The Impact of a Written Note

The Impact of a Written Note 

 

We did a Kaizen event last week...it went well, more on that in later posts. 

 

But just a few minutes ago, I was on our production floor and two of our associates turned and said "Thank you!" as I walked up to them.  I looked a bit surprised and they said "For the note!"

 

Oh yeah.  After the kaizen, I wrote a short, hand-written note to the home address of each of the seven folks on the team.  Not a big deal...they even had to wade through my less-than-Palmer-Method handwriting to make sense of it.  I just expressed my appreciation for them being on the team and contributing so many good ideas. 

 

And the note seemed to mean a lot, perhaps more than the mere effort to send it. 

 

As I've said many times before here, a Lean environment is a high-change-rate environment.  For it to work, there must be a reservoir of trust.  And one way to build trust is to say "Thank You" in numerous ways. 

 

In this email-driven, largely impersonal world, a hand-written note stands out, more clearly than ever.  It is so unusual, so unexpected, so surprising that it becomes memorable.  Take a moment today and mail a short, hand-written note to someone who deserves a "thank you". 

 

I hope this is helpful.