Time Required
Lead this activity during the first 10 minutes of a team meeting and try to repeat it once per month or once per quarter with a group of people who know each other well enough to offer appreciations.
How to Do It
- Introduce the activity: At the beginning of an in-person or virtual meeting with no more than 10 people, let the group know that the meeting will begin with a brief activity meant to improve trust, connection, and effectiveness.
Share the following guidance: We’re each going to appreciate the person to our left (for an in-person meeting) or the person whose last name is next alphabetically after our last name (for a virtual meeting).
Explain that an appreciation means describing something good or something you like about another person that includes:
- A specific admirable, uplifting, heartwarming, or otherwise good quality, characteristic, or behavior
- Emphasis on the person’s deliberate activity, actions, and effort—not inborn talent or physical features
- Some description of how this person’s goodness impacts you, the team, the organization, the community, or beyond. - Model appreciation by going first: Sample appreciations might include:
“Rahul, I really appreciate how well you organized our staff retreat. Your attention to detail made it so easy for all of us to engage and get a lot out of our time together.”
“Tanya, I appreciate the humor you always bring! Your jokes and quick wit make everyone laugh together, which I think really helps our team feel connected and problem-solve more creatively.” - Go around the meeting until everyone gives appreciation and gets appreciated. Make sure everyone knows who is appreciating whom next and that everyone gets appreciated (including yourself!).
Why You Should Try It
Sometimes, people on your team don’t feel appreciated. Research suggests that expressing gratitude to others is more than just a polite social gesture—it helps build trust and create a more collaborative and supportive workplace culture. When people take the time to acknowledge a colleague’s contributions, they communicate that the person is valued and that their effort matters. Many studies report that expressing gratitude increases feelings of affiliation and engagement, while also encouraging people to continue being supportive to one another at work. In organizations, gratitude functions like a social glue, reinforcing relationships and fostering a culture of mutual care and appreciation.
Research suggests that just witnessing gratitude expressed publicly can make people more helpful and that increasing gratitude at work makes “organizational citizenship behaviors,” where employees help each other, more likely. Over time, simple rituals like Appreciation Go-Arounds may help cultivate a workplace climate where people feel connected, help each other, and perform better.
Why It Works
This exercise is designed to make appreciation a shared group experience rather than a private interaction. By ensuring that everyone both gives and receives appreciation, the practice helps distribute recognition throughout the team and creates opportunities for people to notice strengths and contributions that might otherwise go unrecognized.
Appreciation and gratitude are slightly different. While gratitude is an expression of an emotional feeling in response to something good that another person did, appreciation is more of a recognition of goodness in someone that is not necessarily related to anything they did for you. Both of these expressions can lead to benefits in the workplace.
Evidence That It Works
Cortini, M., Converso, D., Galanti, T., & Di Fiore, T. (2019). Gratitude at work works! A mixed-method study on different dimensions of gratitude, job satisfaction, and job performance. Sustainability, 11(14), 3902.
Combining surveys with a 10-day diary study, researchers found that employees who experienced more gratitude at work reported being more satisfied with their jobs and performing better. In particular, relational gratitude—the gratitude exchanged between coworkers—was associated with stronger job performance, suggesting that expressions of appreciation can contribute to both individual well-being and organizational effectiveness.
Does your organization elicit gratitude—or make people feel taken for granted? Take our Grateful Organizations quiz to find out.
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The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.
The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.