The Power of “Thanks”!

Most of us were taught it early on by our parents. A habit reinforced during our school days. It became a particularly important ‘life-skill’ on special occasions like Birthdays and Christmas’. This practice was ingrained to the point of becoming an automatic response. Sometimes, sadly lacking in spontaneity or even sincerity.

I am of course, referring to the practice of expressing thanks. For kind deeds. For friendship. For exceptional service rendered. For just being ‘them’.

In one of the subsidiaries of my previous employer we became fixated on the benefits of people expressing their gratitude - to catch things being done 'right'. Correctly so, I still believe. In the process we introduced a “thanks!” program whereby supervisors were given a sum of money by the company, allocated on a per-head basis, to be able to spontaneously express their gratitude to deserving employees. The reward was meant to be tailored to the preferences of the recipient (movie tickets, meal vouchers, supermarket credits, and so forth) so as to result in the greatest perceived benefit. And you know what? At the end of each year there was typically money left in the “thanks!” budget. As odd as it might seem, supervisors didn’t use the money allocated to them to the fullest extent possible. Odd that.

The reason I write this is because of a little girl that my wife and I recently met while on a visit to Bangkok. On our way back to our hotel after dinner each evening, we would walk across an overpass on a main road. Each evening this young girl and her destitute mother and infant brother could be found at the same spot begging for money. We’re not in the habit of giving much if anything, on these occasions but something struck a chord inside us about the smile and innocence of this young girl. So we bought her a small and inexpensive toy at one of the night markets on our last evening there. On our way back to the hotel we came across her again and I knelt down to give her the toy. Her mother looked on quizzically. The girl’s eyes widened with excitement as I showed her how the toy (a wooden frog with a small stick to run across its back to make a “croaking-like” noise) worked. She was fascinated. It might well have been the first gift she’d received.

We needed no expression of gratitude to understand the impact our small gift had had on her. Her smile and gleaming eyes said it all. But as we walked across the overpass we heard a very loud and joyful call from this now excited young girl. “THANK YOU!” she yelled from the bottom of her heart. Such spontaneity. Such impact.

I'll long remember that moment.