Welcome to you and thank you for joining me for this next 20 minutes. I am Jeanette Grace. I am the CEO and owner of a communication consulting company called Expressive Communication Consulting and Training.And I've been doing this in some form of training or education for well over two decades. And what I'm here to talk with you in this next 20 minutes is one of my most favorite things to talk about and it's about secrets of people that like to work with us or work for us. So it's about how do we create our influence. A couple of things. I want to start off saying there is a poll. So if you would, you know, participate in that you should be able just to click on the little tab that says polls and there are four options. It'd be interesting to see how you perceive yourself. Um Also feel free to ask questions anytime I have my eye on the chat questions, comments, sharing, it always creates a better environment for people to learn as you invest your time here at this conference. So with that, I want to jump in with, with something that you probably all can relate to. And that is babies. So babies have this incredible ability to attract people to them. Right. Strangers, neighbors, animals. There's something about babies that, that were very much drawn to.

And I was curious about this type of behavior as I went through my career. What I noticed is that there were some people that I worked with and I imagine you can relate. There are people that you like to work with people you want to, uh maybe get on their team or teams that you want to be a part of. And at the same time, there are people that you avoid people when they back when we were all in the same workplace that when they passed you in the hallway, maybe you looked away, you acted like you were busy. Um People that you think, oh my gosh, don't put me on a project with that person because I know they're not going to pull their weight, whatever the reason is. So this little baby right here in front of you grew up and had this insatiable curiosity about human behavior and kind of what gives people that it factor, you know, that same, it factor that babies have and that baby grew up to be me. So what I knew several years ago with my curiosity is that I had some theories of my own about what are the secrets that make people wanna work with us and work for us.

But I also was smart enough to know that those were just my theories and I needed to test them. So what I did is I came up with this concept of G factor G factor defined as the gravitational pull that a person any of us has that draws other people to us. So things that create or improve our ability to influence others, what we can do so that people do want to work with us or work for us. If you're a leader or you own a company, what can you do to attract great talent and keep those people? If you are an individual contributor, what can you do to be sought after to be sought at a after to be seen as possibly a source of expertise to increase your own personal brand by the way. So what you're going to see before I go forward is a QR code over there in the bottom left corner that is if you would like to take the G factor assessment. So what I'm talking about today, I did create this book that I'm going to talk about in a moment so you can get the book on Amazon.

But if you want to take the assessment to find out where your G factor is, feel free to do that, there are actually eight G factors and with 20 minutes, I only get to share one with you today. So it's a great way to get access and to learn what the other ones are. All right. So let's talk about G factor, right? What creates this, this gravitational pull? Here's what I did. I surveyed 834 working professionals. I put a, a survey out into the public people. I knew people, they knew random strangers and gathered both demographic data as well as data that answered the question. Why do you like working with people? What makes you trust someone? What makes you wanna work for them? What makes you wanna work with them? And I provided over 20 different descriptors. Now, what I didn't do is label them because I didn't want to bias any of the answers based on labels. So instead I, I just pretty much put characteristics or behaviors and I asked people which, which ones are your top ones? And I took that data. And after I looked at that data, I was really surprised because some of the things that I thought my own theories, what I thought created G Factor was not necessarily what did create G factor. So from those 834 people, what I did is I wrote and published this book called G Factor Eight Secrets to Increasing Your gravitational pull at work. And in this book, yes, there's the assessment.

But again, you can take the assessment for free click on that QR Code and it will take you right to the to the assessment. Uh but I wanted to do a little more than just write on what those 834 people said what they reported on. So I did more research and I reflected on my own experiences, like who are people in my life that represent these g factors, who are the people in my life that I've wanted to work for, loved, working for, loved working with. And from that, I developed some stories, I also did some looking at what are the excuses we use. You know, how do we get in our own way? Because if you're someone that you want other people to gravitate to, you need to know what gets in your own way. And then also I looked at the research that already exists that supports these concepts. So I'll be sharing some of that with you today. All right. So here is number one, what you get to hear today is the number one G factor. The number one secret that makes people wanna work with us or for us, the number one secret that helps us to be influential, to help us to be sought after that where we are seen as it, some others want to be around kind of having that it factor.

So gratitude, it means showing appreciation. So you might be thinking, wow, that doesn't sound very complicated and you would think that it isn't except we're missing opportunities all the time to express appreciation, to express our gratitude. So here's some research that I found that supports what these 834 working professionals said there was research done in 2002. So this research is almost 20 years old. So you may say, well, Janette that's kind of dated and I get that. But what I can tell you is the other research that I've looked at continues to support this. So this was Emmons and Shelton, this was out of the University of California here in the United States. And what they found is that gratitude does influence societal functioning as well as collective well being. So how does this relate today when we're talking about employee engagement in the workplace? One of the tenets of employee engagement is employee well being. Do employees feel like their leaders care?

Do employees feel like their organizations care? So one way we create more well being in the workplace and getting people to work with each other teams to work effectively and productively is we use gratitude. Now, what I wanna say is that we, we, you just can't be throwing out thank yous here and there. It's really important. There's some research if you have ever heard of the book, The Five Love Languages, they've also continued on and looked at that same concept in the workplace and there are five languages of appreciation. So when we express gratitude, what those authors say is that it has to be genuine, it has to be genuine. It's by Gary Chapman and Paul White. If you, if you want to Google that the five languages of appreciation in the workplace. So if you really want to enhance well being and societal functioning in your workplace and on your teams, the gratitude you express really needs to be genuine and it needs to be meaningful. And here's some other interesting research this came from Burson and Associates in 2012 saying thank you, thank you. Two words in however you say it in your language saying thank you or making employee recognition a priority remarkably results in a 14% increase in employee engagement and their productivity.

So employees are doing better when they're hearing. Thank you or that they are being shown that they are appreciated through recognition. So let's talk about recognition a little bit. Everybody likes to be recognized differently. So it's important that we get to know one another in the workplace.

So for example, one way for me to feel recognized or that a leader appreciates me is when they spend one on one time with me, that quality time where they know what I'm working on, where they're there to answer my questions where they are curious about my ideas, but that may not be the same language of appreciation for you.

So we wanna get to know the people around us, the people we work for the people that we lead and figure out really what it is that makes them tick. What, how does the thing you need to sound? What does it need to look like? All right, some other interesting research this comes out of the field of positive psychology. Um Martins Seligman is considered to be probably the father of positive psychology, excuse me for a moment. And what he found when he did some research, this was published by the way in the um Harvard medical School health letter about 10 years ago, he had students write and then personally deliver a letter of gratitude. So not an email, not a text message, but write with their hand on a card on a piece of paper and then deliver to that person. That letter of thanks, that letter of appreciation, the gratitude. And what he found is when people did that, their happiness scores had a huge increase. So this is what's so cool about G factor is not only does it increase somebody else's happiness but it increase yours. So there's like a double return on investment. I'm gonna look at something here. Um oh Melinda. So it is saying that it is not secure. Ok. So Melinda put in the chat, I noticed to take the G Factor assessment and it says it is not secure. Is there any other way to take this?

Tell you what Melinda if you um what I'm gonna do is throw my email here into the chat because I honestly, I cannot tell you why it's doing that it should be secure. My, it's attached to my website and my website is supposed to be secure. So very concerning. So, thank you for that Melinda. So if you, there's my um email in, in the chat and any of you, if you're finding you're having problems with it as well, or you're uncomfortable with that notice, um send me an email and I'll make sure that I get the link to the assessment with you after I figure out what's going on on the back end.

So, so thank you for that. All right. So um going on because we have gosh, we, we're already at seven minutes. So think about this, if when you want to express appreciation, where are the opportunities to write it out? Even if it's on a post it but even better a card with, you know, an envelope that you have to close and write somebody's name on it and personally deliver it to them. You know, in the time of COVID, we may not have that luxury. So it's ok to pop it in the mail, but you are going to increase your ability to get others to wanna work with you or for you just by expressing appreciation, by writing a note of gratitude. All right. So some excuses I hear from people. Let's talk about those for a moment. One is why should I have to and the sentiment here is why should I have to thank you for doing what you were hired to do or for doing your job. You're supposed to create that report, you're supposed to edit that. You're supposed to share your ideas. You're supposed to be on time for a meeting. And the truth is you don't have to. Absolutely. It is your right. It is your choice not to express appreciation. But what the research is telling us is that when you do recognize it, that somebody made an effort to do something well, to do it on time, to be there on time. When you express that appreciation, guess what?

You perpetuate that behavior because human beings are really simple, we respond to that positive reinforcement. So if you ever ask yourself, why should I have to thank this person for fill in the blank, know that you don't have to. But if you do and if it is genuine, you are going to increase your de factor. OK? And Alice says the QR code worked for her. OK? So the QR code and it's not showing insecure. So again, um for those of you, if you didn't see that my um and thank you Graziela for putting my my website in there. Um If you email me because I have to give you a particular link for that G Factor assessment. If you email me, I'll make sure that you get that. Oh, you're also helpful. Thank you. I am grateful for you. I honestly do appreciate it. Ok? Um Another excuse I hear is, you know what, I'm just too busy. I'm too busy to take time to thank people. Thank people. I have too much work to do. I have my own stuff that I need to take care of. But if you are to make gratitude, a practice, a daily practice, genuine gratitude, you will not feel like you're too busy. So for example, uh one thing that I did and again, this comes from positive psychology is doing if there's, there's shades of research around this. But writing down three gratitudes at the end of every day and being specific about what they are and then sharing those with people.

Once I got into the habit, I wasn't too busy. And once I got into the routine, it actually was very quick to do so make a goal for yourself where you seek out reasons to express your appreciation, seek out people so that you start noticing that beauty around you because again, that's going to increase your G factor. All right. So as I said, there are eight different G factors and you'll see those pop up here on your screen and they go in order um from the highest percentage from the research that I did to the lowest percentage. Now, remember I asked about over 20 different behaviors. So these were the top ones that came out of that research. I, I have some of my favorites. Um gratitude is the number one, I think having a good sense of humor is, is a great, great skill to have as well. Um generosity that is about showing kindness and concern to others guiding is how do we coach people better instead of directing? How do we ask more questions instead of telling people what to do generate that is, how do you inspire and be infectious that is figuring out what makes you uniquely you.

Because there's also some research around that that says with generate, if you figure out your one distinguishing strength, something that makes you extra special, you double your chances of being inspiring. So that's really great news, right? Genius. This is really about knowing what you're good at and also knowing what you're not good at. Uh Grant. I talked about Grant earlier in my session this morning about psychological safety in the workplace and Grant is giving yourself and other people permission to make mistakes, intelligent failure.

And then gather that one is about who do you have in your sphere of influence? Who do you have in your circle? And are they people who are lifting you up? Are they people who are helping you or are they the people that are dragging you down? So we want to think about who those people are because we wanna be filling our world, not with just guest people, not just people who nod their head and tell us what we want to hear, but people who are genuinely interested in giving us a good feedback so that we can continue to grow.

So this is me. If you wanna connect with me, uh feel free, you can find me on linkedin. There are two ns in my first name that might be helpful. Uh You can also find me on Twitter at expressive trng for training and then Expressive CCT that is my business Facebook page. And those are places where you'll find information. I do uh monthly webinars. With the exception of June free webinars around psychological safety. I put out an article every week. Um I'm posting some things that I read that are really interesting. So if this information is interesting to you and you wanna learn more, that's a way to connect or, or hear what it is that I share with you. So, with that we are at the final minute. Are there any questions that Oh, thank you, Melinda II. I love talking about this. It's one of my keynote. Um So when I keynote, I get to talk about a couple of others and we do some fun activities but in 20 minutes, I have to really shrink it down. Um Any anything? Thank you so much, Janine. I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Yes, I would love to connect. Reach out to me. The gather slice is so important knowing your tribe. I love it. Graziela, knowing your tribe. So, Amanda, thank you. Thank you Whitney. Thank you.

Um Any tips, if one gets less than 10, that's where the book really comes in and help. Um That was from the, the book, what I have at the back of the book is actually an action plan. So you can look at what your G factors are and it has multiple suggestions and then it also takes you a plan to figure out how to apply that so you can grow your G factor. So my time is up. Thank you so much for being here. Enjoy the rest of your conference.