How to Build a Culture of Gratitude

by: Mac Lake

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When shaping a team culture, gratitude may not be the first trait you think of, but it is a vital component for having a healthy team. The way you lead can either build up or break down your team’s sense of gratitude. Most leaders are good at showing appreciation to their team for the work they do, but if you want to increase a spirit of gratitude, it will take more than a simple acknowledgement of a job well done.

Here are three practical things you can do to create a culture of gratitude:

1. Thank them individually for their unique contribution. Over the next week, think about the unique contributions each one of your team members bring, then find an opportunity to share it with them. It may be a unique spirit they bring to the team because of their personality. It may be a certain talent they have that increases the overall effectiveness of the team. It may be a unique way they shape the team because of a consistently positive attitude they demonstrate. Discover something unique about each one and thank them for it. A well-crafted, sincere and specific thank you will be much more meaningful than a generic “great job.”
2. Have team members encourage one another. Sometime over the next couple of weeks, use a staff meeting to have everyone go around and say something they appreciate about each individual in the room. By expressing their gratitude publicly, they will feel the weight of that personally. Some may even hear for the first time something positive everyone thinks about them that they were not aware of.
3. Celebrate the wins. Your team has a mission statement, and you’re working hard toward a specific vision.  Sometimes leaders run so fast and so far ahead that we forget to stop and celebrate. Celebrating the wins and showing the team how their contributions have made a difference can go a long way in making them feel grateful to be a part of such a great team. Accomplishing results is a rewarding feeling, and taking a moment to stop and celebrate those accomplishments will foster a sense of gratitude in your team for the opportunity they have to serve the greater mission of your organization.

Creating a culture of gratitude will take some intentionality, but I promise that the payoff will be well worth the effort.

> Read more from Mac.

Tags: Gratitude, Leadership Culture, Leadership Development, Mac Lake

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How Not to Loathe the Culture You Are Leading

by: Eric Geiger

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One of the dangers of a growing organization or ministry is the temptation to quickly bring people on to the team to meet the demands of the growth. Of course, there is nothing wrong with desiring to scale the team. As the organization grows, wise leaders expand the leadership base.

The temptation is to take shortcuts on ensuring those joining the team are deeply committed to the mission and values of the organization/ministry. The temptation is to settle, to quickly grab a person and put him or her in a role. When work is piling up, unread emails in the inbox are growing, and demands seem to be rising, the easy solution seems to be quickly putting someone in a role. But wise leaders know—likely they have learned—that putting the wrong person in a role is a short-term solution with adverse long-term implications.

Tony Hsieh (founder & CEO of Zappos) tells the story about his former company, LinkExchange, which was sold to Microsoft for 265 million. When the company was just getting started, Tony and his friends loved the culture. They worked together all the time, sometimes forgetting what day it was. As the company initially grew, they hired their friends, people who shared the same values and understood the culture of the team. But as they continued to grow, “they ran out of friends to hire.” In other words, people began to join the team who did not share the same values. And the culture quickly deteriorated, so much so that Tony said he no longer wanted to come to work at his own company. He now obsesses over cultural fit in his current role at Zappos, and rightly so. Over half of an employee’s annual evaluation is based on living their values, and he has said, “An employee can be a superstar in job performance, but if they don’t live up to core values, we will fire them just for that.”

While we often imagine that declining and crumbling organizations begin to fall apart because they have grown complacent, Jim Collins, in his book How the Mighty Fall, states that complacency is not the issue. Decline begins when the growth of an organization outpaces the organization’s ability to have the right people at the table.

Surely one aspect of “the right people” is a deep-seated commitment to the mission and values that drive the organization. As the organization grows, new people will be invited to join the team. If you move too quickly and fail to ensure the alignment of values, you may end up loathing the culture of the team you are leading.

How can you not loathe the culture you are leading? Do everything you can to ensure the people joining the team, at their very core, carry the DNA of the culture you envision.

Read more from Eric here.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Leadership Culture, New Staff Position, Staff

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