humbling stewardship, really. And so there is a discipline of humility in recognizing other people, and like you said, Courtney, giving away the credit that I think is the mark of a mature leader.
And one of the things you can do as a leader, if you have a team that’s big enough where you’re going to be giving credit to people who are maybe at a more individual contributor level or further down the org chart is you can have a conversation with your direct reports and just read them in on it and just say, “I want you to know how much I appreciate you, how grateful I am for your contribution.” And then be specific, which we’re going to talk about in a second.
But here’s my strategy on this: I really want to make sure that the people who are reporting to you feel seen by me, that they feel recognized for their effort. And if I give you all the credit, even though that’s natural for me because I see what you’re doing, it really robs them of the opportunity to have that sense of accomplishment that’s so critical for their ongoing performance and satisfaction in their role.
The fourth way that you build a culture of gratitude in your organization is highlight specifics. And I remember back when I was in college, I had a professor who did a really, really good job of this. And he would give awards every year. And when he gave the award, it was always some antiquarian book or some special treasure like that. But he would give you this award that was named after some historical figure, and he would talk about the attributes of that figure, and then he would talk about the person who was receiving the award, how they were acting and leading and learning and all the things and how those two things correlated. And it just made you feel amazing. It made you feel like your very best self because he had really seen you for who you were and who you were becoming. And that’s really stuck with me. I think it’s easy to just be like, “Hey, thanks for your great job,” pat, pat on the back. And that’s not very meaningful.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. I love this. And I can definitely think back to moments that I felt very celebrated and very seen for my contribution. They were very specific. And sometimes even saw things that I didn’t see myself, which is even more powerful. And I think, for me, this is where the work really is of seeing those and holding onto them and taking action on them. This is a very powerful tool, especially what we talked about earlier of seeing the value in it and the impact on profitability, I think this one really can drive that.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Okay, well that leads us to the fifth and final way that you can build a culture of gratitude in your organization, which is to make a plan. We’re all about some plans here at Full Focus and business operator. We never met anything we didn’t want to plan for or envision the future about, and gratitude is no different.
I think one of the biggest reasons that we don’t express gratitude is because it feels like it needs to be spontaneous. You’re just walking to the coffee maker and you see somebody who reports to somebody who reports to you, and you’re supposed to just be able to tell them something that you’re grateful for. Sometimes that happens and that’s great, but anybody… I think about marriage, anybody who’s been married for a long time, Courtney, like you and I have, we’re not really relying on spontaneity to keep our marriage going, primarily. We are being intentional about planning because our lives are busy, we have busy careers and families and all that, and so we’re intentional about planning date nights, planning vacations with our spouses, writing cards to them.
And I think sometimes we put our work in this little bubble where it’s something totally different than relationships outside of work. And actually, a lot of the same principles apply. If you think about it, what are the activation triggers, the things that you can set up in advance? We talk about this in a Full Focus planner, so that you are triggered to do the thing you want to do without having to do it spontaneously, like making a reminder with your executive assistant to send birthday cards to your direct reports or writing a handwritten card with bonus checks or scheduling awards on a quarterly basis with your team. Or we do something at Full Focus where we have a biweekly wins video. I ask all the executives to contribute their wins for the last two weeks, and in particular shout out people on their team and other teams that had really made an exceptional contribution. And I just get reminded to do that. I don’t have to think to myself, who do I want to recognize this week? Because actually, that’s getting fed to me, and then I can communicate it, which is my contribution. And so I think it’s like, how do you automate this? How do you make a plan to automate gratitude as much as possible?

Courtney Baker:
I think this is so helpful. Two of my favorite ways has been I do a rotating coffee meeting with everybody that reports up to me at some point, and making that part of the meeting of just saying, “Hey, I’ve seen this and this and this,” to set the tone of the conversation. It’s already on the calendar, I know the plan for it.
The other thing I love that we do is we do department shout outs. And what that allows is for the people that report to you and each other to say the things they’ve seen, but you as the leader get to say, “Wow, that is amazing, so-and-so. Thank you for doing that.” Not only are you, as the leader, getting to show your gratitude, but they’re in front of all their peers are getting the accolade. And I think those have been really nice to plan those.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I love those. I can think about a dinner we did as an executive team several years ago where I had all the executives think in advance about what the greatest contribution of the other executives was and then share that as a group. And I had originally planned to just do all that myself, make it like awards. And it was so much richer because there’s something about hearing from your peers in front of your boss that’s just really significant. And that’s one of the most special nights I can ever remember professionally. And honestly, it wasn’t difficult or expensive, it was just intentional, you know?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Make a plan.

Courtney Baker:
Can I share one other that I think was your idea?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
That I loved it so much. It was around Thanksgiving, I think, one year. But they gave each of us like five people in the organization and gave us thank you cards to write to those people. And I saved mine for a really long time. They were so special, some of the things people wrote. And it just was such a great way to facilitate the opposite of entitlement. And there’s nothing like getting a sweet note from a coworker to change how you’re approaching your work with them or just what you’re contributing. That was good idea, Megan.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, actually, that wasn’t my idea. I don’t remember whose it was, but I love that idea too. And I remember that; that was really special.

Courtney Baker:
Whoever you are out there, your idea… We’re trying to share the credit right now, but we’re not capable of doing it. But just know we see you in our hearts.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
We see you in our hearts. That might have been Susie Barber, now that I think about it.

Courtney Baker:
Maybe, maybe.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, the bottom line here, guys, is that if you want to fend off entitlement, then you have to model something better. You really have to embody gratitude as the leader if you want that to flow out through your organization. And beyond that, as we talk about often at Full Focus and a Business Accelerator, we’re all about building high performance culture; we want to have people’s best performance inside our organization. But the only way to do that is to have their hearts. And you can’t do that by demanding it or requiring it, you really have to earn it. And I think gratitude is the best way. When people feel seen and recognized and valued and celebrated, then they’re going to bring so much more to the table than if it is just a transactional relationship.
Personally for me, when I think about this topic this time of year and all year round, I get really excited because there’s so much that’s within our control. There are many things that we can’t control in life and in business, but our gratitude and how we choose to prioritize it is absolutely something that we can control. I’m just going to review these five ways that you can build a culture of gratitude inside your organization before we go. Number one, recognize the value in others. Number two, to step outside of your comfort zone. Number three, to spread the credit. Number four, to highlight the specifics. And number five, of course, make a plan.

Joel Miller:
One of the things I love about that conversation between Megan and Courtney is how practical it is. Those five ways to model gratitude are pretty actionable. Really, any one of us can begin implementing those with our teams today. But there’s more that we could say about this topic, and that’s why I’ve asked Chester Elton to come on the show after the break and talk about how leaders can close the gratitude gap.
I’m really excited about this next conversation also, the one with Chester Elton. Just a reminder, he is the New York Times bestselling author of Leading With Gratitude. And where we left it with him was this idea of the gratitude gap. And what is that? Just a reminder, when surveyed, leaders said, 70% of them, that they’re really great at gratitude. Meanwhile, only 23% of their employees agreed. That’s the gratitude gap. It’s a near 50 point stretch between what a leader assumes is true and what an employee assumes is true about how gratitude is operating on their teams. And let’s be honest, that’s a shocking number. I needed to ask Chester this question. I needed to find out how does this show up in an organization?

Chester Elton:
Well, I’ll tell you a great little story. We were working with an organization and had a great day of training in classes. And we’re going off to dinner at this wonderful restaurant in New York City. And as I was talking with the HR guys, I said, “Gosh, it must be so great for you when it comes to recognition because your CEO just buys in. He loves recognition.” He goes, “Yeah, he’s the only one that really thinks that, though.” I think where the barrier is is that, leaders, you get so caught up in what you’re doing and checking the boxes in your own success, you become a little self-centered and you forget that servant leadership really does give credit where credit is due, which was another chapter in the book that we enjoyed experimenting with and researching.

Joel Miller:
You mentioned that 50 point gap, more or less. How extensive would you say that problem is? Numbers are numbers, but what does this look like on the ground?

Chester Elton:
Yeah, it’s very, very common. We’ve got a database of over a million engagement surveys. And one of the questions and an engagement survey is very much along the lines of Gallup when they do engagement, which is I’ve been recognized for my work in the last seven days. It’s almost always one of the lowest scores in engagement surveys, with the exception of some extraordinary companies that we highlighted in the book, like American Express and WD-40 and so on. It really is prevalent.
And what we do in our executive coaching practice is it’s all about being intentional and being disciplined. We’re big fans of symbols and rituals that help leaders remind themselves that when you think you’re doing it too much, it’s probably about right.

Joel Miller:
Let’s get into why this happens, this distance between the intent of maybe giving gratitude or the knowing that you should and actually doing it. You talk about seven myths of gratitude, and I thought we might highlight a few. Here’s the first one: I’m just not wired to feel it.

Chester Elton:
Yeah. And it would be disingenuine of me to all of a sudden start thanking people and you say, “Look, whenever you try something new, it’s going to be hard.” I said, “Do you golf?” And they’ll say, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, when you picked up a golf club, was was your score 18 for those first 18 holes? How good were you?” It takes practice.
And then they’ll get the pushback and say, “Well, I’ll do it just because you tell me I should, but I’m just checking the box.” And I go, “Great. I love that you’re checking the box.” It’s like when you decide you want to exercise and you say, “I’m going to go run.” I don’t know anybody that initially goes, “You know what I put on… I love running.” No, you hate it. The more you do it, the better you get; you develop a habit. It’s intentional and it’s practice.
I said, “Look, we’ve got all the data to show you that it works, that your people want it, that you should be doing it. Trust me, just start doing it, start checking the box and you’ll hit that tipping point from it’s not just what you do, it becomes who you are.” And that’s when it gets really good.

Joel Miller:
There’s a principle in Benedictine spirituality in which let’s say you’re a monastic and you’re supposed to be reciting the Psalms and you’re just not feeling it, the idea is you go ahead and recite it anyway and your heart catches up to your mouth.

Chester Elton:
Exactly. I grew up in a very religious family, and along that same line, say, “I just don’t feel like praying,” and say, “Well, pray until you do.” That’s the best advice I ever got.

Joel Miller:
Yeah. The idea here is you’re going to practice it, even if, as a leader, it just feels a little foreign, feels stilted, you’re still going to go ahead and intentionally express gratitude, understanding that the feeling of it will eventually catch up to the practice of it.

Chester Elton:
Exactly. And as I said, I’m a big fan of symbols and rituals. We had a great leader that we studied, Carlos Aguilera, in Dallas, Texas. And when he first became a manager, they called him a seagull manager, which meant he’d fly and crap all over everything and fly out. He was really, really quick to point out what was going wrong and slow to point out what’s going.
He developed the little ritual. He put 10 pennies in his left pocket. And he made a goal to have 10 positive interactions with his people every day. And he’d keep track by moving a penny from his left pocket to his right pocket. Simple, little ritual. Team huddles, little texts, blast emails, and so on. And then he rewarded himself at the end of the day when all 10 pennies were in the other pocket.
And that ritual developed a habit, which changed the way he managed. And he went from being one of the lowest rated managers to the top rated manager. And by that I mean employee engagement, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, safety, and on and on. There are little tricks you can do, whether it’s a gold star on the chart or pennies in your pocket. And we do it because it works.

Joel Miller:
Yeah. That pennies in your pocket thing is brilliant, actually.

Chester Elton:
It is. It’s so simple, right?

Joel Miller:
Yeah. Okay, here’s another one. And this one’s a real mindset one, and it’s maybe even a little bit cynical perhaps in the way it might show up in somebody’s thinking, but people want too much praise these days.

Chester Elton:
That we found was a generational thing. I’m the last of the baby boomers, and still a lot of baby boomer managers out there… And it’s like, “Hey, I pay you. Aren’t you a professional? Don’t you get a little recognition every two weeks in your paycheck?” And then you dig deeper, and basically it’s, “I never got it, and you’re not going to get it either.” Just turn that frown upside down and get to work. It’s called work for a reason. Well, that’s very old school, right?

Joel Miller:
Yeah.

Chester Elton:
It’s very old school. And it’s like, oh, we’re mollycoddling this young generation. Well, I’ll tell you what was really interesting in our research, Joel. And again, this massive database, countless interviews. The people that want the most recognition are almost always your top performers. You ask yourself, how do I want to attract and retain top talent? Well, I want to make sure that they know that we appreciate their talent and their engagement, and there’s no better way to do that than simple acts of gratitude and recognition.
Again, what we do is we talk about the data and the outcomes and how it reduce turnover and heighten innovation, and so on, and then say, “And here’s how you can do it.” Do it now, do it often, and be specific. The data for credibility, the story to make it memorable, and then the tools to actually make it happen.

Joel Miller:
What about the concern that gratitude is soft? Maybe a leader is mollycoddling their team by expressing too much gratitude is that a real thing?

Chester Elton:
Let me give you an example of Alan Mulally. Alan was the guy that saved the Ford Motor Company in the recession 2008, 2010. It’s so interesting, when he took over at the Ford Motor Company, they had a 20% engagement score, which is ridiculously low. When he left, it was over 90%. And he did it. And I’ll tell you, so interesting because we’ve gotten to know Alan quite well; we’re in the same leadership group. And he says, “People think that when you give gratitude and praise that somehow you’re soft. Trust me, I’m not soft.”
There was a wonderful book written on a called American Icon: How a Alan Mulally Saved the Ford Motor Company. One of the reporter that wrote that said, “Alan Mulally has a spine of titanium.” Nobody was more demanding than Alan. And people loved working for him because he gave credit where credit was due, he demanded excellence, and when he got it, you knew it and you celebrated it.
This whole idea of we’re mollycoddling, a lot of that comes from the misappropriation of gratitude, and that’s that it’s too general. Yeah, let me give you an example. Joel, great job, man. You’re the best. You’re the Tower of Piza. You’re number one. I’m telling you, man, you’re the best, you’re the best, you’re the best. And I walk out the room and you go, “What the heck was that? What did I do?” See, the thing that Alan Mulally and the great leaders that we studied did, they were very specific. Yeah, you hit the deadline, you came in under budget, you satisfied the customer. Brilliant. Do that again. And people float out of the room. Does that make sense?

Joel Miller:
Well, based on those two answers to I’m not wired to feel it and people want too much praise, I can already predict where your answer on this one’s going to go, but I want to use this question to help maybe tie those two thoughts together a little bit. Fear and money are the best motivators.

Chester Elton:
Yeah. Now listen, fear is a great short term motivator; there’s no question. The building’s on fire, you’re motivated. And the business metaphor is, hey, we’re going out of business, let’s work harder.
The fact is that it burns people out very quickly. After we wrote Leading With Gratitude, we wrote a book called Anxiety at Work. The latest studies by Deloitte and everybody else, 91% of workers in America are somewhat burned out right now, and it’s because of the constant pressure, the constant change, the uncertainty of everything that’s going on. Yeah, you want short term results, put the fear of God in people. If that’s your leadership brand, you’re going to get very lonely very quickly because people won’t work for you.
Now, the second part, the money part. I’m not saying that when you give somebody a plaque that replaces a raise, absolutely not. Try to pay your rent with a plaque; bank banks are not interested. You want to pay your people as much as possible. You want to make it fair and equitable. And I would always recommend that you pay a little above the industry average. The thing is that people will do more for a cause than they will for cash. They will work harder for people that they admire, that they like, whose values and mission and vision align with theirs.
I remember coming out of university. That’s the Canadian in me; we don’t go to college, we go to university. I came and said, “If I could ever make X amount of dollars, you could ask me to do anything and I would do it. You could buy me.”
Well, then I was working in a situation where I was making well more than that and couldn’t wait to get out. My life was a living hell. I didn’t like the people I was working for, I didn’t see the nobility in the work we were doing. And it was my wife that pulled me aside and said, “You got to quit. I want my husband back.” That’s a roundabout answer to, yeah, fear is short term, money’s important, but if that’s your strategy for retention and productivity, you’re going to be sorely lacking.

Joel Miller:
What we’re saying here is you inspire a team with a really compelling vision, you obviously you are fair and equitable and how you are paying people and all the rest. Let’s just think of that as a hygiene thing; that’s brushing your teeth. But above and beyond that, the gratitude is actually what keeps people engaged to that vision long term.

Chester Elton:
Yeah. Let me give you a quick example on the money side. Do you know which organization has some of the highest engagement scores of any organization in America? It’s Teach for America. They pay almost nothing. When you get into Teach for America, you’re not going to get rich.

Joel Miller:
It’s all about the vision.

Chester Elton:
Absolutely. In fact, they will guarantee you that you won’t get rid of me. [inaudible 00:43:41] And by the way, we’re going to pay you nothing. And yet they get out there, they are so mission driven and they are so committed to those kids. Yeah, get the mission and vision right, and then pay people as much as you possibly can.

Joel Miller:
All right, how can business owners start turning this around? You mentioned the executive with his 10 pennies. Let’s get practical. You talk here in the book about two lines, two tracks that you can run down for practices to begin engendering more gratitude in your practice as a business owner, as a leader. Those two tracks are seeing and expressing. And I wonder if you could talk first about seeing and then we can come to expressing.

Chester Elton:
Yeah. Seeing, be in tune with what’s going on. The first step there is are you asking and soliciting input? One of the highest engagers as you look at surveys and whatnot for employees is is my voice heard? Do my opinions matter? An expression of gratitude, although it might not seem as obvious, is I ask for your opinion, I ask for your input. It’s a wonderful way to start building a culture of gratitude.
The second one is my favorite, and we could talk for an hour on this alone, and that is assume positive intent, assume positive intent. We are so quick to jump to the negative. Somebody’s late; they’re lazy. Well, maybe they had to rush their kid to the emergency room.
Hubert Joly was one of the leaders we interviewed. He was the guy that saved Best Buy. He’s a delightful guy, delightful French accent. There’s nobody better than Hubert. He’s now teaching at Harvard. And he said, “Look, I may be the most naive leader ever. I just assume when people come to work, they want to do a good job. And in trying to do a good job, they’re going to make mistakes, and that’s okay.”
I honestly believe, Joel, there are very few people that wake up in the morning and say, “Today my goal is to screw up really, really royally three times before lunch. That’s my goal. I’m going to put three pennies in my left pocket, and if I don’t screw up three times before lunch, I’ll be failing.”
And there is always the outlier, and I get that, and you manage that situation. People come to work, they want to earn a good living, they want to be happy, they want to feel like what they do matters, they want to make a difference. And when they do, they want to be celebrated.

Joel Miller:
Talk then about expression expressing kinds of practices. What would you put in that bucket?

Chester Elton:
Yeah, well we have four and four, so we’ve done two there, let’s do two over on the other side. One is, look, tailor it to the individual. So often we think, well, it’s Thanksgiving, we’ll give everybody a Turkey. Well, my guess is you’ve got a vegetarian or two in there.
I’ll never forget what I got. We were living in Detroit, I was selling media at the time, it was great fun. Got the job that I wanted in New York, the Big Apple. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Loved the interviews I had with my boss, and he was so excited. And he sent me this beautiful, great, big bottle of champagne to celebrate with my wife. Showed up at our little co-op in Detroit. Well, we’re devout Mormons, we don’t drink alcohol. And while I appreciated the effort and I appreciated the sentiment, my neighbor was over the moon because it was really a… I know nothing about champagne. Apparently this was a really good and expensive bottle of champagne. And so I said, “Hey, by the way, thanks so much, really appreciate it. Just for the future box of chocolates, we’re crazy. Salted caramel; that would be really a big hit.” Get to know your people well enough.
Now, if you’re doing the seeing part, if you’re asking input and your people… And I’m a big fan as leaders, know your people’s stories. Know where they came from, why they’re here, what they want to accomplish while they’re here, and where they want to be two or three years from now. If you know their stories, you can tailor to the individual. This guy’s a movie buff, this guy collects comic books, this guy… You know what I mean? And when you tailor it to the individual, it makes all the difference. And you can avoid sending a honey baked ham to a devout Jewish family or a carafe of wine to devout Baptists.

Joel Miller:
What about another form of expressing?

Chester Elton:
Yeah, this is where we have a lot of fun. It’s do it now, do it often, be sincere. You know, think you’re going to remember at the end of the week the meeting or the end of the quarter or the year end banquet, and you don’t. Recognition, gratitude, it doesn’t keep. Primacy recency, the closer the gratitude is to the behavior, the more likely it is to be repeated. Sports analogies are overused because they work. You win the Super Bowl, I want the trophy now, you know?

Joel Miller:
Yeah.

Chester Elton:
I win the gold medal, I’m still in my skates and in my jersey. That’s the Canadian in me because we tend to win a lot of hockey gold medals. The point is do it now, then do it often. Now Joel, this is where I have a lot of fun because you can do it too much. This generation wants too much. I said, “Really?” I said, “When was the last time you came home from work and said to your spouse, your partner, your family, “Man, I couldn’t get anything done today.”” Say, “Why?” “Too much praise and recognition. Too many cakes, too many balloons. I got a plaque, I got two tickets to Hawaii. What are we going to do with that? I’m staying home.” It never happens.
One of the ways that I debunk that myth is I say, “Are you happily married?” They said, “Yeah.” “Really? How long?” “20 years.” “How often do you tell your partner, your spouse, that you love him?” “Oh, multiple times a day.” “Does it ever get old?” They go, “No.” I said, “I love you in your personal life translates to thank you in the workplace. And by the way, don’t get that mixed up because that’ll cause HR all problems.” Do it now and do it often.

Joel Miller:
How can leaders screw this up? What should we avoid as we’re doing this?

Chester Elton:
It’s such a great question. It’s so interesting. I tell leaders, the way you can screw this up is stop paying attention. If you stop paying attention, you’ll screw it up. Get to know your people, know their stories, know what their ambitions are, know what their motivators are.
One of the things we talk about in seeing is walk in their shoes. Don’t do the ivory tower thing where you just show up for the ribbon cutting, get down there and work with your people and pay attention. The easiest way to screw it up is stop being curious, stop being engaged, and stop paying attention to your people and the work.
And then lastly, be sincere. And that’s where that specificity comes in. General praise has no impact. If you tell me exactly what I did, I’m more likely to do it. It’s a real simple three little things to remember. And if you’ll do it like that and you’ll tailor it to the individual, they’ll think you’re a recognition God.

Joel Miller:
Yeah. What do you mean by thank the cranks?

Chester Elton:
This is a little thing that we put in the book that’s one of my favorite stories because it’s about my dad. My dad was one of the happiest guys you’ll ever meet. And we grew up going to church. And in our faith, there’s no paid ministry, it’s all volunteer. And he was the volunteer youth minister.
And every congregation has got one of these just curmudgeonly old people that just want you to be as miserable as they are. And we had an old lady like that in our congregation. She comes up to my dad at the end of the service and says, “Brother Elton, you think all the young people in our congregation just love you. Well, I’m here to tell you they don’t.” Just as mean as mean. And my dad looks at it with a big smile and says, “Well, thank you very much.” And she says, “It wasn’t a compliment.” And he looked at her and said, “Too late.” It was classic. Just kill them with kindness.
I think especially now, Joel, we are such a society of contempt. We roll our eyes. If you don’t agree with me, not only you a bad person, you’re stupid. And how do you counteract that? I’ve never argued anybody, I’ve never shouted anybody into agreement with me. It doesn’t work. What do you do? You just love them, you just kill them with kindness. You say, “Hey, look, I really appreciate your opinion and I appreciate you sharing it with me. I just really appreciate your sharp mind, and thank you very much.” My dad would always say, “You want to drive somebody crazy? Be really nice to them.”

Joel Miller:
Now, about this point in the show, I’m trying to bring it in for a landing. I’ve got one last question. I’m going to pose it to the guest, and that’s going to be it. And then I’m going to come on and I’m going to say X, Y, or Z to wrap up the show. And you already know what that is. We’ve been talking about gratitude so far, and what we’ve said is that there’s this gratitude gap; it exists in business more than probably anywhere else in your life. And yet if business owners could figure out how to close that gap, they’d see tremendous gains in employee satisfaction, in employee engagement. And honestly, all that boils down to cash because the truth is, if you’re running a business with employees that want to be there and they’re doing their best work, you’re going to see it in your income statement. This is an important topic not to just deal with at a moral level, which is obviously important, and especially one that we’re thinking about here at Thanksgiving, but it’s also one to think about all year long just in terms of good business.
But like I was saying, this is where I normally come up with that summation and then pivot to my final question and wrap up the show. Here’s the problem: Chester actually gave me a better closing than anything I could have come up with on my own. Here’s Chester, and I’m going to let him close out the show.

Chester Elton:
The thing that I found most gratifying about writing Leading with Gratitude with Adrian was the last chapter that said, “Take it home.” Every one of those leaders, they didn’t just lead with gratitude in the workplace, they took it home. They thanked their spouses, their kids. They were grateful for teachers and coaches and ministers and neighbors. And I always love to say at the end of anything we ever do, say, “Look, it’s a better way to lead. There’s no question about it.” We have the data and the case studies to prove it. It’s also just a better way to live.
My favorite data point is when you send your people home happy at the end of the day, University of California study, they’re 150% more likely to be happy in their personal lives. Send your people home happy. Take it home.

Joel Miller:
And that’s it for another episode of the Business Accelerator Podcast. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, in the spirit of closing the gratitude gap, I just want to take a minute to thank Chester for being on the show. And I also really especially want to thank you for listening, for downloading the show, for sharing it with friends, for talking about it at work. That’s how these ideas can make a difference beyond your earbuds.
If you’re a business owner and you’re interested in learning more about our Business Accelerator Coaching program, go to businessaccelerator.com. We help successful but overwhelmed small business owners just like you scale yourself and your business so you can win at work and succeed at life. It’s what we call the double win. If you want to find out more about it, go to businessaccelerator.com. And that’s the show. We’ll be back next week with more conversations to accelerate your business.