Gratitude drives effective collaboration
Andy looked up from reading Lost Moon by Jim Lovell and said “Steely-Eyed Mission Man. That is what they called the engineers when they solved a big problem. Jim Lovell believes one of the negative impacts of losing the funding for the Apollo Missions, was losing their amazing, collaborative team. They could finish each other’s sentences, fully trusted each other, and brought out the best in each other.”
That picture of the Apollo team, became THE standard for collaboration for me.
They had a strong appreciation for the amazing in their team members, the amazing opportunity they had in front of them, and their own highly effective skills. They were grateful, all-around. 360 degrees of gratitude. A complete sphere of gratitude ☺.
Dale Carnegie’s first principle in How to Win Friends and Influence People, is Don’t Criticize, Condemn, or Complain. We could talk for hours and not cover all the reasons why this principle is important! For this post, when we are criticizing, condemning and complaining, we reduce our brains throughput. We stop the path to possible solutions and sabotage our ability to collaborate.
If we instead BECOME grateful it is easier to BECOME genuinely interested in others. Then we see their cool-as-all get-out strengths and we want to give them honest and sincere appreciation. This appreciation creates trust and team members who are opened challenging each other’s thoughts. This is a team culture that will lead to effective collaboration that finds real solutions.
Just a slight shift in Elle Wood’s quote in Legally Blonde and you have. “Gratitude gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people want to collaborate.”