Leadership impact in minutes a day

Leaders, steal these two ideas now. Not tomorrow… seriously, now.

1. Friday thank you’s are a 5 minute exercise in morale building and team centric esprit de corps. It is an astute and no brainer leadership move. I will show an example below.

2. Why birthday cards done right is a savvy leadership move. 

Friday thank you’s:

Mine is a small team so in this case I was able to mention folks by name.

This was a text to my leadership team: "A shout out for your work this week.  Teri, you amaze with your expertise, leadership and incredible stamina. Carita, thank you. Lots of travel and still performed beautifully. Patti, clear growth, contribution and learning the ropes.  Liz, fine work on CRM. Your eyes on this are invaluable and appreciated. Catie, stellar behind the scenes work with Metro and SCRTTC...your ownership shows. Sophie, stop being the smartest one of all of us and superb work on our social media. Joseph you Rock and looks like we might get busy with you again soon. Alesia, tough financial management lately that you handle w grace and calm. Ellen, great support work and as always you are my favorite ;). K"

I have also written in more general terms :

This was an email to same group: Hi All, Happy Friday. This has been a crazy week with 3 projects coming together simultaneously. Here is what I saw....I saw each and every one of you taking personal, ownership over not only your part of the equation but offering help to any that needed it to get it done. Your work and how you bring yourself to it is one reason I love being a part of this team. Thank you, I am personally grateful and have a great weekend.

Note: Not everyone, all the time, is acting with this level of altruism, even on my teams. By calling it out though, anyone who self examines would probably realize that fact and hopefully strive to do better and be worthy of the praise that we all seek. That’s effective team coaching and takes very little time.

Birthday cards that raise actually raise morale and have ROI:

Here at Insight we send birthday cards to “VIP’s”. That is, people who promote us or have been especially helpful to our org in any way. It is both appropriate and good business to acknowledge them is some special way. 

Here is an example of the impact of those cards from the head of HR at a large transportation org.

"Just wanted to say thank you to you guys for the birthday card. Boys and I had a great day. Hope all is well, and please let me know if you need anything. Finally, wanted to let you both know that I had the opportunity to present for CTAA at the NJ Transaction Conference in Atlantic City, and Insight’s work in the Mid-Manager program is part of what allowed me to present valuable information on hiring and retaining staff. Thanks again for making a difference.”

Not bad huh?

Finally, this idea is harder and you will need logistical support but the impact is off the charts. Get the birthdates of the children of those folks who work for you or in your dept. Send them a card that wishes them a happy birthday and thanks them for letting their parent go every day and be a part of (company name).

You, the head of dept would sign for your team. The next level down for their team etc. A manager with a 200 person team will be signing less than a card a day. No big deal time wise, big deal morale wise.

Yes, it takes a bit to set up but once done it is pretty straightforward. And trust me us parents love our kids and we love those who love our kids.

A letter from one of my employees kids.

If it sounds a bit corny, I stole the idea from the Captain of a Navy Destroyer, Michael Abrashoff. They don't do corny on a Destroyer.

All the best,

Kevin