Power of Gratitude

1. If The Only Prayer You Ever Said Was Thank You, That Would Be Enough - Meister Eckhart

2. Introductions
Deepa Nambiar

3. Let Us Start with a Caveat
What we are talking about today is some Positive Psychology
techniques
We are not Medical or Psychology professionals, but we do cite
professionals and studies.
If you suffer, or fear you suffer, from anxiety, depression or any other
mental health issue please contact a professional
Gratitude is not a Panacea and research on efficacy goes on.
See :
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200309130010.htm
Gratitude interventions don't help with depression, anxiety

4. What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is the readiness to show appreciation and to return
kindness.
Gratitude can be an emotion that we experience after receiving
something - a gift, help, anything.
The feeling of gratitude motivates us to return it into action. We are
naturally inclined to pay it back or pay it forward.

5. In the chat pop answer some questions? Who you are, Where you
are and Have you ever practice Gratitude?
Who is here?

6. Gratitude - Parent of all Virtues
The experience of gratitude has historically been a focus of several
world religions
● Hinduism
● Buddhism
● Christianity
● Judaism
● Islam
Grateful people sense that they are not separates from others or
from God. This recognition itself brings a deep sense of gratefulness

7. Expressions of Gratitude in Ancient Cultural &
Religious Contexts
Numerous festivals are celebrated around the Globe from ancient
times to show gratitude …
● American Thanksgiving Day is patterned after ancient traditional
ritual of honoring harvest/bounty…
● Sukkot (Jewish)Harvest Festival (Festival of Ingathering)
● Lohri/Pongal/ Makar Sankranti (Indian) Harvest Festival
● Chung Ch’ui (Ancient Chinese) Harvest Moon Celebration
● Cerelia (Ancient Roman) honoring Ceres
● Lammas Day (Old English) Bread-Mass

8. What are you Grateful for Today?
Please take few minutes to reflect what are you grateful for today?
Instructions:
● Take a note of what are you most grateful in life.
● Take a note of what are you grateful for today.
● Try to share your thoughts with others.

10. Gratitude in Business
Managers who remember to say "thank you" to people who work for
them may find that those employees feel motivated to work harder.
Researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
randomly divided university fundraisers into two groups. One group
made phone calls to solicit alumni donations in the same way they
always had. The second group — assigned to work on a different day —
received a pep talk from the director of annual giving, who told the
fund-raisers she was grateful for their efforts. During the following
week, the university employees who heard her message of gratitude
made 50% more fundraising calls than those who did not.

11. Gratitude - Physical Health
Physical Health Studies by Emmons and McCullogh suggest gratitude...
● Strengthens the immune system
● Lowers blood pressure
● Reduces symptoms of illness
● Makes us less bothered by aches and pains
● Encourages us to exercise more and take better care of our health!

12. Real Proven Mental Health Benefits
● Gratitude unshackles us from
toxic emotions
● Gratitude helps even if you
don’t share it
● Gratitude’s benefits take time
● Gratitude has lasting effects
on the brain

13. Gratitude Boosts Happiness
Another leading researcher in this field, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a
psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of
various positive psychology interventions on 411 people, each
compared with a control assignment of writing about early memories.
When their week's assignment was to write and personally deliver a
letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked
for his or her kindness, participants immediately exhibited a huge
increase in happiness scores. This impact was greater than that from
any other intervention, with benefits lasting for a month.

14. Some Ways to Cultivate Greater Gratitude
● Write a thank-you note. You can make yourself happier and nurture your relationship
with another person by writing a thank-you letter expressing your enjoyment and
appreciation of that person's impact on your life. Send it, or better yet, deliver and
read it in person if possible. Make a habit of sending at least one gratitude letter a
month. Once in a while, write one to yourself.
● Thank someone mentally. No time to write? It may help just to think about someone
who has done something nice for you, and mentally thank the individual.
● Keep a gratitude journal. Make it a habit to write down or share with a loved one
thoughts about the gifts you've received each day.
● Count your blessings. Pick a time every week to sit down and write about your
blessings — reflecting on what went right or what you are grateful for. Sometimes it
helps to pick a number — such as three to five things — that you will identify each
week. As you write, be specific and think about the sensations you felt when
something good happened to you.
● Pray. People who are religious can use prayer to cultivate gratitude.
● Meditate. Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on the present moment without
judgment. Although people often focus on a word or phrase (such as "peace"), it is
also possible to focus on what you're grateful for (the warmth of the sun, a pleasant
sound, etc.).

15. Many Many Many Books on Gratitude

16. How can we use this in Agile?
Let’s discuss
How you could build these exercises into:-
● Agile,
● Agile Coaching
● and Agile Ceremonies.
Explore big things and little things!

17. How to show Gratitude in Agile Ceremonies
Daily Scrum: Few Examples Thanks
● Everyone to be on time in the Daily Scrum Meetings.
● Everyone daily scrum lasting no more than 15 minutes.
● Teammates who updated their status on jira.
● Team to complete a User Story on time
● Encourage team/or SM to show gratitude for a team member who helped or
resolved something important previous day.

18. Scrum Planning:
● Thanks PO to share the Sprint Goal well in advance and also prioritize the
backlog.
● Thanks team if they have estimated the stories well in advance.
● Thanks team if they updated the team calendar that help in capacity planning.
● Thanks team to complete the planning session on time.

19. Scrum Review:
● Thanks for Product Owners, stakeholders, customers and users who are willing
to interact with us on a regular basis to help us create great products.
● Thanks for a team dedicated to meeting their commitments by getting stories
completed and really do it iteration after iteration.
● Thanks for managers, directors, vice-presidents and others in the chain of
command who pay attention to macro metrics rather than micro metrics.
● Thanks to any support team like HR, Finance, support or any other team who
helped us in resolving impediments.

20. Retrospective:
● Setup Kudo (appreciation) retrospective regularly
● Always start the retro with appreciating what we have achieved in the last
sprint no matter how little it is.
● Thanks each and every team member for their contribution and efforts
● Thanks for an understanding Scrum Master who uses servant leadership which
leads us to success without micromanaging or using command and control to
get us there.

21. Practicing Gratitude in Scrum Team :Case
Study
On the surface these digital platform teams were doing everything fine. Their scrum
ceremonies, working in iterations, developing iteratively ;however there were lots of issues
in team like team conflicts, trust issues, lack of respect and lack of psychological safety in
team.
● We started practicing gratitude with two of the teams:
● We introduced them with the concept of Gratitude
● Set up a Gratitude wall and start writing thank you note on it
● Ask them to show authentic gratitude towards their colleagues, peers, mentors.
● Ask leadership team to practice gratitude wherever possible.

22. Key take aways
● The most important result was it creates sense of ownership in team members.
● Teams velocity increased by 20 % with in 4 sprints
● Improved committed vs completed ratio an average of 95% in 4 sprints
● Burn down flows get better
● Team collaboration increased which results in faster and better delivery
● Trust issues resolved which boost the value of respect, focus and commitment in
team
● Helped in creating better physiological environment hence boost the value of
openness and courage.
● Happiness index increased by 50% with in 4 sprints
● Health improvement
Practicing gratitude increased productivity through staff empowerment, reduced
meetings and email, and greater real-time communication. All team members felt
motivated, creating a positive and fun loving team culture which result in faster and
better delivery .

23. Sources of more Information on Gratitude
● https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier
● https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-research/
● https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_you
r_brain
● https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2014/11/23/7-scientifically-proven-benefits-of-
gratitude-that-will-motivate-you-to-give-thanks-year-round/?sh=500f207183c0
● https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3010965/
● https://www.heysigmund.com/the-science-of-gratitude/
● https://health.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2015-2016/11/20151125_gratitude.html
● https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200309130010.htm