USF CLCE Podcast

[R] = Ryan

[J] = Jen

Giving Thanks

[R]:

Hello everyone and welcome back to another CLCE podcast. I am really excited to have you here today as we kind of wrap up the end of the semester. We’re coming up on Thanksgiving break and I have with me an amazing guest, one of our resident experts. It is our director for Center of Leadership and Civic Engagement, Jen Espinola.

[J]: Hi, good to be with you.

[R]: Thanks for being with us today Jen and for those who haven’t heard the podcast before, I am Ryan Newton, I’m a Graduate Assistant at the Center here as well. And we’re really excited to be coming to you live today from the Center to talk about something that is near and dear to our hearts, not only in our department, but in our personal lives as well. And that is this idea of giving thanks. As we come up on the holiday season, it’s really important, you know, if you get to spend some time with family or friends that you get an opportunity to, to say thanks. And that’s what Thanksgiving is really all about. And so, Jen has a really good story that I’d like her to share with us, then we’re going to kind of chat about it a little bit after that so...

[J]:

Great! Well, I started thinking a lot more about appreciation and recognition a couple years ago when I got to witness a little documentary by a person named Tom Malone and he’s telling us his own personal story of how he re-energized and re-invigorated a business that was called the North American tool and guide and basically it was a big factory. And this business was struggling, it was about to go into bankruptcy. It was really kind of tearing down the town because so many people work there and he didn’t have a lot of money that he could use to go in and make this transformation and pull this business up out of, out of where it was falling into, but what he did want to use was the concept of recognition and appreciation of others and so, he started basically a weekly tradition where he would give silver dollars to people. So, he would kind of go out on the floor, go out on the factory, he would get to know everybody and really try to figure out what everyone’s experience was there, but then he started to pay very, very careful attention to the times that people were being extremely innovative and he sort of put the challenge to everyone, you know, we have to, we have to reinvent this business and I want everybody to be on board, and so I’m asking you all to tape into your creativity, asking you to think of new effective ways that we can do this work and I’m going to recognize those of you who do that in a weekly ceremony where I’m going to give out a silver dollar. And so, you know, you think about well, getting silver dollar. You know, here’s people who probably making minimum wage and they’re just thinking you know, “why, why would I contribute more of, of what I’ve got when all you’re able to give me is a dollar?,” but to see how this, this ceremony and sort of ritual that he made around this changed everything for them. He would bring them together and tell a story. He’d be like, “you know, I saw Ryan this week, looking at this, this basic thing that he was doing, but he thought really creatively and came up with a new way for us to do it and it’s taken, you know, an hour off of his time and being able to, to do this work and so I want to give Ryan this silver dollar.” And everyone would clap and cheer and get really excited about it and so, not only did it make that person feel great, but then everybody else starts to think, “Well, I can do this too; I can be creative. I can think of new solutions. I want somebody to say my name out to the whole group and for them to see that I’m trying to contribute” and honestly, it took them from near bankruptcy to coming back to being , a very profitable company within the first year and it was all based on these silver dollars. So, anyway I saw this documentary and it just got me thinking about the power, not only the power of giving that recognition to someone, but also sort of the inspirational power of recognition. You know, because we all want to feel like we’re contributing and we also all want to feel like somebody is taking notice. You know, they say that people don’t really stay in a job for pay but for perks. They stay because they have purpose and they also have recognition. You know, and, and, and, so especially in times like we’re facing right now, you know, where budgets are tough everywhere. The economic climate is terrible, you know, the getting raises and all these additional perks. It’s, it’s not an easy thing to do, but you can always for free find a way to help someone feel great about the investment that they’re making in your organization.

[R]:

It’s not even a new concept here. This is the, the greatest thing about it is it’s the simplest little thing sometimes that can mean the most and make the most profound impact.

[J]:

Absolutely, absolutely and you know, there was a book written several years ago that’s it’s kind of a leadership tome everybody pays attention to it called The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner and essentially they figured out five practices of the exemplary leaders in the world. And one of them is called Encourage the Heart and it’s really all about this notion of giving recognition to other people but what was fascinating about this is that after they put these practices out there, they started to do more research and realized that this was the practice that was used the least, but that it would give the most impact if it were implemented and it actually , it, it inspired them to write a separate book just on encouraging the heart.

[R]:

And you know it really is a great book and I’ve read it myself and I definitely recommend everyone else reading it, , especially if you’re interested in being able to give thanks and being able to do that better whether it’s for your student organization or yourself. I’m going to start giving thanks this week by thanking you Jen for being here. It’s tremendous to get to chat with you about this. Again, I, I consider you one of our experts in house here. Thanks to Jen and thanks to you all for listening. So, continue to give thanks throughout the week. Enjoy your Thanksgiving break and go bulls!