Friday thank you

This is such a quick win.

Through your working week, make a note of everyone who helped you. I always like to thank people there and then, but by the end of the week, before everyone is logging off for the weekend, it takes about 2 seconds to write a quick note to colleagues that helped you.

Always be sincere. It is also useful to explain the impact that their help had on you. As well as thanking people, you can also use this opportunity to congratulate people for work well done. If their efforts inspired you or made you feel proud to work with them, let them know!

If you’re trying to think of things to thank people for or provide positive feedback on, have a think about values that they might have displayed in the course of the week. Maybe your company has a set of published values that it encourages employees to work towards. Use them to guide you. Agile ways of working also provide values that you could use for inspiration.

The Scrum Framework encourages the values of Focus, Openness, Respect, Courage and Commitment. Where have your colleagues deployed those values this week? The three pillars of empiricism (Transparency, Inspection and Adaptation) point to values as well, such as honesty, attention to detail and flexibility. Perhaps you could lean on your faith, upbringing or personal values to help identity specific ways that your colleagues have helped or inspired you this week.

A sentence or two costs nothing but the rippling dynamics of wellbeing and generation of seratonin and oxytocin are well worth it.

However, not only can this brighten up their day (and weekend) it can also make you seem a lot more approachable. If people and interactions are more important than processes and tools, this is a free tool that might encourage more face to face interaction further down the line.