"There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread."

~ Mother Teresa

Appreciation fuels productivity and reinforces relationships. It's important to know what makes a person feel appreciated. What do people like, enjoy, appreciate and value. Unlike a Briggs Myers test, we need to know more about their heart.

I found a book some years ago that I just love called the Five Languages of Love. According to Gary Chapman the author, the five languages of love are physical touch, quality time, gifts, acts of service and words of affirmation. You can take the official 5 Love languages personal profile assessment and determine the rankings of these languages in your life. The more we understand each individual person's heart, the more thoughtfully we can demonstrate our appreciation. It is always good to have a meeting with each of your team members and find out the best way to reward them. Some people appreciate a word of affirmation over a gift.

I surveyed property management site teams once with this question - What is the best gift you ever got from a business associate? Here are the answers: Pens, Monte Blanc pen, gold ink pen, emery boards, a nice bottle of wine, calendar, clock, sash chocolate, cookies, coffee mugs, design poster signed by the artist, dinner for two, food for the staff, tape measure, gift basket, gift certificate, leather checkbook cover, leather coasters, letter opener, screw driver, Christmas poinsettia, small flashlight, smile stamp, thank you card and watch!

There are a lot of creative and affordable ways to reward your employees. I just built a series of coupons for the following rewards:

• Well Day / next time they feel so good they don’t want to work they don’t have to fake a cough!
• Two Hour Lunch – really!!
• Sleep Late Coupon (arrive at 10:30AM)
• Get out of Jail FREE / next time they are in trouble they can use it to remind you they have been good!
• TGIT / Leave Early on FRIDAY 2PM

Take "physical affection" out of the picture and you just might find some inspiration for your business relationships. Maybe the Beatles were right "All we need is LOVE"!

Have you shown appreciation for your team, your supervisor, your company and your job? Go to 5lovelanguages.com and take an assessment about the right way to share appreciation with your team. Let people know the best way to demonstrate appreciation. Give me a comment and share your experiences on the site. My husband and I took the assessment first by ourselves, and then we took it together attempting to guess each other’s answer. It was really interesting to see how Doug answered some of the questions. I think this is a fantastic tool for better understanding how to show encouragement and support in a relationship. Thanks for your ongoing encouragement and support - I hope this enhances your business world!

Peace - Love - Joy

Toni Blake

Come back here and share your experiences at 5lovelanguages.com !!! Do you believe there a way to grow business relationship equity with: 

1.  Quality time?
2. Gifts?
3. Acts of service?
4. Words of affirmation?

I would LOVE to know how you use these important relationship strategies in your life!