No one likes being taken for granted. No one likes being ignored, overlooked, or dismissed. Friends don’t like it. Spouses don’t like it. “Well, I just assumed you knew how much I appreciate what you do” is not going to motivate anyone to higher levels of performance. We all want to know that we’re appreciated, and we want to hear it first hand. Not expressing appreciation to others is equivalent to making them feel invisible.
A few years ago Dr. Nick Stinnett of the University of Nebraska conducted a group of studies called the "Family Strengths Research Project”. His researchers identified six qualities that make for strong families. The first quality and one of the most important to be found in strong families was the quality of appreciation. Families that are strong are strong in part, Dr. Stinnett concludes, because family members express to each other their appreciation for what the other members DO and for who they ARE.
In a similar study another researcher looked into the effect of praise in the workplace. His study showed that the ratio of praise to criticism in the workplace needs to be four to one before employees feel that there is a balance - that there must be four times as much praise as there is criticism before they feel good about their work and about the environment they work in.
That is pretty staggering information - information that tells us that if we want to do something good, that if we want to have a healthy family, a strong workplace, or any other effective group that we need to be sure that appreciation, praise, and thanksgiving are heard at least four times as often as is criticism.
Now that's something to think about!