Diana Chapman and Jim Dethmer introduce Commitment 7, which is about appreciation in leadership. They discuss John Gottman's research showing you need five appreciations for every criticism, then exchange specific appreciations for each other's work.
Tuesday, September 1st.
Hi everyone. This is Diana Chapman and I am here with my co founder, Jim Dethmer. Hi, Jim. Hi, Diana.
Hi everybody.
We are here to talk about commitment number seven, which is the commitment on appreciation. And Jim, I wondered if you'd be willing to read the commitment and the counter commitment.
Sure, I'd love to. So the commitment when I'm above the line and in presence reads like this. I commit to living in appreciation, fully opening to both receiving and giving appreciation. And the commitment below the line sounds like this. I commit to feeling entitled to what's mine, resenting when it's not acknowledged in the way I want.
So I was with a team this week and I had lunch with Leader, the CEO of the organization. And he was so appreciative of his team. And it was interesting to me that when I went and sat with each of the executive team members one on one, how many of them were really concerned that they weren't being appreciated or perhaps that the CEO didn't think they were right for the role, which was really surprising.
You know, it seems to happen quite often. We'll talk to leaders who think that they're being more appreciative than the people around them are experiencing them to be. And one of the things we refer people to is in the chapter on appreciation in our book, we reference this ratio, the five to one ratio. We actually got it from John Gottman, the coupling expert who realized that that ratio is really important to having great relationships. So one of the things to ask leaders to pay attention to is what's the ratio between sincere, authentic appreciation and any kind of, you know, even constructive criticism or coaching? And most leaders will discover that that ratio isn't being met at 5 to 1 if they place their attention on it for a while, then people start to experience the leader as being deeply appreciative and themselves as being appreciated.
Exactly. So I want to do my five to one appreciation, Jim, and offer you an appreciation. One of the things I appreciate you for is your incredible commitment to keeping your agreements. I can reliably count on you to do exactly what you say you're going to do. And if you're not going to be able to do it, to renegotiate with me. And I can't even think of very many times you ever do renegotiate. It's very, very seldom because I think you're so thoughtful about making sure that you are going to follow through. So I'm sorry. Grateful for your role modeling around that and for how much we are all served because of it.
Thanks. Yeah. So I want to appreciate you for two things. One, I want to appreciate you for the way you safeguard, defend, protect and clarify our brand. I experience you as ruthless about paying attention to details, from our fonts to colors to words, to what gets written or created in videos. You're so good at determining what's on brand, off brand, what really supports us as being aligned with our brand. And I feel like you just stand on the gate ruthlessly protecting our brand. I love that. And then second, ah, I want to appreciate you for bringing feminine leadership to the world. So much of the world is still living from a masculine orientation towards leadership. And Diana, I experience you to be somebody who is so in your feminine power and clarity and standing so wonderfully for the dance between the masculine and the feminine in leadership. And I believe what you're standing for is really the future of where leadership is headed. So I appreciate you for doing that with me with our organization in the world.
Thank you so much. So we would love to have you all join us for our next phone call talking about appreciation and happy to answer your questions and dialogue with you on that. Since the first Monday of September lands on Labor Day, we're going to hold the call on Tuesday, September 1st. So if you would like to join us, there's information here in the newsletter to do so.
Well. Have a great month giving and receiving appreciation. You know, some leaders have a far harder time receiving appreciation than they do giving it. So open yourself up to being appreciated as well. Enjoy the month and we look forward to talking to you on our call.
Goodbye, Jim.
Bye, Diana. Bye, everybody.
Bye, all.
