Inside Influence Report
October 12, 2010
How to Increase Your Business by Showing Your Appreciation
By Noah Goldstein, Ph.D.
Although it’s only October, Thanksgiving will be here before we know it. Thanksgiving is normally a time when we consider all the things we’re grateful for—caring family and friends, a good job, or maybe even being on the lucky end of the turkey’s wishbone. But how can a consideration of what we’re thankful for also make us more influential people?
Readers of this column should be quite familiar with the concept of reciprocity and our advice to always be on the lookout for ways you can help others. But what often gets overlooked is the importance of what happens when you’re on the receiving end of a gift or favor. In particular, recent research conducted by Wharton’s Adam Grant and Harvard Business School’s Francesca Gino (2010) shows how powerful explicitly conveying gratitude toward people who perform favors for us can be.
In one experiment, all the participants spent time giving feedback to someone on a cover letter for a job application. After sending the comments in, the participants received a request from the cover letter author to read a second cover letter. However, this e-mail took one of two different forms. In the control condition, the person who received the feedback simply sent back a note of acknowledgement as well as the new request. In the gratitude condition, the cover letter author sent back the exact same e-mail, except in this one expressed a great deal of appreciation (“Thank you so much! I am really grateful.”)
So what was the effect of the simple addition of these eight words? The researchers found that this explicit display of appreciation more than doubled the compliance rates for the new request.
But Grant and Gino weren’t done yet. They wanted to see whether expressing gratitude to a favor-doer had more wide-reaching effects. In particular, the researchers asked whether expressing gratitude toward a favor-doer could increase the favor-doer’s motivation to help others in general—not just the gratitude-expresser him- or herself. To do this, they ran a second experiment that was similar to the first in many aspects: The participants helped one particular student by giving him feedback on a cover letter, and that student either simply acknowledged the feedback or clearly conveyed gratitude for the feedback. However, in this experiment, instead of the original favor recipient asking for another favor, this time a complete stranger asked the participants for the second favor. Again, the researchers found that the compliance rate more than doubled in the gratitude condition.
Consider the significance of this finding: Simply expressing gratitude toward a favor-doer doubled the chances the favor-doer would help out a complete stranger. Additional data that Grant and Gino gathered strongly suggest that this occurs because expressing gratitude increases the favor-doer’s overall sense of social worth—in other words, these favor-doers are more likely to feel that others value them.
Although these findings are impressive, the researchers wanted to extend their findings to a work environment to see how expressing gratitude might positively influence employee motivation. They chose to test these ideas at a fundraising call center because they felt that fundraising can be a particularly thankless job characterized by frequent negativity and rejection. In this experiment, half of the employees went about their day normally without any novel intervention; this was the control condition. However, for the other half, the director of annual giving visited the call center and thanked the fundraisers for the work they were doing. Specifically, she said, “I am very grateful for your hard work. We sincerely appreciate your contributions to the university.”
The researchers were able to monitor the number of calls the fundraisers made before and after this intervention took place. Whereas the employees in the control condition continued to make phone calls at the same rate, those in the gratitude condition made 50% more phone calls in the week following the director’s visit.
This research highlights how incredibly important is it to communicate the full extent of your appreciation for the favors that have been done for you. Although it might seem obvious, think of all the times you’ve mechanically said “thanks” after a favor without showing how truly grateful you are or without providing any additional information for why exactly you’re appreciative for the help. Or times when you intended to send a thank you note to someone but somehow never got around to it. Many of these could be missed opportunities for honest and genuine influence. What’s more, this research suggests that to the extent that managers and organizations as a whole engender a culture of appreciation in the workplace, it could inspire additional organizational citizenship behaviors throughout the company.
Questions For Discussion:
Source:
So what was the effect of the simple addition of these eight words? The researchers found that this explicit display of appreciation more than doubled the compliance rates for the new request.
But Grant and Gino weren’t done yet. They wanted to see whether expressing gratitude to a favor-doer had more wide-reaching effects. In particular, the researchers asked whether expressing gratitude toward a favor-doer could increase the favor-doer’s motivation to help others in general—not just the gratitude-expresser him- or herself. To do this, they ran a second experiment that was similar to the first in many aspects: The participants helped one particular student by giving him feedback on a cover letter, and that student either simply acknowledged the feedback or clearly conveyed gratitude for the feedback. However, in this experiment, instead of the original favor recipient asking for another favor, this time a complete stranger asked the participants for the second favor. Again, the researchers found that the compliance rate more than doubled in the gratitude condition.
Consider the significance of this finding: Simply expressing gratitude toward a favor-doer doubled the chances the favor-doer would help out a complete stranger. Additional data that Grant and Gino gathered strongly suggest that this occurs because expressing gratitude increases the favor-doer’s overall sense of social worth—in other words, these favor-doers are more likely to feel that others value them.
Although these findings are impressive, the researchers wanted to extend their findings to a work environment to see how expressing gratitude might positively influence employee motivation. They chose to test these ideas at a fundraising call center because they felt that fundraising can be a particularly thankless job characterized by frequent negativity and rejection. In this experiment, half of the employees went about their day normally without any novel intervention; this was the control condition. However, for the other half, the director of annual giving visited the call center and thanked the fundraisers for the work they were doing. Specifically, she said, “I am very grateful for your hard work. We sincerely appreciate your contributions to the university.”
The researchers were able to monitor the number of calls the fundraisers made before and after this intervention took place. Whereas the employees in the control condition continued to make phone calls at the same rate, those in the gratitude condition made 50% more phone calls in the week following the director’s visit.
This research highlights how incredibly important is it to communicate the full extent of your appreciation for the favors that have been done for you. Although it might seem obvious, think of all the times you’ve mechanically said “thanks” after a favor without showing how truly grateful you are or without providing any additional information for why exactly you’re appreciative for the help. Or times when you intended to send a thank you note to someone but somehow never got around to it. Many of these could be missed opportunities for honest and genuine influence. What’s more, this research suggests that to the extent that managers and organizations as a whole engender a culture of appreciation in the workplace, it could inspire additional organizational citizenship behaviors throughout the company.
Questions For Discussion:
- When has expressing thanks had positive results for you?
- On the opposite side, when has lack of thanks had negative effects for you or others?
Source:
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, 946-955.
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
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