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contributes to your team, including the support staff. • Use the right kind of touch— pats on the back, fist bumps, or high fives—to celebrate successes. When Douglas Conant was CEO of the Campbell Soup Company, he emphasized a culture of gratitude across the organization. Each day he and his executive assistants would spend up to an hour scanning his e‑mail and the company intranet for news of employees who were “making a difference.” Conant would then personally thank them— everyone from senior executives to maintenance people—for their contributions, usually with handwritten notes. He estimates that he wrote at least 10 a day, for a total of about 30,000 during his decade-long tenure, and says he would often find them pinned up in employees’ workspaces. Leaders
• Give praise generously. • Share the limelight. Give credit to all who contribute to the success of your team and your organization. Pixar director Pete Docter is a master of this last practice. When I first startedworking with himon the movie Inside Out, I was curious about a cinematicmarvel he’d created five years before: themontage at the start of the film Up, which shows the protagonist, Carl, meeting and falling in love with a girl, Ellie; enjoying a longmarried life with her; and then watching her succumb to illness. When I asked howhe’d accomplished it, his answer was an exhaustive list of the 250writers, animators, actors, story artists, designers, sculptors, editors, programmers, and computer modelers who hadworked on it with him. When people ask about the box-office success of Inside Out, he gives a similar response. Another Facebook executive I’ve worked with, product manager KellyWinters, shares credit in a similar way. When she does PowerPoint presentations or talks to reporters about the success of her Compassion team, she always lists or talks about the data analysts, engineers, and content specialists whomade it happen. YOU CAN OUTSMART the power paradox by practicing the ethics of empathy, gratitude, and generosity. It will bring out the best work and collaborative spirit of those around you. And you, too, will benefit, with a burnished reputation, long-lasting leadership, and the dopamine-rich delights of advancing the interests of others. HBR Reprint R1610K Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley, and the faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center.
meeting, a client pitch or negotiation, a 360-degree feedback session. Here are a few suggestions. To practice empathy: • Ask a great question or two in every interaction, and paraphrase important points that others make. • Listen with gusto. Orient your body and eyes toward the person speaking and convey interest and engagement vocally. • When someone comes to you with a problem, signal concern with phrases such as “I’m sorry” and “That’s really tough.” Avoid rushing to judgment and advice. • Before meetings, take a moment to think about the person you’ll be with and what is happening in his or her life. Arturo Bejar, Facebook’s director of engineering, is one executive I’ve seen make empathy a priority as he guides his teams of designers, coders, data specialists, and writers. Watching him at work, I’ve noticed that his meetings all tend to be structured around a cascade of open-ended questions and that he never fails to listen thoughtfully. He leans toward whoever is speaking and carefully writes down everyone’s ideas on a notepad. These small expressions of empathy signal to his team that he understands their concerns and wants them to succeed together. To practice gratitude: • Make thoughtful thank-yous a part of how you communicate with others. • Send colleagues specific and timely e‑mails or notes of appreciation for jobs done well. • Publicly acknowledge the value that each person
Campbell Soup CEO Douglas Conant handwrote at least 10 thank-you notes to his employees each day.
I’ve taught have shared other tactics: giving small gifts to employees, taking them out to nice lunches or dinners, hosting employee-of-the- month celebrations, and setting up real or virtual “gratitude walls,” on which coworkers can thank one another for specific contributions. To practice generosity: • Seek opportunities to spend a little one-on-one time with the people you lead. • Delegate some important and high-profile responsibilities.
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