A Bigger Helping of Gratitude...Please
At the beginning of 2012 I had dinner with a client and friend who owns a small, but mighty agency. Our get together was mostly to share good cheer and wish each other a good start to the new year. During dinner, our conversation turned to 2011 reflections and he shared what was missing for him last year – gratitude. I laughed and told him that is exactly what I had been thinking about. Two days later I received a note from another friend who used to be a CMO and now has a successful consulting business – he described the same thing. Next, I read a link from a friend on Facebook about the 10 things happy people do differently – again, gratitude was on the list. All this serendipity convinced me I needed to do some thinking and share some thoughts on gratitude. Here they are...

Our focus at the beginning of each year tends to be on future "resolutive" actions and a sense of hopeful future activities. This is a noble awareness and helps people to grow. However, it tends to set the tone toward an assumption that everything to date has been fully earned and we now need to push it up to the next level. I get that, but it seems to me (and a few other friends) there isn't enough value or time placed against doing what everyone needs to hear more and express more – gratitude. Gratitude is the stuff that unlocks people's potential and exposes the limits we place on ourselves. It is the ultimate motivational gift for others and an important enabling gift to ourselves.

So, why is gratitude important?

• It reminds us of the positive things in our lives.
• It puts in perspective what is important.
• It helps to make lemonade out of lemons and allows the bad to become good more easily.
• It prompts us to thank others and not take what others do on our behalf for granted. This is probably the most important reason. We all underestimate our power to move others and help them in little ways every day; expressing gratitude is our greatest tool to do so.

In the spirit of resolutions and improvement, here are a few tips for showing a deeper sense of gratitude to those around you.

• Act on thoughts of gratitude and thanks; don't wait. Write the note or make the call that's been in the back of your mind—don't bury these thoughts of appreciation under a "do this next" list, make these a priority and instant response so they become more habitual.
• Demonstrate to your team how to express gratitude – they'll get it quickly and you will have changed the tone.
• Every day, in whatever type of reflection, prayer or thoughtfulness you do include an overt expression of gratitude.
• Keep to-do lists from the year prior so you can remind yourself and others of the great things that have been accomplished. We all are so action and progress oriented that we lose track of what has been transformed and scaled. My early career mentor taught me this because he knew how I struggled to see enough progress every day. So he lengthened my view through this suggestion.
• Don't sort gratitude only toward the positive side of the list. Give thanks for it all and don't be so hasty in sorting things into positive and negative tallies. Negative experiences create growth too and showing appreciation, gratitude and an understanding furthers the learning. Also, cultivate a more curious and less fearful view of making mistakes.

Lastly, words become things. My mother always said to me "your words become a stepping stone ahead of your actions." A gracious heart breeds gracious words that somehow mystically help create a better reality - I think that's what my Mom was talking about. I have learned it the hard way and have seen how wise she was. I'm still not very good at it though.

Gratitude – that's my resolution this year. I hope you'll join me.

"Move It" – Move Quickly With Candidates
One of the intangibles I have tried to infuse into Brick House Partners is the idea of moving quickly when dealing with candidates. I've learned that time is key in this business and can make a big difference in how successful we are in finding, securing and placing candidates. Some thoughts are below on moving quickly with candidates.

• Tune the responsiveness setting to the same speed as client responsiveness. If we all took too long with a client, we would most likely lose credibility, trust, and potentially the client. We all know that things come up unexpectedly, and that can impact our response time, but approaching candidates with the same sense of responsiveness as clients helps.
• The time transpired curve works just like new business development. Chances of success generally go down as the timeline extends with new business prospects. It works the same way with candidates. As the vetting extends through time human nature takes over and candidates rationalize not making a change, or in the opposite direction, they also can become more open to other possibilities. Sometimes a viable initial opportunity lights the fuse on career movement for a candidate and if the discussions extend too long they move into additional opportunities because they are now more open. None of this is to imply not being thorough - just be detailed in a reasonable time period. There also is a risk to rushing because good candidates will see a red flag in this situation. Frame it like this: be comprehensive and move through the process at a good pace so that the best candidates will be more attracted to your company and not lose interest or wander along to other opportunities. Staying active and openly engaged with candidates helps increase the success rate.
• Search process decision making equals a candidate's projected decision making process for your company. Consider this a Golden Rule of sorts; this is one (costly) detail that stacks up in candidates' minds and creates a perception of what the prospective employer may or may not be based on the interaction. So, the faster you can come to conclusions and decisions (and inform them), the better representation your company will have and perhaps in getting the candidate on board. If you're paying as much attention to a candidate's little behaviors and nuances, don't be fooled to think that the candidates aren't doing the same.
• Update, update, update. If there's anything that cannot be emphasized enough, it's updating. This is where we really focus to stand out with candidates and try to be sensitive to a candidate's need for communication. This is the culminating point to the idea of moving quickly. Three (3) things happen in a search without excellent communication toward candidates: #1 - Candidates get frustrated with the process #2 - Candidates create imagined scenarios that may not end up helping the situation long term #3- Candidates run into scheduling problems because they are trying to juggle busy schedules just to stay engaged in a search. Overall, this idea goes back to being considerate and is a fundamental value of "Do What You Said You'd Do."

Ralph A. Cutcher