Gratitude shows up every November, usually squeezed between pie logistics and Q4 panic. Most leaders treat it like decoration. Nice sentiment, zero business value. The truth is the opposite. Gratitude is one of the simplest and most reliable performance systems you have, and most organizations barely use it.
In this episode, Jackson reframes gratitude as operational fuel, not seasonal fluff. When people feel seen, they contribute at a higher level. When they do not, performance slips long before skills ever do. Underperforming teams almost always became underappreciated teams first. Senior leaders miss that pattern because they are buried in dashboards and deadlines.
This conversation makes the case for gratitude as a hard business lever. It rewires focus, sharpens judgment, and accelerates trust. Teams with higher trust move faster, argue less, deliver more, and spend far less time managing politics. That is CHRO strategy in real time.
Jackson gets personal about the Thanksgiving chaos at home and uses it to illustrate how gratitude resets systems in the smallest and most human ways. And then he delivers five simple plays leaders can implement immediately: complete the sentence, start meetings with wins, write weekly notes, model it upward, and bring it home.
This is a practical, direct, and quietly powerful episode for senior leaders who care about performance, culture, and momentum.
Gratitude is free and renewable, and any leader who uses it intentionally will see clearer decisions, stronger teams, and far better results.
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