The value of appreciation

Working together and open communication because you value one another, even though you are very different...

Sounds wonderful, but in daily practice different ways of thinking are more often experienced as threatening. Let alone that people openly express appreciation for one another. Yet being open to other views does indeed turn out to lead to better results.

Through different views you arrive together at new, exceptional ideas, and you make use of each other's different qualities. In addition there is a positive biological effect.

A lack of motivation is an important cause of chronic fatigue and causes depression in employees. Genuine appreciation, however, works wonders. Through its positive influence, dopamine is released in the brain, and this substance prompts action. The answer to how to motivate the employee, colleague and friend is, in my view, given right here. But why is that so difficult?

Listening: the ‘internal pinball machine’

Appreciation begins with open communication, and this begins with listening. Regularly I speak to people who find it difficult to listen sincerely to the other without letting the internal pinball machine run. Someone says something, and the other person's ingrained thought patterns cause all kinds of thoughts to surface: it works like an internal pinball machine. Thoughts that may have nothing at all to do with the actual situation.

Several times I notice that employees, but also managers, talk about one another rather than with one another. Managers too avoid conflict. Eight per cent of managers would even rather eat insects than tackle conflict, according to research carried out by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), one of the largest European organisations in the field of conflict management. It is perhaps a somewhat strange comparison, but it does say quite a lot about how we deal with conflict. Conflicts arise at a later stage of not acknowledging each other's differences.

Open communication and collaboration

From my background as a coach and communication specialist, I see the profound effect when people dare to communicate with integrity.

For instance, I recently spoke to a friend who teaches at a VMBO (pre vocational secondary school). The teachers at his school vary in age, teaching skills and approach. Through the different approaches and views, underlying conflicts arose that could conveniently be avoided thanks to the solitary nature of the job. Until a new director arrived, who started talking about collaboration.

First of all the team turned out not to be a team. By organising joint theme days, people started to look at what their shared starting points were. In the end there turned out to be more similarities than differences. In addition the quality of communication was examined closely. That created a basis for a (new) collaboration. Now the mutual appreciation is growing.

Appreciation

Day in, day out, more than 7.7 million people in the Netherlands, men and women aged from 18 to 65, work together. Many are part of utterly fascinating micro societies: the family, but also teams, departments and entire organisations. Rarely is structural attention given to the way we communicate with one another. My experience is that, through focused attention on the quality of communication, on recognising the impact and effect of complimenting and appreciating, an entirely new way of working and living together arises. Talking with one another instead of about one another, giving each other heartfelt compliments for the other's qualities, and appreciating the other for who he is.

When did you last show appreciation?

Valérie Docters van Leeuwen, March 2007
Published in the Dutch Journal for Coaching (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Coaching)