Show Genuine Appreciation
I was never the cool youth leader with sunglasses and a whistle.
I was the dorky one with a Palm Pilot.
Many years ago, my wife volunteered to chaperone a ski trip the youth group from our church was taking. She doesn’t ski and thought that it would be nice to sit in the lodge, watch the stuff, and arrange to get cocoa to everyone when they came in from a day on the slopes. I was a reasonably avid skier at the time, and thought that getting a lift ticket for the day sounded like fair payment for making sure a bunch of high school kids didn’t spend the day doing any of the things that high school kids try to do but shouldn’t so I tagged along. I was excited to hit the slopes mostly unencumbered with the crushing weight of managing kids. Because – and I cannot stress this enough – I am terrible with adolescents.
Flash forward 2 years and I was on my second ski trip with the youth group. This time, my wife and I were full on running the youth ministry – in a twist of fate I still don’t understand. Without getting into the gory details, the full-time youth pastor was leaving and the main volunteer ended up having some very valid reasons for needing to step back – leaving us to figure out how to run a youth ministry when neither of us really had a background in anything relating to youth group. We knew we needed to get some help so that our team had some depth.
As a side note in case you’re wondering how the skip trip went: Instead of skiing and listening to 90s rock, I ended up driving a student and her sister to the hospital because she broke her arm. I am morally bound to add that she did it on a triple black diamond saving a baby from a bear. It definitely was not because she fell on the bunny hill. No way was it the bunny hill. (Side note: the 2009 Flo Rida remake of “Right Round” is not at all appropriate for a youth group trip. I didn’t know this at the time – cementing that I am terrible with adolescents.)
We eventually did get a pretty solid volunteer team built up, and we made it a priority to let them know how appreciated they were – primarily because we were terrified that they would leave and we’d be back to doing it all on our own again. In order to make them feel appreciated, we made a point of sending thank you and encouragement notes somewhat often. It didn’t take much, we just jotted some quick thoughts on a blank notecard. Sometimes we put a small “thank you” gift in there, but the vast majority of the time it was just a card that we would either send to them or put in their weekly packet of papers.
Just this past week, one of those volunteers (who incidentally went on to be far more successful in ministry and then their own business) texted my wife and I a picture of one of those notecards from 2011. Nine years they kept this card. They sent it back with a very nice message of encouragement, but it hit me that no one keeps a scrap of paper around for almost a decade unless it means something to them. And he did. He did keep it around for a decade. Something that took all of ten minutes to complete between the both of us has been kept around for that long.
A little over a month ago, I was fortunate enough to preside over the 2020 VMUG Service Awards – including the President’s Award, which I was fortunate enough to receive in 2015 and have bestowed in 2019 and 2020. Because we couldn’t be together for me to hand them to the recipients in San Francisco and Barcelona in person, I wanted to write small notes of appreciation to the winners and include it with the glass award. It probably took me an hour and a half to get through all of them, and I did most of them in that beautiful 10 minute buffer you get after a Zoom meeting when everyone else agrees they need some time to reset before their next meeting. (Important side note: schedule video meetings for 25 minutes or 50 minutes. Stop it with the full-hour video meetings. We’re all sitting in front of a camera more than a news anchor these days, so give people time to stand up, stretch, and maybe get a fresh coffee.)
I noticed when people started receiving their awards, many of them posted not just the award but the card with it. Some of the comments that showed up on LinkedIn were people being surprised that a handwritten note was in the box – as if it was some sort of mythical thing that no one’s ever seen before. I got a few people who reached out to thank me for the note, which blew me away because the whole point of the note was to thank them for what they did for VMUG!
I actually don’t recommend that you get cards that say “Thank You” because sometimes you want to say “congratulations,” or “sorry about eating your entire birthday cake.”
Still, you get what you get in Creative Commons, so here’s a Thank You card.
As self-aggrandizing as this all sounds, my point is simple: people appreciate being recognized and they appreciate when you can put a personal touch on it. To help make my point, I can certainly say it the other way around – people don’t care much for impersonal congratulations. I know in 2018 when my father died, we got a note of sympathy from “President Trump.” I put it in quotes because there’s exactly a 0.00% chance that the President of the United States got word of my father’s passing – even if he was an Air Force veteran. The note was clearly a form letter that was spit out of an HP LaserJet printer on blank stock, shoved in an envelope by a disgruntled intern who wanted to be a Congressional page and mailed along with the newest issue of Inane Celebrity Gossip Magazine. It carried about as much weight as a fly.
Much has been written about the impact of recognition and appreciation for teams from their leader. Lee Cockerell calls it the “free fuel.” David Novak calls it “the secret weapon to leading others.” Showing genuine appreciation for the efforts and contributions of others is a cornerstone of leadership, and I don’t feel like I could add a ton more to this conversation. And I know a lot of the folks that read this blog are technologists who are not managers or leading teams, so how can (and why would) you use this powerful tool? Let’s break it down.
This person took it WAY too far. Do not do this. Do not even consider doing this.
Just say “Nice job - way to get after it,” or something.
Think of the last project you worked on. Maybe you were standing up a greenfield environment to replace an aging compute infrastructure, or maybe you were migrating your apps from an on-premises datacenter into a public cloud. Either way, it’s highly unlikely you did it alone. You probably relied on someone to get their part of the work done before you could start, or you ran into a problem and needed to get some help to get over a roadblock or technical challenge. The point is, you almost certainly benefitted from someone else. And they would probably be blown away if you sent them a crisp thank you note in your own penmanship.
If you think that’s hokey, consider this: people genuinely prefer to do favors for people who are appreciative and who reciprocate when the need arises. That’s only natural. If you happen to work in a large organization, this may be even more valuable for you. You may not work side-by-side with staff from other technology groups every day, but if you were to send a note expressing your appreciation - I bet they would certainly remember you. Perhaps you’d jump the line the next time you interfaced with them. It certainly can’t hurt.
This is good for more than just “thank you” notes, too. Did someone on your team recently complete a certification or accomplish a big project? Did they finally solve the latency issue you’ve been struggling with for years? Send them a note to congratulate them. The point is that you don’t need to be in an authority position in order to give someone on your team a mental lift by putting pen to paper – and I can’t stress this enough – it takes almost no effort and very little time compared to the benefit it provides to the recipient… and yourself.
Let me close with some advice Go on Amazon and get some plain notecards. I tend to prefer simple ones that have an “A” on the front or something. (Though in fairness when I’m writing one in an official capacity, I use one with the logo of either my employer or VMUG on the front.) Before you check out throw in a Uni-Ball pen (looks so much better than a ballpoint on paper). Your total outlay at this point should be less than $15. Now, in the four hours it takes Amazon to show up to your front door, spend some time thinking about the people you work with. Has someone done something to support or help you? Did they hit a milestone? When the Amazon delivery person ding-dong-ditches you to let you know your stuff is delivered, write one or two notes and then drop them off on their desk or send it their way via the actual postal mail.
Our theme in pictures today has been “stuff I don’t recommend.”
Just get a rollerball. Why you gotta complicate everything like this?
All of that should take you less than 15 active minutes. For the paltry sum of 15 dollars and 15 minutes, you may have found a way you can make a statement and set yourself apart. Lots of people talk about the importance of defining your brand, and I think being a vocal supporter and appreciator of the people around you is a pretty great thing to be central to your brand - it’s certainly a good thing to be known for in your organization. But even if you don’t take my advice and make this a part of your regular brand, you probably just made someone’s day.
And isn’t that worth 15 bucks?
Questions for reflection:
When is the last time someone showed you heartfelt appreciation? How did it make you feel?
Can you tell when someone is being fake or just “phoned it in?” How does that change your perception of their actions?
Who are you going to write a note of appreciation or congratulations to? (I’m not letting you off that easy.)
