"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it, is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” William Arthur Ward

By now we all know that gratitude is the gift that keeps on giving. It raises serotonin levels and helps to alleviate anxiety and depression. And research is clear that specifically expressing gratitude to others in writing is beneficial to the person who expresses it.

In a particularly low time for me, I started my own gratitude letter-writing campaign. I reached out to those individuals who had touched my life in a significant way. I wrote an old-fashioned snail mail letter to each of them and put them in the mail. Just the act of writing made me feel better. I was reminded of all the good things that these individuals brought to my life and I found myself becoming emotional just writing the letter.

I waited a few days - and then the phone calls came in. Each person called and left a message – which I’ve saved to this day – expressing their surprise and gratitude for receiving the letter and sharing how they felt about the letter and our relationship. Those messages brought me to tears and I vowed to keep up the practice.

While this was an individual use of gratitude  - there is plenty of research to support that teams that express gratitude freely are also more successful.

Recently the news of the generous thank you that Sarah Blakely gave to the employees of Spanx went viral.

While that is a showstopper of a thank you – a simple thank you actually goes a lot further for employees. And a written thank you? Well, that goes an even longer way. A recent USC study broke down how employees like to receive gratitude – more often than not they prefer it to be done one-on-one and they really love when it is handwritten.

I remember after giving a keynote that included research on gratitude in the workplace,  an audience member came up to me to share his reaction to the “thanks” he received from his company. It came in an email and when he went to reply to the email, he got a message back from the “thank you” bot saying this was a “do not reply” email. He said he’d rather have just received a call or a note from his manager than the automated version of thanks he received. Somehow this was an instance when the “thought” didn’t count.

When I work with teams  - even high-performing teams – we always take the time to do a gratitude exercise in the room. Whenever I do this – even through the simple exercise of saying “Thank You” out loud – the energy in the room changes. At first, there’s the awkwardness of saying the words out loud out of context and then everyone starts to work just a little bit harder to find a specific connection to the words THANK YOU and that is when you can see the shift from awkward to awesome.

My husband is my thank you hero. He is the one who always takes the time to write a handwritten note. Our friends thank ME assuming I am the one who sent it – and I have to confess it came from him – the power of a great team. But his thoughtfulness reminds me it’s time to start another thank you letter campaign. I’m excited to send it out and wait to hear the reactions. Who knows you might get one from me – because I am immensely grateful for you.

Outlaw Leaders with an EDGE: Explore, Dream, Grow & Excite™ are intentional in their gratitude – they say it out loud and they write it down and send it out – and watch how that changes the world. Thank you!