The evidence is overwhelming—those who have more gratitude, or an attitude of gratitude — are happier individuals.
Although you won’t hear the term ‘happy’ very frequently in one of our meetings or workshops (because the word is both subjective and fuzzy), it seemed appropriate as people of the United States are celebrating their Thanksgiving period to provide a quick reflection.
Few, if any, would argue that gratitude is not a positive attitude. Positive attitudes, or an attitude of gratitude, provide a leading indication for the opportunity to galvanize consensus. Therefore, groups who have more gratitude are more likely to agree.
Mandate vs. Gratitude
Of interest are the following trend lines extracted from Google’s Ngram. As the use of the term ‘mandate’ has increased in recent decades, the use of the term ‘gratitude’ has decreased. While the relationship does not prove that people have less gratitude today than in the past, it does suggest that the frequency of the term and reference to its positive meaning has been on the decline.
Mandate vs Gratitude
Facilitation vs. Gratitude
Although use of the ‘facilitation’ in a business sense is relatively new (over the past few decades), since we started teaching facilitation there has been a steady and positive slope increase in the use of gratitude. Not coincidentally, we would argue.
Gratitude vs Facilitation
Implications?
Get your group to be more thankful for what they have, rather than dwelling on what they do not have. Use what they have (e.g., skills, strengths, etc.) to focus on WHAT they could do to further extend what gives them gratitude.
You will benefit personally as well. Harvard Medical School reports that “In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.” (emphasis is ours)
People in the United States take so much for granted, it can make outsiders incredulous. Perhaps less than one percent of the people on this planet have some money in the bank, a few coins in their purse, a stocked refrigerator at home, the ability to read, at least one parent who remains alive, the skill to read, and the liberty to attend the place of worship at their choosing.
If you do, if your meeting participants do, then we suggest that you begin your meeting or workshop by first stressing the gratitude to have the opportunity to make things better for your business and its stakeholders. Most people are not so fortunate.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities every day during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
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Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
