One thing is for sure, we all need help, we all offer help. We’ve talked a lot about the importance of having the confidence to ask for help – and how hard that can be. Today we’re going to the other end of the interaction. To talk about saying thank you to those that help us.
At work, we show appreciation for people in lots of ways and most companies have mechanisms to that provide us the opportunity to share recognition daily, monthly and so on. So I thought I would share some research I was reading on an interesting angle – which is “when” to say thank you..
Research has always shown that people routinely underestimate the value of expressing gratitude, and overestimate how harshly the literal elements of their thank-you’s will be judged.
We may also misjudge when to send thank you's.
If you’ve received a birthday gift or attended a party, social norms dictate you should express gratitude the next day, or soon after. Forgetting to do so could seem rude, and cost you the next invite. But according to organisational psychologist Adam Grant, author of Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, when people enhance your life via non-material gifts and informal interactions such as mentorship, career advice, networking, informational meetings etc; it’s more powerful to express gratitude weeks, or even months, later.
“Per my own research, I’ve found that the impact of help, like mentorship, is often hard to see in the moment,” Grant said, “It only unfolds over time.” For this reason, he says, the most meaningful thank-you notes he’s ever received from mentees are the ones that have come months or even years later. “It makes me feel that the time I’ve spent with them mattered,” Grant says. “One of my favourites came from a student who intensely disagreed with my career advice at the time, and years later sent me a note about how I had changed his mind.”
Specificity is key here. “The best notes highlight how your life is different as a result of the advice you receive,” he says.
Research from Columbia Business School shows that “givers”- people who are inherently disposed toward giving more than they take - are especially attuned to the impact of the help they dole out. In two different studies, organisational behaviour professors Francis Flynn and Joel Brockner found that while receivers of help judge their relationships with givers based on the treatment they receive while being assisted (i.e. being treated with dignity, or engaging in open, honest communication), the givers’ commitment to their relationships with receivers is more associated with their judgments of the outcomes associated with the favour they perform.
Essentially, the people who help you most - the “givers” in your life, be they your mentors, friends, teachers, or colleagues - are invested in hearing about the impact of their help on your life. The more positive their impact is, the more committed they are to your relationship.
I know I can certainly relate to that. I’ve had 2 life changing career conversations in my life, and the 2 people I had them with always come to mind whenever this sort of topic comes up. I’ll share one of them with you today.
It was 2008 and I really wanted to be able to work flexibly via a 9-day fortnight as I’d been offered a volunteering role at Great Ormond Street working on Radio Lollipop. I remember how nervous I was asking my boss to authorise my request – back then flexible working was not the norm – the hours at your desk was what counted. I expressed my rationale and not only did my boss agree, but he gave me the best piece of career advice ever. He told me how once upon a time he’d had a boss who’d taken a chance on him, supported him to have balance and passion in his life and that he was really pleased to now be able to offer me the same thing, but only if I remembered that and passed it forward to someone else when the time came. From that moment on, I have always strived to help those that work for me and with me to understand their passion, to ensure balance in their working and personal lives.
6 years later, that boss had moved back to the US; I had left and setup my own business, and had the opportunity for do the same for an employee of mine. I remembered the conversation and the advice and I followed it through. I then looked my old boss up on LinkedIn and wrote him a message telling him how it had stayed with me, how that simple request has now changed not only mine, but the lives of my employees too. He was delighted – and now every time he comes to the UK we have dinner.
“Don’t let the sun go down without saying thank you to someone, and without admitting to yourself that absolutely no one gets this far alone. – Stephen King
In the same vain, I know how proud and grateful I am when people share with me the impact I have had on their careers or lives. The most recent one was kinda a biggie for. A 20yr friend, who is starting up a new business related to the pandemic, called me back in May to pick my brain on the operational setup of his company. I’d chatted with him about many aspects of business over the years, but never gotten the impression he’d listened or applied it. He told me straight that he needed me to tell his new business partners, what I’d told him so many times, that he now understood the value and wanted to take the advice properly. That in itself was huge to me, I know all the time and thought I’d put in wasn’t falling on deaf ears, that it it just needed the time to percolate and the right opportunity to present itself.
I chatted with him and his 2 new business partners for maybe 30-45mins – that was it. I shared the basic tenants of what I’d done with start-ups. I saw him last weekend (4 months later), and he thanked me profusely (with gin this time 😊) for the structure and the starting point. They’d followed it and before their product is even finished they have over $1mn of orders. Most of it based on the service and operational articulation, as they don’t have a product to demo yet. I felt so proud of him, but also of myself – for sharing without the immediacy of response, for sharing without a recognised return. The warm feeling in my chest – you know the ones that makes your smile so big it hurts your face – that is all the return that I needed.
I am sure if we all think hard enough, we can think back to people who changed our lives – sometimes purposefully, sometimes completely by accident.
The support, the advice, the inspiration.
A teacher, a family member, a boss or colleague. Maybe even a book, podcast or video… We have been supported, shaped and encouraged by those people, in ways that they would love to know.
So, today, I ask you to do 2 things.
Firstly, take 5 mins to think back through the years of your career, about who has helped you get to where you are today. The pivot points, the discerning comment that stuck with you – and then;
I want you to tell that person. A text, facebook, or linkedin message or even an email – share it forward, by sharing it back to the start.
It’s a cycle and we all need as much help as we can get.
Until next time...
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