The Importance of Appreciation

Tony Schwartz has written a terrific post for the Harvard Business Review on "The Only Thing that Really Matters" in the workplace -- feeling valued and respected. It's so easy to thank someone for a job well done, verbally or in an email, and even a tiny amount of appreciation is often worth more than gold. Yet too often we forget to do so, or slowly and insidiously a culture of one-upping each other in an attempt to feel valued creeps in. All work is valuable and a small amount of thanks goes a long way towards helping everyone feel valued and engaged. Give someone an appreciation today for something they've done well, large or small, and you'll see their level of engagement (and happiness, as the Zappos folks like to call it) increase there and then!