 Want to express your gratitude? Stop giving thanks. I'm Brian VanMiller on business. According to Inc.com, a recent experiment looked at how far a little appreciation can go when it came to being a good leader. Here's how it worked. A study involved 41 fundraisers at a public university in the U.S. The researchers randomly assigned them to two groups, the control group, which received no appreciation, and the gratitude group. This group received regular visits from the director to personally thank them for their hard work.