6 Ways Gratitude Helps Entrepreneurs Grow Their Companies

It turns out you don’t need a huge budget to retain top talent in your company. What you need is to take more time out of your day to sincerely appreciate your employees. A recent survey conducted by Glassdoor found that over 53 percent of the 2,044 participants said they would stay longer at their company if they felt more appreciated by their boss. In addition, 81 percent of employees said they would work harder if they felt more appreciation.

When your employees are appreciated regularly, they feel valued which gives them purpose, self-worth, and a sense of self-efficacy. Beyond that, according to Psychology Today, gratitude affects our hypothalamus, which regulates dopamine production, our “feel-good” brain chemical. Dopamine helps us sleep better, lessens stress, and increases metabolism and wellness.

What this means is that the gratitude that you show as a leader directly affects your employee’s health, wellness, and motivation. Of course, your business is built on the backs of your employees, so the more robust and motivated your team is, the more your company can grow towards greatness.

Take the time today to start growing a culture of gratitude within your company, and you’ll see just how quickly it will benefit you and everyone around you. Here are six ways to get started:

1. Say “please” and “thank you” with sincerity.

Basic manners cannot be overstated, especially as the leader of your company -- you set the tone that everyone else will follow. However, expressing gratitude for every small task or completion can make your appreciation seem insincere. So, find the balance; the trick is to find specific things to acknowledge, showing that you are paying close attention and not just going through the motions. Acknowledge the personal effort that your team member put in and how that effort benefited the company -- and you.

2. Drive a team mentality.

Gratitude may have evolved from tribal society, when we found out it was useful to care for our relatives as helping our families helped our shared genes survive. We may not share genes with our co-workers, but we do share common goals of promoting a successful business and helping it thrive. Promoting mutual success and gratitude for the team creates spillover where employees trust each other more and work more smoothly as a team, which benefits morale and improves workplace success.

3. Be generous with your recognition.

Of course your employees want to hear they’re doing a good job, and hear it often. But more than just hearing, employees respond best to being shown: give a raise or a bonus, paid days off, gift cards to a favorite restaurant, team building dinners and trips, public awards, or a spa day after a long project.

These are all wonderful ways to recognize someone, but keep in mind that the greatest way you can recognize someone is to help them grow their career. Can you offer them new responsibilities to match their pay raise, or inclusion in decision that affect the company? A spa day goes a long way, but believing in your employee’s abilities, even before they do, can be life changing.

4. Be humble.

If you’re any leader at all, you know your success rests on the shoulders of the myriad people who came before you and who help you daily, even though you may be the one gaining recognition in public. Withholding credit where it’s due can be incredibly disheartening to those who expend their blood, sweat, and tears for your company. Stay humble and acknowledge the many people in thankless jobs and doing less than glamorous tasks that have held you aloft as you achieved your role as leader.

5. Build gratitude into your company culture.

It will have to start with you, as captain of the ship, to create a culture of gratitude. But gratitude from you will boost morale everywhere once you make it safe and normal. A culture of gratitude is made by allowing time and space for thanks. Acknowledge employees in your company newsletter. Set aside time in staff meetings and reviews for thanks, from you and from others. Throw welcome and goodbye parties to acknowledge team members. Once you make the space, gratitude in your company will only grow.

6. Show trust.

A wonderful way to show gratitude is to trust your employees. Monetary or gift compensation is appreciated but should be a given. Back your employees up when they make a questionable call, and check in later if you need to. Trust them to work from home if they’re producing at a high rate, take a sick day if they need it, or take long lunches -- let them handle their personal life in accordance to their needs. Work comes first, but tight reins will only choke your employees. Ease up and show your immense gratitude by letting go a little.

Murray Newlands

10 Behaviors You Never See in Successful People

When you spend decades working with executives and business leaders, you really can’t help but observe what works and doesn’t work over the long haul. One thing I’ve noticed, it’s not intrinsic characteristics or personal habits that determine whether you’re successful or not. It’s your behavior.

What do I mean by “behavior?” How you react under long-term stress. Whether you meet your commitments or not. How you interact with others. Your attitude toward customers. How hard you’re willing to work to do the job right. Whether you’re focused and disciplined or scattered and distracted. That sort of thing.

Now, I admit to having known some pretty dysfunctional founders and CEOs who did well for themselves for a time. But sooner or later, usually when the pressure is on and things aren’t going so well, they exhibit self-destructive behavior that bites them in the ass. Sadly, they often take their businesses down with them.

If you want to make it big over the long-term, you might want to take a good, hard look in the mirror and see if any of these career-limiting behaviors describe you.

Naivety. Granted, we all start out sort of wide-eyed and gullible, but the sooner you convert that to savvy and skeptical, the better your chances of coming out on top. The reason is simple: suckers and fools don’t win. Learn to question everything you read and hear and always consider the source. 

Panic. High-pressure situations are common in the business world. Things almost never go according to plan and oftentimes they go terribly wrong. It comes with the territory. If you can’t override your adrenaline response and remain calm in a crisis, you’re sort of screwed.

Fanaticism. Passion is a big success driver, but when you cross that line and become over-the-top fanatical, that works against you. I’ve seen it time and again. It leads to a skewed perception of reality, flawed reasoning, and bad decision-making.  

Laziness. Those who are driven to achieve great things also know one fundamental truth: It takes hard work over the long haul. That’s why they’re always so focused and disciplined. Most people are slackers. That’s why most people don’t achieve great things. Simple as that.

Quick-fix mentality. Steve Jobs said, “Half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance” and if you’re not passionate about what you do, you won’t stick with it. Too many people want instant gratification these days. That’s not going to cut it.

Acting out. Whatever feelings you have trouble dealing with – jealousy, shame, inferiority, entitlement – transferring them to people you work with and acting out in anger won’t just make you and everyone around you miserable, it’ll kill your career, too. 

Selfishness. If you act like the world revolves around you, you’d better have the talent to back it up. Even so, being overly self-centered will diminish your effectiveness. Business isn’t about you; it’s about business. It’s about your customers’ experience with your products. Remember who serves whom in the relationship. 

Living in the past or future. Granted, we can learn from the past, but dwelling on it is self-destructive. Likewise, you can plan for and dream about the future, but if your actions aren’t focused on the present, you’ll never achieve your plans or your dreams.  

Lighthearted indifference. You hear phrases like “whatever works,” “it’s all good,” and “no worries” a lot lately but you’ll rarely hear them from highly accomplished people. They may be a lot of things but apathetic is not one of them.  

Oversensitivity. If you’re so thin-skinned that any criticism makes you crazy and every little thing offends you, you’re going to have a rough go of it in the real business world. There’s a good reason why business leaders usually have a good sense of humor and humility. It’s sort of a requirement. Don’t take yourself so seriously.

One last thing. If any of this offends you enough to want to write an angry flame comment, you’ve got at least two or three issues to work on. Then again, look at the bright side. At least you’re not indifferent. 

Steve Tobak