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This Month's Featured Programs:

Self Directed Teams

-Coaching to empower your team
-Establishing guidelines and contingency plans
-Communication strategies
-Encouraging independent problem solving
-Follow through expectations and clarity

Lynn designs programs specific to her client’s needs. She has developed 300 modules over her last 15 years as a training consultant. Modules can be combined or added to any program to create the ideal session for your company. 

Feature Article

The Power of a Thank You!

This article has been prompted by several personal life observations of late – hence the title “The Power of a Thank You!

Sometimes as managers we fail to remember just how “big” we are in our staff’s lives. We are the person who guides them, empowers them and determines their performance rating. In their mind they often see their job and goal as one of pleasing their “boss”. And yet … I hear directly from staff that they rarely receive a Thank you!

A “Thank You” takes little time and effort and yet can mean so much. They are polite, showings of appreciation and certainly demonstrate that the person delivering them has noticed a job well done or shows appreciation. In my mind it makes the person delivering the thank you a “cut above” by taking the time to acknowledge someone else’s effort. Let me give you an example. Each year I am one of 6 women who enjoy a Christmas celebration together. We’ve done this for 16 years. We draw names and know who we are giving a gift to. I decided to do a little extra this year giving everyone a handmade gift. Here’s what happened. Approximately 10 days after our dinner 2 of the ladies sent me beautiful hand written thank you cards with well thought out acknowledgment of my effort and special attention to detail. They were not e-mailed and certainly not texted. Think carefully about this please. What did these 2 women do? They elevated themselves and stood out above the others in caring and professionalism.

In my leadership classes I have an exercise where I ask “How would you like to be described by your staff?” So with this example I ask you, “How often do you simply take the time to say … Thank You?” When you do this take the time to describe what you are acknowledging. This becomes a form of developing your team as well. Here are a few examples:

“Thank you, I appreciate your taking the extra effort to ____________.”
“Thank you, I can always count on you to __________________.”
“Thank you, your acceptance of this change in our department has __________.”
“Thank you, I know this has been difficult for you and I appreciate your determination/commitment _____________.”
“Thank you for taking your personal time to ________________.”
“Thank you for understanding _____________________.”
or
“Thank you, I appreciate your hard work.”

On the subject of thank you I will include my personal bias on e-mails. I realize that e-mail is a very efficient form of communication in the work place however; I often find it cold and impersonal. To offset this I use “thank you” or thanks as a closure in almost all business communications. I have received e-mails that felt like “ice” coming across a screen myself. As I spend so much of my time in coaching I’ve come to understand how the employee feels about communication from their manager. So … my closing suggestions to the managers reading this is also to take 2 seconds and add a “thank you” to the end of your e-mails.

Showing appreciation feels great! You will reap the rewards.

Thank You….

Lynn Giuliani

get your our own custom program

Contact Lynn at 360-319-6776 to schedule your custom designed program.

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