When was the last time you sent a note of appreciation or gratitude to someone with whom you work? When was the last time you received a note of appreciation or gratitude from someone with whom you work? If you sent or received a note, what emotions did you experience? Are you unable to recall any instance in which you sent and/or received a note of appreciation or gratitude? I have posed these and similar questions for years in my writings and during many of my presentations. I continue to do so since I believe that acts of gratitude and appreciation impact on the kind of climate that is created in one’s workplace. As one example, my January and February 2016 articles addressed the topic of the emotional culture of an organization. I cited an article written by Drs. Sigal Barsade and Olivia O’Neill that appeared in the Harvard Business Review in which they emphasized the importance of understanding the emotional culture of an organization noting, “Most leaders focus on how employees think and behave—but feelings matter just as much.” They observed that emotional culture “influences employee satisfaction, burnout, teamwork, and even hard measures such as financial performance and absenteeism.” …
