I recently received this email from a person who was in my audience at the Society for Human Resource Managers annual conference where I was speaking on “Spreading Contagious Enthusiasm™-Creating Workplaces of Passion, Purpose, and Productivity”:
Barbara,
I recently attended the SHRM conference in Orlando and had the accidental privilege of hearing you speak. After walking around the convention center all morning, I found myself lost on the third floor with blisters on my heels. Unable to go any farther, I hobbled into your session. I’ve never been so glad to be in pain!
Initially, I had not planned on attending your session because I had seen you several years ago. I bought your books and I even got to meet you in person at a book signing. Boy, did your session re-energize my spirit! I currently work for a younger manager who believes that employees are just a Craigslist ad away. He even told me, a dedicated employee of 25 years, that “anyone who’s been here more than 5 years is complacent and worthless.” Needless to say, our workplace is not the happiest place in the world. Our manager does not even say hello when he passes by. It’s very demoralizing to go to work everyday.
But your session gave me renewed hope that I can possibly make up for his ignorance by using acts of kindness to perk up our staff. I have already dug through your books and found ideas for a short survey that I can give to the staff as soon as I return to work.
Thank you, Barbara, for the kick in the pants I needed to reverse the negativity in our workplace!
Sincerely,
Cynthia Pearce
HR Director
I immediately wrote Cynthia to thank her for the affirmation and to encourage her with even more ideas of small things that cost little or no money. Just this week she wrote back with this reply: “In the spirit of appreciation, I asked the chef to save all of the leftover Ice cream novelties for me to share with my co-workers when I pass out paychecks tomorrow. It’s very warm here, so I’m hoping my ‘Ice cream (I scream) my appreciation of you’ goes over well! Thanks again for the motivation.”
One of the joys of my mission is helping people create fully engaged workplaces of caring, creativity, FUN and ultimately greater productivity, and the best news of all is that it DOESN’T have to cost money. Way to go, Cynthia — you are making a difference!
Go to www.barbaraglanz.com/ideas and check out the archives for even more ways to make your workplace a great place to be. You can also subscribe to my free monthly email newsletter, “Spreading Contagious Enthusiasm™,” for a new idea every month.
