How managers use gratitude to boost team engagement

Appreciation and gratitude and showing, you know, they care, you've you've got to set time aside in every conversation, every day, just to just get to know your team. The opportunities to sit down and say, 'Hey, how was How was your weekend? What did you do? Oh, yeah, tell me about that.' Those small moments that we all know as people you have to do to build relationship. Sometimes leaders we forget because we just get so busy.
Welcome back to this week's episode of The High Performance Leader, the podcast for leaders working in complex, challenging environments, to gain insights and ideas which help you increase your impact without burning out, and to help you build a high-performance culture in your team. I'm your host, Jimmy Burroughes, and if you're new to The High Performance Leader, make sure you subscribe or follow so you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes before you put down your device.
Hello, and welcome back to this week's episode. I'm so happy to have you on the show today, because we're talking to the amazing Will Dahlstrom. Now, Will is the COO of the Zinda Law Group. They are an a national law firm operating across 12 states with 31 offices. He is responsible as the COO for overseeing marketing, finance, human resources, operations, software development, and a variety of staff functions. So, has a fantastic breadth of experience to bring to today's conversation. He's also got a bit of a cool background having been in the US military. Will, welcome to the show.
Jimmy, great. Great to uh be on the show, and great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Thank you so much for spending your time with us. Now, you know, it's interesting, we're going to be talking today about the power of unexpected gratitude.
Yep.
But um, I was looking through your bio and we were having a previous discussion, and you're an ex-military officer. Now, I am also an ex-military officer, so I understand some of the concepts of what you think about, but it wouldn't be the most natural route in for unexpected gratitude. So, perhaps you could just give us a little bit of an overview of your your military career, and how you ended up doing what you're doing now, and how we're talking about what we're talking about today?
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, when I commissioned and and uh went to the Infantry as an officer, uh one of the first positions, right, in the American military that you you go into is a platoon leader, right? And so, you're over a bunch of, uh, a bunch of young young kids that are just trying to serve their country and really do the best they can. And the first thing that that you really realize is that you have a platoon sergeant right next to you, and they know more about life and about the army than you can ever imagine. Um, and really your first lesson is, hey, just just close your mouth, listen, and uh learn, right? And through that venture, especially as a platoon leader as you continue to, you know, rise up the ranks in the military, uh, you know, taking on specialty platoons and company command, you know, serving as as executive officers and all that stuff, the biggest thing that you realize I think is that you have to show gratitude, and you have to take care of your your people. Um, and the only way you ever succeed is if you're taking care of your people. And so, I think through my years in the military, that idea of taking care of your men and your women that you're lucky enough to lead, um and showing them gratitude for what they do every single day, yielded success throughout my career. And so, it was it was an easy transition to take that mentality and apply it to business.
That's so fascinating, because I think many listeners have preconceptions about what being in the military is like, and what being certainly an officer in the military is like. And and I agree with you, you know, the the idea of you get the maximum performance out of your soldiers when you look after your soldiers, and when they they follow you. And I I had a fascinating conversation with uh a director from EY a couple of days ago, and he said the same thing, you know, you've got to foster an ecosystem of support, because you can only go so far by telling people what to do. It's much you're going to go much further when people want to follow you, and are motivated to follow you. And I think that's something that you've probably carried into your corporate career, right?
Yeah, so true. I mean, um I think it's built into the idea of leadership, right? It There's no I in team, that old mantra. You could say it a thousand times, but it's it's team above all else. You You can't accomplish anything, no matter where you are, without building a great team and have that team behind you to succeed.
And it's, you know, to me, that's a beautiful segue point for our conversation today, which is around the idea of unexpected gratitude. And I know from experience that we're getting busier, and busier, and busier, and leaders are under immense pressure right now to deliver more. So, what are your thoughts on the way that society and business is operating, and how can we suddenly start to shift our mentality from deliver, deliver, deliver to deliver and be grateful? What What How do we take that through?
That's a great That's a great uh thought-provoking question. I I think in in simplest terms, we all know that gratitude and is in its just simplest, most basic form, somebody does a great job in your team and saying thank you. And it's it's kind of what what I've been fronting lately is it's the table stakes, right? You just It's It's that anteing up, joining tables and saying, 'Hey, like if you want to build a good team, you've you've got to show gratitude. You've got to show appreciation, because people work so hard.' So, you know, if one of your team members spends hours upon hours producing a fantastic presentation, right, uh for one of your huge uh business opportunities and they kill it, they do a great job, you got to remember to say thank you. That's just table stakes. And it it was really interesting. I was I was reading a study the other day, kind of in line with this from the American Psychological Association. And and they did a study that that compared appreciation and gratitude. What they found is that when they compared it to those organisations that showed that appreciation, there was 93% of their employees reported feeling valued and said they're motivated, and like 88% of them reported feeling engaged. And when you compare that to like the national average of of like Gallup and those great organisations doing things, I mean it's something obscene like 30% feel disengaged, you know, 30% feel engaged at all in the workforce. So, just that baseline power of gratitude is so impactful. And if you can apply that, you're going to get huge results. And so, as a leader, the easiest thing you can do, in in in my opinion, is just just show gratitude, and you're going to you're going to increase that that median so much, uh which is incredible. And the other thing that's so interesting is when you know that gratitude works, and you layer on top of that the idea of surprise or unexpected nature, it's been proven that, like, everybody loves surprises. You love to open a card, or open a door, and and whether it's good or bad, it it compounds that emotional effect by something like four 400%. Um, and so if you can layer those two things on top of each other, the impact is incredible.
I love that idea of um the simplicity of just being grateful. And I I remember one of the best leadership lessons I was ever taught is notice people doing things right. Because as a leader, especially when you're under pressure, generally what we tend to do is pick out the things that people are doing wrong. You know, that's mistake in the report. There's a typo. That did That's not correct. Uh and and, actually, often times, that's a coaching moment, or a teaching moment, not a criticism moment, because that person probably will pick up, have already already be beating themselves up that they made that mistake. But it's that noticing somebody doing something right that makes a real difference. And if you unexpectedly do that, or if you do that in an unexpected way, and we're going to go deeper on this in a second, then that, as you say, is the amplification, the magnification factor. So, let's talk about the unexpected piece. Because people are probably wondering, you know, what is unexpected gratitude? Well, can you give us some practical examples of where that might work?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely. Uh you know, so I I go to the simplest simplest piece. So, um I'm going to I'll tell a story about how it impacted me, right? I think that's always great when you can tell somebody how it impacted you. So, a couple months ago, you know, everything was going, you know, great at work. They were, you know, we were we were humming along and uh we had a really late meeting one night, just to work on a project. And, you know, said goodbye to everybody, you know, broke out. Next morning, I I come back and I look at my chair and there's a note on it. And it's from one of my team members. And it's just a simple note that just says, 'Hey, Will, really appreciate working with you. You know, so glad we're on the team together.' Really simple. And I took that note, and it wasn't it wasn't huge. It wasn't a big show of it. It was just the unexpected nature of it. And I think if you can key into those unexpected moments, doesn't have to be big, that's the difference is yes, you're saying thank you, you know, at the end of the meeting, right? Yes, you're saying thank you at the end of a project. Yes, somebody does a great job, and you're being specific, and you're showing that gratitude, and you've got to mean it. But you get those little tiny things, such as, okay, everybody left, let me just stay after, spend five minutes, write a nice little note that's pointed and put it on their chair. And so, when they walk in the morning, all of a sudden, nobody expects a note on your chair, on your desk, or nobody expects a handwritten note. I think that's one of the things where I really keyed into this. It was when I was with Community Impact Newspaper, we were trying to get people really excited about um this program we were standing up. And we came together and had the idea, you know, people just don't get handwritten notes anymore. What if every single person that has interest gets a handwritten note from us? And as soon as we started to do that, it just it just boomed. And it was that connection of the personal, right? Like we're always taught, 'Hey, write a handwritten note, send it off, it it means something.' Nobody really does that anymore. And so, when you it was that connection with the person or the business, and how it can truly impact, just taking that extra minute to create those unexpected moments, not in the natural cadence of so, we did something, it was really good, and we need to say thank you. Remember, you've got to appreciate people and show them that you care. That's just That's table stakes. But taking a moment and saying, 'Ah, you know what, let me spend that five minutes and and really write them a note, or really get into the fact that, hey, you know what, Will loves coffee, right? And let me let me go and get a little $10 coffeeshop ticket, and put it in there.' Again, it's It never has to be huge, and that's the interesting diff- differentiator here is it's not huge bonuses and huge money that creates the impact. It's the thought, and the acknowledgement of you know them, I appreciate you, and showing that gratitude, so.
I love that. So, it's the I It's the actually taking the time to notice them doing something right. That's the first step in the game. It's the saying thank you. That's the table stakes version of this. But it's the finding a really magical, special way to say thank you that doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be, you know, overblown, or grand gestures. As you say, it's that note on the chair. I remember one of the the leaders I used to work with when I was in my corporate career, he had little thank-you postcards printed. And his I think his EA probably took care of it for him, in fact. But he would just No, it would be five, six words on a postcard. You know, 'Thanks for doing that,' or 'Really appreciate this.' And then that would just appear on your desk with a KitKat, and a little little chocolate bar.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yep.
'Take a break. You know, I really appreciate you you
Right.
putting this together,' or whatever it was. But it was that little And and people used to stick those thank-you cards to the the pinboard on the back of their desk, or whatever it was. People value those things. And and I think it's that when you're a really busy executive, and you're thinking, 'That's such a small gesture. It's almost a waste of my time,'
Yeah. Yeah.
It is.
and realising the the force multiplication impact of that postcard, or that note, or that chocolate bar, or that packet of coffee.
That small little thing, right? And you 100%, 100%.
And so, one of the things that comes into my mind when we're talking about this, and if I think back to a conversation with with Kelly Jenson from from Walmart, we talked about this as well. It's the way you say thank you to somebody could be really embarrassing for them if you pull them up on stage and give them a thank you, or you make a grand gesture in a team meeting, or because they'd be mortified. They'd be embarrassed that you're calling them out. So,
Yeah.
Yeah.
presumably, there's that we need to take a bit of time to think about the way we say thank you, right?
Oh, absolutely. Uh I mean, everybody everybody's different. What may be super comfortable for me may not be good for you, right, Jimmy? And And so, you really got to take the time to get to know your team members. Uh it's the last thing you want to do is take somebody who is naturally more introverted and kind of likes likes doing what they do in their little sphere, and just pulling them up on a big stage and giving them a huge reward. They may not be ready for that, right? And so, it could create a great moment and kind of turn into a poorly-timed, to your point, embarrassing, you know, uh moment that that won't have a good impact.
So, how do I get to know my people enough that I know what's going to work for them in terms of the way I say thank you?
Yeah, I think it's some It's a great, quiet I think it's something that I'm always continuing to work on, but something that I've really come to acknowledge, uh especially recently, is that as leaders, a lot of our time just has to be focused on getting to know your people and getting to know your team. You You can't You can't just be 100% working on the business and in the business, every single day, because that's not how you build successful teams. That's not how you get those social points, if you want to if you want to call it, right? And so, appreciation and gratitude and showing you know they care, you've you've got to set time aside in every conversation, every day, just to just get to know your team. And And if you force that function as a leader, because work is always going to be there, but the opportunities to sit down and say, 'Hey, how was How was your weekend? What did you do? Oh, yeah, tell me about that. Oh, cool. So, you you really like to go hiking? Where Where are some great places you've gone hiking?' Just those small moments that we all know as people you have to do to build relationships, sometimes as leaders we forget because we just get so busy. And going back to that idea of table stakes, just to get into the conversation, you've got to have those conversations. And if you have those conversations, now you start to know your people. And if you know your people, then you figure out how can you apply those pieces of information um to make sure they truly feel appreciated.
I think that's such great advice. You know, just the, 'How's your weekend?' conversations, those, what I'd call them almost inconsequentially informal conversations.
Yep. Absolutely, yeah.
Over over time, they're the ones that make a difference. And and when we're doing The Ways of Working program, we say connect with the person, not the position. Because as a senior leader in an organisation, we can often think, 'Oh, I need to go and talk to the head of finance about that,' or the, you know, 'the GM Marketing about that.' And actually go, 'No, I need to go and talk to Will. Uh and I know about Will, and I know what Will's family is about, and I've got some relationship with Will.' And you connect
Yeah.
even uh and and the other piece that we always talk about is every conversation should be a connection with the person first, and then move into the business, because that keeps your relationship bank account strong.
Yes.
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Could you give us a a really nice example, practical example,
Mhm.
of where um that connection has really paid off for you in in your business?
Yeah, absolutely. Uh I mean, I think a a practical example of where building those relationships has significantly uh paid off, you know, in our business, we get a ton of um referrals, right? And in order to get those referrals, you you've got to be trusted. And so, if they don't trust you as a person, uh they're not going to trust you to handle their clients, right, and help their clients, and just ensure that they're taken care of. And so, just from a practical level, most of those conversations are building relationships, right? Getting on the phone, getting on a video call, and saying, 'Hey, Jimmy,' you know, just like probably three or four conversations a week, or just calling, and talking, and and proving that hey, I'm a person, too, just just like you, and and uh you can trust that we're going to have the best intentions in every single thing that we do to help your clients that you care for um when they get into situations uh that need our help, right? And so, from a business standpoint, taking that time, there'd be no way that we'd get any referrals, right, if if we didn't have the relationships built um and the trust built for, you know, those other attorneys and lawyers in the area that that could refer us potential business. You know, and and in addition to that, really, at the at even the, you know, company level, from department to department, I remember uh recently, we're we're working on a um a big software development kind of project, right? And it takes a lot of trust to figure out how to overcome all the different hurdles that go that go into that. Um, and a lot of times, your teams, right, will will just chug along and won't be open enough to to give you information. Well, we're we're facing a really significant issue with one of the um connected API and integration points. Um, and our lead development, our lead engineer, had built a good relationship with the engineer over here, I'm not in in this other this other company. Um, and because of that relationship, right, they were able to leapfrog a whole lot of red tape to solve what turned out to be a really simple problem. It was like one line of code that could be fixed, but they're able to leapfrog all the other red tape just because they had a relationship and they have been talking every single day. And so, just in those simple situations, you can see where, hey, build a relationship, take the time, get to know people, because whenever things go wrong, or there's difficulties, or there's issues, if you have the relationships to talk it through and you know who to call, it's going to cure a lot of the issues a lot faster.
It really does. You know, we call the idea the relationship bank account, and if you're the one who's always making a withdrawal, you become overdrawn and slowly, that that institution is probably going to close your account. Whereas, if you're the one paying in all the time, you build up a credit balance. And uh when it comes to making a with- a big withdrawal, you're taking back your own credit, your own money, not not somebody else's, which is which is always an important factor.
That. That. That's such- It's always you always want to know you got to give, right? Like it's all about giving. What can I provide? How can I help? Because that's where the true magic happens.
So true.
So true. So, I want to go back to this idea of uh unexpected gratitude, but I want to now think about how do I create a culture of unexpected gratitude in my business? Because, as a senior leader, I can do that for me. I can do that for my team. But actually, what what I'm hearing from you, Will, is that this is really powerful. And so, there's a There's a high-performance business opportunity in creating an an unexpected gratitude culture. And there's a bit of a catch-22 situation that I see on the horizon that we're going to create a unexpected gratitude culture, and then it becomes the expected gratitude culture. So, how do we navigate that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's hard, right? I think I think that's that's that's an interesting paradox. I think the key is is trying to remember that unexpected is just simply creating a surprise. And it doesn't have to be done all the time. Surprises aren't all the time. In fact, if you do a surprise every day, it it no longer is a surprise, right? And so if you're doing the basics, you're set you're showing the basic gratitude, basic appreciation, you're doing what a leader should do, then creating those moments of surprise, they don't have to be every week. They don't have to be every month. You know, they really don't even have to be in every every quarter. It's finding those opportunities to just create the little surprises. Um, it's simple as, you know, taking your wife flowers, stopping off on a random Thursday, grabbing some flowers from the supermarket and bring them home. And you you do that out of the blue, that's a surprise, and it creates value and worth, and and it takes what your feeling as a person and it lets my wife know that, hey, I care about her, right, and and I'm thinking about her. And it's out of the blue. Now, if I do that every single Thursday, it's not that it's any less worthwhile, like it still means something, but the surprise isn't there. And so, that 400% bump of impact that you get from hitting that surprise point, now it's it's not there anymore. You don't get that 400% bump. So, creating that is is just about finding the moments, not all the time, and not in a regular cadence that you can have that impact of surprise. It's not remembering their birthdays, that's table stakes. Not remembering their anniversaries, that's table stakes. That's stuff you just you got to do. It's noticing they did this one thing really well, and then hitting that surprise button. You've got to elicit that. So, if you do it all the time, it's worthless. Uh not worthless, I don't want to say it's worthless, it doesn't have the impact that it could have
Yeah, it diminishes the impact, yeah.
at at a more random basis, right? And so, I think that's that's the method is you just have to think, and go at it from a leader of saying, 'Okay, how do I create those moments of surprise?' Make it simple. How do you create those moments of surprise for your wife, for your kids, for your husband, for, you know It's the exact same mentality. Create those moments of surprise for the people that give you eight hours of their life, every single, you know, working day.
It's It's It's a beautiful concept. And so, this isn't something I can go to the my head of HR and go, 'We need an unexpected gratitude culture created now.' It's not a framework or a process. But it is a It's a leadership way of thinking, and it's something that maybe we could sit down with our leadership team and say, 'We're all going to buy into this, and we're all going to try and find those opportunities to be unexpectedly grateful in an unexpected way, in a surprising fashion, with the people that work for us. We're going to try and find those moments together.' That That's what creating the culture is like, yes?
Yeah.
Right.
That's right, yeah.
Absolutely. Nail on the head.
I love that so much. And in terms of the the pay-off, what what have you seen in your business from the internal engagement and the satisfaction of employees, or any other metrics that you maybe have kept track of, from instituting this culture of unexpected gratitude?
Absolutely. I I think that you get loyalty at levels that you would not expect. You kind of go I mean, go back to some of the studies they've done. It's It really is a huge differentiator that can be provided. I mean, and and statistically proven, if you show gratitude, you're almost twice as better off uh on a company level of engagement than if if you don't. And if you can take unexpected and multiply that, I mean, 400% better off is what theoretically you should be. In actual practice, it's hard. I can look at the you know, departments that are very successful within our organisation and finding those points and impacting that that level of unexpected gratitude. The hard part is to your point, creating that culture and and getting everybody to take a step back and take moments to impact all the way through, you know, because as one person, you can't impact across 100 people. You need everybody else to take that as well. And so, I think it's it's a constant work, both internally and a reminder to myself, as well. Don't Don't be so rushed, right? Like take those moments, impact those people that are in your direct circle, that are right around you all the time, and have that spread down and across throughout your whole organisation.
That's probably some sage advice. Slow down and think about your actions, versus being the hamster on the wheel, deliver, deliver, delivering all the time. Yeah, absolutely.
That's what we feel like so often, right?
It's absolutely Yes. I know that feeling well.
You know, Will, if you were to um offer a key takeaway that you want the audience to come away with from this episode, what would that be?
That's a great question, Jimmy. I For me, personally, I I think if you took one thing away from this is that this is probably the easiest thing you can do as a leader in your day or your week, because it's such a natural human inclination to surprise someone. We all love to surprise people. It's just naturally inclined. The hard part is realising and ticketing off time in your schedule to allow that to happen. So, just like I've I've been challenging myself consistently is to try to get 20% of your time, and I know it's hard, but try to just in your mind take 20% of your time, show gratitude and appreciation, get to know your people, and uh give yourself the space to find the surprises that you can impact every single day. Because they'll pop out at you, and you'll be walking like, 'Oh, hey, here's an R2-D2 card, and Jimmy loves Star Wars. You're in Target, grab it. Just grab it. Just grab it, write a little note, and put it on their desk. Let the surprises just show up, give yourself the space, and you'll be surprised at how awesome an impact it can have on those around you.
That's great advice. And thank you for the for the nutshell version of that. Final question, Will, um before we go to how people can get in touch with you, what's something you wish you had always done, but never got around to doing?
Ooh, in leadership, or just in life?
In life.
Because we're trying to get to know you as a person.
I I love that. Something I would say um, go to Alaska. Always wanted to do it, never done it. What about you, Jimmy?
Ah.
There's so I've I keep thinking there's so many things I wish I'd done and I never got around to doing. Uh, what my big one was write a book, so I've done that one now. Um the
Yeah, yeah.
the That's a really good question. I haven't thought about that recently. Something I wish I'd always done, but never got around to doing. I'll have to come back to you on that one. We'll have to have another conversation about it.
All right.
Let's do it.
I love it.
Will, appreciate you joining us on today's episode of The Ways of Working podcast. If people want to reach out, learn more about some of the work you're doing, learn more about your business, um how can they get in contact?
Absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn, very open, just search for Will Dahlstrom. Or you can feel free to shoot me a direct email to my personal email, of course, [email protected]. Happy to help in any way, shape, or form.
Amazing. Thank you so much, again, for joining us on this episode of The Ways of Working podcast. Really appreciate your time, Will. Thank you.
Great, thank you so much, Jimmy. Great to see you.
That's it for this week's episode of The High Performance Leader. If you enjoyed this episode, please drop a review on whichever platform you listened on. We really appreciate it, and it helps us to connect with new listeners. Also, if you haven't already, head to jimmyburroughes.com and download a copy of my latest bestseller, Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance. It's the leader's playbook for building a high-performance culture, and is packed with practical action tips to get you started. Stay tuned for next week's episode of game-changing insights and ideas on The High Performance Leader.