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Dear Friends,
Hope this message finds you all doing well! I can’t believe it’s November already. With the coming Thanksgiving holiday, it seems appropriate to talk about gratitude at work. Though it seems like an optional, warm-and-fuzzy topic, in reality it’s vital to express our gratitude to colleagues. Gratitude strengthens relationships and imparts resilience, and we could all use more of that at work, right?
There was a New York Times article about the science of gratitude earlier this year that concluded that people appreciate expressions of gratitude (specifically emailed thank-you notes) more than the sender thought they would. This sparked my curiosity and I delved a bit more into the literature. Experimental evidence suggests that the most effective thank-you messages are specific, either because they are tied to an action or event, or because they mention a specific trait that you appreciate. A reflexive “great job” is easily shrugged off whereas, “thank you for preparing such a strong draft that I barely had to edit it,” sparks warm feelings. Interestingly, people who express gratitude also experience a mood boost.
Here are some opportunities to express gratitude:
A milestone. I recently had my tenth anniversary of joining the UCSF faculty, and I wrote emails to people whom I may not see regularly, but without whom I would not be here.
A connection. When people introduce you to others, and those introductions bear fruit, definitely let that connector know. When I introduce two people who start collaborating, it makes me so happy! I love being a scientific matchmaker!
A victory. When you have a success, like a high-impact paper or grant, reach out to the people who may not be on the grant, but shared their grant text or example supporting documents or talked through the budgeting or just told you not to give up.
A setback. I reached out to a lot of people when I recently applied for a leadership role- that I did not get. After I got the disappointing news, thanking people for their advice helped me remember all that I learned from the process, and their warm responses brought me a lot of consolation.
As always, send me your successes and I will do my best to amplify them. Finally, all of you have my gratitude for doing your important work and for reading these emails. I enjoy playing a role, however small, in your work life.
Gratefully,
Urmimala