The Small BIG: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence (15 page)

I
f we were to ask a whole bunch of people how good they are at picking the perfect gift for a friend’s birthday or a colleague’s retirement, chances are that most of them would say they’re quite good at it. Yet, if you asked those same people to rate the gift-g
iving
skills of
their
friends, family, and coworkers, you would probably hear horror stories about them receiving all kinds of unintentionally hilarious items, from dubious hand-knitted sweaters to kitschy trinkets or electronic singing fish. In fact, if people were anywhere near as good at buying gifts for others as they think they are, then websites such as
www.whydidyoubuymethat.com
and
www.badgiftemporium.com
would be out of business.

Fortunately, researchers have discovered a remarkably simple strategy to ensure that yours is the gift that garners shrieks of delight and not gasps of horror.

According to a 2008 survey by the National Retail Federation almost 50 percent of Americans anticipate returning at least one holiday gift every year, a clear indication that gifts tend
not
to be nearly as cherished by recipients as gift givers might think. Noting this rather staggering statistic, researchers Francesca Gino (author of the excellent book
Sidetracked
) and Frank Flynn were interested in exploring the question of why gift givers and gift receivers so rarely see eye-to-eye on the quality or usefulness of a gift. They also thought that there was a simple solution to solving this problem: Prospective gift givers should just ask their friends, family, and coworkers to list some things they might like to receive and then buy something on the list for them.

One concern with having to ask the recipient what he or she wants is that it might signal that the giver doesn’t know the recipient well enough to buy a personalized gift. Or perhaps worse still, that the gift giver doesn’t really want to spend the personal time, effort, or energy necessary to choose a suitable gift. However, Gino and Flynn suspected that those who received the gifts would actually perceive the gift giver as
more
thoughtful for buying them something they really wanted.

In one study, Gino and Flynn took a group of married individuals and asked half of them to think about a time when they gave a wedding gift to someone else. The rest of the married people were asked to think about the wedding gifts they themselves had received. In addition, half of the people thinking about giving gifts were asked to think of a gift they chose from the registry, whereas the other half of the givers were asked to think of a gift they bought that was
not
on the registry.

Similarly, half of the gift recipients were asked to think about a gift they received that was from their registry, whereas others were asked to think about one they received that was
not
from their registry.

Although the gifts people chose to think about were of roughly the same monetary value (they averaged out at approximately $120), their perceptions of the gifts differed in some pretty important ways. Specifically, it didn’t matter to gift givers whether the gift they were thinking about was from the registry or not—they all assumed that recipients appreciated and liked the gifts roughly to the same degree. However, for those who were asked to consider a wedding gift they had received, the ones thinking about a gift from the registry were far more appreciative of that present than those who thought about a gift they had received that wasn’t from the registry.

Although the common saying is “It’s the thought that counts,” this research shows that it’s the thoughtless gifts—the ones that involve simply picking from the recipient’s predetermined list—that count most of all. In a way this doesn’t sound that surprising. Couples who are planning to get married are perhaps more appreciative when someone buys them something from a prescribed list because that list likely contains items they truly need for a new home—items that they wouldn’t wish to miss out on or duplicate. No couple needs three cheese boards—unless of course they live in the state of Wisconsin or their names happen to be Mickey and Minnie.

But what happens when the gift-giving context is different—for example, if the gift is for a birthday rather than a wedding? The researchers thought of that, too, and conducted a number of additional studies that all showed the exact same pattern: Gift givers didn’t think that a recipient’s level of happiness and appreciation for a gift would be influenced by whether the recipient asked for the gift or not. But in fact recipients were clearly much happier and more appreciative when they received something that they had previously said they would like.

In another of their studies, Gino and Flynn randomly assigned participants to be gift givers or gift recipients. Each gift giver was anonymously paired with a gift recipient. Each recipient was asked to  select ten $20 to $30 gifts from Amazon.com, which would be sent in list form to a gift giver. Half of the gift givers were told to pick something from the list that would be sent to the recipients, whereas the other half of the givers were told to buy something that was not on the list. Once again the researchers found that those who were told to buy something not on the list were as confident that the recipient would like the gift as those who were told to buy something on the list. Yet, when the researchers looked at the recipients’ evaluations, recipients who got something from their list were much more appreciative of the item.

Because the level of appreciation for a gift is one of the main determinants of not just how much receivers are motivated to reciprocate in the future but also how happy they are, this research has important implications for our interactions with others. As these findings show, making a small change that helps to take the guesswork out of gift giving by finding ways to identify the gifts people will truly appreciate is a win-win proposition for everyone involved. Providing a supply of sticky notes for a gift recipient to highlight desirable future presents they have spotted in magazines might be one strategy. Another would be to look out for the tell-tale signs of dog-eared pages in catalogues lying around the house.

The same should be true in a business context—for example, taking a client to that new lunch place they have mentioned a couple of times rather than the place you like best. Regardless, taking steps to buy from
their
list rather than yours is a small change that could lead to a big difference in appreciation. It will also go some way to ensuring that your dubious gift doesn’t end up on the web, in the garbage can, or, perhaps worst of all, in your gift pile next year.

R
esearch has long demonstrated the value of a generous spirit. After providing gifts, favors, services, or assistance to others, we become more liked, more appreciated, and even physically healthier. What’s more, those who have received from us typically stand ready to repay when we need something from them. This last benefit flows from the rule for
reciprocation
, which prescribes the willingness of people to pay back the form of behavior they have first received.

All human societies instill this rule in their members from childhood for a simple reason: It confers great competitive advantages on a group by encouraging profitable exchanges and mutually beneficial trade-offs between group members in vital arenas of interaction such as commerce, defense, and care. In the context of a workplace environment, this means that if you’ve complied with a colleague’s request for help on one of their projects—let’s say by providing effort, resources, or special information—then they should be significantly more willing to comply with a request for help that you might make of them in the future on a project that’s important to you.

With so many of the reasons for being a giver securely in the plus column, it would be easy to think that a large amount of giving on the job is the surefire route to success. Unfortunately, human psychology is almost never so simple. The truth is, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, even in the case of assistance. Take as evidence a study done by organizational psychologist Frank Flynn, who examined the consequences of favor-doing among employees at a large telecommunications firm. He measured the number of favors that workers did for one another along with a pair of noteworthy consequences. The first was the effect of favor-doing on the giver’s social status within the organization—in other words, the giver’s perceived worth to the company in the eyes of his or her coworkers. As you might have expected, those employees who were rated as more generous with their time, energy, and assistance to others were seen as more valuable. Achieving acknowledged social status in the workplace is no small feat and is a testament to the interpersonal gains that come from being a prodigious giver.

But the second consequence of giving that Flynn examined—productivity on the job—did not paint so sunny a picture. Eight measures of individual productivity, including assessments of both the quantity and quality of assigned work, showed that those employees with the highest-rated levels of assistance were significantly
less productive
than their colleagues. Why? Because they were so busy lending aid to others’ projects that they were unable to pay sufficient attention to their own.

What are we to make of this state of affairs? If being a particularly openhanded giver on the job results in high social status but simultaneously reduces one’s personal productivity on assigned tasks, what are we best advised to do? It turns out that there is a clear answer, one that emerged from another component of Flynn’s study. It identified a small single factor that amplified both the social status and the productivity of a giver. That single factor wasn’t the number of favors done. Instead, it was the
number of favors exchanged
. Employees who first provided beneficial aid on coworkers’ projects and then got beneficial aid in return maximized the profitable effects of the giving process—not just for themselves but for everyone concerned—by rating high on both status and production. Recall, this outcome is very much in keeping with the rule for reciprocity that is vital to all successful groups precisely because it fosters mutually advantageous exchanges.

The implications of these results for each of us are clear. First, we should be liberal and proactive givers on the job. And note the crucial importance of being the first movers in the process. Going first activates the rule for reciprocity and thereby boosts the potential number of favor exchanges that are so central to mutual success in the workplace.

Second, it is important to characterize the help provided, assistance given, or valuable information delivered in ways that heighten the likelihood that it will be reciprocated fully in the future. This requires making a small, but important, change to the all-too-common response that we typically give when people thank us for our efforts. It is a change that has the ability to provide some startlingly big improvements both in terms of future cooperation and future influence attempts. Here are three suggestions for possible changes to your response, each to be offered upon receiving thanks for help you have given first.

1. “I was happy to help because I know how valuable it would be to get help if I were to ever need it.”
   
2. “You’re welcome. It’s what colleagues do for one another.”
   
3. “Of course. I know that if the situation were ever reversed, you’d do the same for me.”
   

In summary then, the key to optimizing the giving process in the workplace is
to arrange for
exchange
, which itself involves two small but crucial steps that can make for big differences: (a) Be the first to give favors, offer information, or provide service, and (b) be sure to verbally position your favor, information, or service as part of a natural and equitable reciprocal arrangement.

There is another important implication of this research as well. As Flynn points out, as part of their formal performance evaluation process, many organizations ask managers to rate their employees on numerous factors, including how much help employees provide to their colleagues. Flynn suggests that managers should formally evaluate employees not just on how much help they give to others, but also on how often they ask for help from others. Communicating both criteria to the organization’s workforce, along with an explanation about why both are important, should go a long way to maximizing productivity by encouraging the provision of help as well as requests for help throughout the organization.

As authors, we hope that you will find a lot of benefit applying these
SMALL
BIGs both in your professional as well as your personal lives, and if you found this chapter to be particularly helpful, please let us respond by saying, “[choose here from 1-3 above].”

I
n the previous chapter we discussed how proactively seeking to help others and then characterizing that help in a way that heightens the likelihood of future exchanges can be a highly effective way to increase your influence—not just in that moment of obligation, but in the future, too. Because the principle of reciprocation encourages people to give back after they have received, the act of giving first is an especially good tool when seeking to develop new relationships, create engagement across teams, and develop long-term partnerships and opportunities with others.

But the rule for reciprocation is not a one-way street. While there are considerable advantages for influence afforded to favor-givers, what sometimes gets overlooked is the considerable opportunity for influence that exists for favor recipients.

Behavioral scientists Adam Grant and Francesca Gino thought that one way that the receiver of a good deed could increase his or her influence would be to explicitly convey gratitude toward the person or group who performed that initial favor. In one experiment in which the scientists tested this idea, participants were contacted via email and asked to spend time reviewing and then giving feedback to someone about a cover letter they had written for a job application. After sending in their feedback and comments, the participants received a second request from the cover letter author to read another cover letter.

However, this email took one of two different forms. In the control condition, the person who received the feedback simply sent back a note of acknowledgment as well as the new request. In the gratitude condition, however, the cover letter author sent back the exact same email, except in this one expressed a great deal of appreciation. (“Thank you so much! I am really grateful.”)

So what was the effect of the small addition of these eight words? The researchers found that this explicit display of appreciation
more than doubled
the compliance rates for the new request.

But Grant and Gino weren’t done yet. They also were interested in seeing whether expressing gratitude to a favor-doer had more wide-reaching effects. In particular, the researchers asked whether expressing gratitude toward a favor-doer could increase the favor-doer’s motivation to help others in general. To do this, they ran a second experiment that was similar to the first in many aspects: The participants helped one particular student by giving him feedback on a cover letter, and that student either simply acknowledged the feedback or clearly conveyed gratitude for the feedback. However, in this experiment, instead of the original favor recipient asking for another favor, a complete stranger asked for the (second) favor.

Again, the researchers found that the compliance rate more than doubled in the gratitude condition.

Consider the significance of this finding. Simply expressing sincere gratitude toward a favor-doer actually doubled the chances that the favor-doer would subsequently help out a complete stranger. Additional data that Grant and Gino gathered suggests strongly that this occurs because expressing gratitude increases the favor-doer’s overall sense of social worth—in other words, after receiving a signal of appreciation, favor-doers are more likely to feel that others value them.

But it is worth asking whether these impressive findings could be replicated outside of the laboratory in a fast-paced, real-life working environment. Grant and Gino thought that they could, so they set about testing these same ideas to measure how a genuine expression of gratitude might positively influence employee motivation. They chose to do so at a fundraising call center because they knew that fundraising can be a particularly thankless job, often characterized by frequent negativity and rejection.

In the experiment, half of the employees went about their day normally without any novel intervention; this was the control condition. However, for the other half, the director of annual giving visited the call center and thanked the fundraisers for the work they were doing. Specifically, she said, “I am very grateful for your hard work. We sincerely appreciate your contributions to the university.” That’s it. No handshakes, no hugs, no thank-you gifts—just sixteen straightforward words.

The researchers were able to monitor the number of calls the fundraisers made before and after this intervention took place. Whereas the employees in the control condition continued to make phone calls at the same rate, those in the gratitude condition made 50 percent more phone calls in the week following the director’s visit. Imagine the impact of this small but important change. Even if the extra calls made remained largely similar in terms of their effectiveness, the fact that their number substantially increased likely swelled donations.

This research highlights how much positive impact can come from the seemingly small act of communicating your appreciation for the favors done and the efforts made on your behalf. Although it might seem obvious, think how often you may have responded with a mechanical “thanks” without truly showing how really grateful you are or without providing any additional information for why exactly you’ve been appreciative for help. Or how many times you intended to send a thank-you note to someone but somehow never got around to it. Not only are these missed opportunities for communicating your genuine appreciation, they are also missed opportunities for future influence.

This research suggests that managers and organizations stand to benefit by actively seeking out opportunities to provide explicit thanks. Doing so could serve to engender a culture of appreciation across their workplaces, inspiring additional organizational good citizenship behaviors throughout their companies.

There is a potential for policy makers and civil servants to prosper from the small act of showing appreciation, too. Recognizing and thanking citizens for the role they play in keeping streets clean, neighborhoods safe, and recycling rates high could prove to be a lot cheaper than the costs associated with incentivizing those types of behaviors or the remedial work required when less appreciation is shown.

Whether that means you’ll be receiving a “Thank you for paying your taxes” card from the Internal Revenue Service or your city council anytime soon remains to be seen.

We bet you’d appreciate it though.