The initiative that increased performance the MOST - Love Week!

I have always thought kindness binds us. That the impact of random acts of kindness means more than we realise. Now, I have proof.

Back in 2014 I came across an initiative that a silicon valley company were doing for Valentines Day. The idea was that everyone in the company did something nice for someone else for Valentines Day, but secretly. I thought it was such a sweet idea that I adopted parts of it, but instead made it an entire "Love Week". Everyone in the company picks someone's name from a hat, then the following week you do something nice for that person every day, without them knowing. In order to aid the secrecy, we call ourselves "Secret Angels" for that week.

It could be anything, like making them a cup of tea, writing them a note or a song, making them a playlist, framing a picture from their instagram account. The options and creativity are limitless. Here are some examples from our last Love Week:

Everyone receives and everyone gives. Every day for a week.

The giggling, the excitement, the big smiles, and the kindness spreading changes the feeling in the office, adding a new layer of chemistry - it makes us closer.

Then on the Friday afternoon we have the big reveal, where we all stand around in a circle and each person shares what their favourite Love Week gifts were and tries to guess who their Secret Angel was. If you unsuccessfully guess, then the Secret Angel reveals their identity, steps forward and says "IT WAS I". People then usually hug and say thank you. It is truly heartfelt.

We have been doing Love Week every 3 months for the last 4 years here at Verve - because people love it - it spreads joy, and it binds us together.

As I run an SEO agency I am slightly obsessed with data and measuring results. For the last 5 years we have been using an internal tool for measuring results and output for our clients, this measurement is called LinkScore (the tool does what it says on the tin, it measures the value of a link). Our largest team by far (nearly half the agency) is being measured by this metric, which gives us the unique ability of being able to track performance over time.

About this time last year, as I was reviewing our annual performance across all clients, I had a "Eureka moment". I wondered how pay-rises, bonuses and things like Love Week impact performance. So I ran the numbers, going back to 2016. The ONLY thing that significantly improved performance over the years was LOVE WEEK!

Turns out LOVE IS really all you need.