Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 12. If your Mom is even  half as great as mine, I hope you remember to tell her “thank you!” If you’ve  read my book, Building a Winning Business, you may recall that I am a  passionate believer in saying thank you. And in the case of mothers, we guys  have more to be grateful for than we even realized.

A fascinating little item in this month’s issue of The Atlantic describes some surprising results from one of the longest  running longitudinal studies of human development. The project, which began in  1938, has followed 268 Harvard undergraduate men for 75 years, “measuring an  astonishing range of psychological, anthropological, and personal traits—from  personality type to IQ to drinking habits to family relationships—in an effort  to determine what factors contribute most strongly to human flourishing.”

Turns out that our relationships with our mothers  matter – a lot! Specifically:

• “Men who had ‘warm’ childhood relationships with  their mothers earned an average of $87,000 more a year than men whose mothers  were uncaring.”
• “Men who had poor childhood relationships with  their mothers were much more likely to develop dementia when old.”
• “Late in their professional lives, the men’s  boyhood relationships with their mothers—but not with their fathers—were  associated with success at work.”

Wow, THANKS MOM!

If you’re like most Americans, you probably send  your mom flowers, give her a Hallmark greeting card and maybe even take her out  for brunch or dinner on her special day. But how do we appropriately thank our  colleagues and employees at work?

In my book, I describe some basic principles for  giving praise that help to build a culture of recognition. We all need sincere  praise when it’s deserved. This is a basic truth that effective leaders embrace.  When giving praise at Intertech, we try to be immediate and specific. Ideal  praise speaks to a specific action and the overall benefit it created for the  organization, while the experience is still fresh.

We also try to give employees the chance to “relive  the experience by asking them— In person—“how did you do it?” It’s also great  to give praise in writing (a memo or handwritten note versus an email) or in  public so the recipient can bask in the recognition in front of peers. As an  organization grows, everyone needs to be involved with giving appropriate  praise.