Category Archives: Blog

Have you ever worked for someone who never seemed to notice when you did a good job on a project, said thank you for your work, or even acknowledged your effort? How did that make you feel? Chances are, you didn’t last long in that job – or you didn’t have a great attitude about it. Sadly, most of us have walked in those shoes and I would venture to guess that it is probably more the norm across the country than the exception. Just like electronic components for vehicles and the COVID rush on toilet paper, expressions of gratitude in the workplace are falling short on the supply chain.

As employers grapple with such post-pandemic phenomena as quiet quitting and ever emboldened employees wanting remote working options, they are finding that traditional methods of building comradery in the workplace just aren’t cutting it. No more will the “pay a dollar to wear jeans on Friday” or “lunchroom cake for March birthdays” suffice. Employees want to be acknowledged, heard – and they want to be thanked.

In the book Leading with Gratitude: Eight Leadership Practices for Extraordinary Business Results, Adrian Gostick says, “The fact is, people aren’t going to give their all unless their leaders drop fear-based tactics and display caring behaviors: being transparent and fair, listening, admitting their own mistakes, and acting in the team’s best interests.” I highly recommend this book – its smart stuff people are saying.

Similarly, a recent article in Forbes makes a strong business case AND a strong human case for building gratitude in the workplace. It’s simple. It costs nothing and it takes little time or attention. The business case statistics center around motivation, and both individual and team performance and the human case statistics highlight interpersonal connection, community and validation. Indeed, one might suggest that ALL of the statistics support happiness.

“It is not happiness that makes us grateful,
it is gratefulness that makes us happy.”

Brother David Steindl-Rast

So if it’s easy and cheap, perhaps the next best question is HOW do we do it? I would say let’s get back to what Gostick suggests and let go of fear-based norms and practices. Say thank you – both in private, one-on-one and at the weekly staff meeting. Listen to understand how your employees want to be appreciated and allow them to be heard. Perhaps some people do not like public acknowledgement and like stay behind the scenes. Perhaps some people would simply appreciate a piece of nice chocolate and a sticky note. Be vulnerable. 

Remember, in the words of the Catholic Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast, “It is not happiness that makes us grateful, it is gratefulness that makes us happy.” And happy employees make better team members, better leaders and yield better results on the bottom line.

The LINE broke me open. It happened in Washington, D.C., a few years ago – 2018, to be exact – and I was attending my first Mindful Leader conference. Listening to one of the keynote speakers, Jim Dethmer, I began to experience something that I frankly don’t usually experience while listening to a speaker at a conference. I was not looking at the program for the next break. I was not scrolling or checking email on my phone. I was taking furious notes, including drawings, arrows, and big capital letters – and colors – (I am a big note taker with colored pens!) I. Was. All. In.

So much so that I changed my flight to attend his workshop on the last day of the conference. And I remember walking up to my room after the session to call my husband, as the concepts Jim introduced could be directly applied to a situation with our son that was difficult to navigate as parents.

So what is the LINE, you ask?

It is about as simple as it gets. A horizontal line. This a line that the folks at the Conscious Leadership Group led by Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman have used to describe one of the most impactful and simple ways to determine where you are on the spectrum of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Are you above the line or below the line?

The book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership describes the LINE as “the most important model we know of for being a conscious leader.” 

How many leadership models have you seen over the years? Compared to the models to which I have been exposed – I ask – how on earth could a simple horizontal line be so effective? 

I will tell you how – It’s because it is simple… it’s because of the binary nature… it’s because of the ease by which an entire office can assimilate. You are either above… or below the line. 

If a leader is operating above the line, they are open, curious, and committed to learning.

If leaders operate below the line, they are closed, defensive, and committed to being right. 

The key is KNOWING if you are above or below the line and why. It doesn’t mean it’s better or correct to be above the line. If you are below the line, that means something is challenging your energy, your values, or even something as simple as the story you are telling yourself and how that impacts your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Sometimes being below the line serves you somehow. Again, the key is awareness.

The folks at the Conscious Leadership Group as so generous that they openly encourage others to use the concept if proper credit is due. And that’s what I do – it is literally one of the first concepts I introduce to my clients, and it serves as a language by which we communicate “how we are showing up.” I love to tell others about good stuff people are doing, and this is totally worth checking out. Read the book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership – A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success (my copy is weathered, dog-eared, highlighted, and underlined), and check out the free resources on the website too (https://conscious.is/). This is good stuff.

I’m just going to say it..

“It’s a different world from when I grew up.”

“I would hate to be raising teenagers right now.”

“Let’s just agree to NOT talk about politics.”

“The pandemic is over – get over it.”

Perhaps one of these statements hits home for you. At least one (or more) does for me. When you read them, did you feel the volatility, uncertainty, chaos, and ambiguity held within the statements? Where did you feel it in your body? Perhaps you are remembering your own conversations where similar statements were made and how they made you feel.

When I grew up, we didn’t have cell phones, social media or news outlets that catered to every and all sides of the political divide. My most prized possession as a teenager was my black and white rectangle phone that I got for Christmas. My friends and I listened to the dedication hour on the radio station, took pictures that had to be developed, talked on the phone, and passed notes in class. It’s quite literally the “old frontier” compared to the technology that impacts the lives of our teens today – constant access to communications, social media, instant photos, you know the scene – it’s a world of being always “on.” Both my mother and mother-in-law have said countless times how grateful they are that they do not have the parental challenges of having to navigate technology with our kids. But I digress.

It’s not just technology that is challenging us but perhaps it is because of technology that the world seems to be harsher, more divided, explosive, and tribal (even though it’s a wonderful tool to help keep us connected). This volatility, uncertainty, chaos and ambiguity is showing up on our personal devises, in our schools, at the dinner table, and in the workplace. Finally, throw in a global pandemic, for good measure, to drive many of us over the edge with feelings of anxiety, isolation (both physical and emotional), comparison, and judgment. It’s called VUCA and it is a concept that I have seen used in several forums to describe today’s challenging world.

VUCA – Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic, Ambiguous

It was first described in 1985 by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, in their book “Leaders. The Strategies for Taking Charge.” VUCA was born to describe the four phenomena Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity and it is often used to describe our environment(s) today – whether it is the world of politics, the workplace, public health and safety, education, or technology and each demand intentional responses.

How does this land for you? Can you see VUCA tendencies in your workplace? Your statehouse? In the classroom? In your kids’ social circles? In yours? In your relationships? It’s all around us.

Again, asking you to reflect – when you read the words, “anxiety, isolation, comparison, and judgment” – could you feel it in your body? Our VUCA world is real, and it impacts each of us differently.

Now that we have the music of Darth Vader’s march looming in the background, perhaps it’s time to turn the energy around. The good news is this – people are talking about it! I am a Gen-X’er saying people are talking about it. That might be the first miracle coming from the generation that grew up in a “we don’t talk about that” world – a gift from prior generations, no doubt. 

It’s good that we have some language to describe the challenges in the world today.

It’s good that we have a way to talk about it with our kids, in our businesses, and in our homes and I am hopeful that we can do a better job in our politics (more on that in a future post). There are a lot of smart people who are working very hard to weave in a new take on VUCA – one that includes:

• Vison
• Understanding
• Compassion
• Adaptability

and I’m going to add in Resilience.

I am seeing this movement in everything from educators to first responders, from the military to the oil field. It’s a new VUCA that builds a foundation in mindfulness and intuitive leadership, bringing awareness to emotional and mental wellbeing, so that we can change our world and support one another. It’s powerful stuff. Boy, doesn’t that make you feel like the Rebel forces are coming to the rescue?