Meaningful Thanks for our Customers and Employees
This week, in addition to thanking everyone reading this for their partnership and support over the last year, I wanted to talk about what a true "thank you" can look like to both our customers and our employees. As leaders, we face mounting pressure to get returns for stakeholders, create happy and loyal customers, all while maintaining engaged teams that can focus on their work. This is a lot.
The way to do this well may look different depending on your unique situation, but it feels similar when done well. I want to look briefly at three ways you can know if you are on the right path. Look at the following as three ways you can show your "thanks" to your team, your customers, and your brand.
Acknowledgement of reality. We have to start with the fact that employees, customers, and leadership know when we are avoiding the big issues or trying to paint a better picture of reality than we should. Let's be honest about the challenges, and by doing so, creating more willingness to collaborate on the solutions.
Willingness to be wrong. If you (or your team members) make the right choice every time you get a chance, you are by far the exception. Allow yourself, and your teams, the freedom to make mistakes so that everyone can learn from them in a judgement-free environment. This may be the greatest gift you can give your employees, and it may be the most valuable thing for your company and customers in the long term.
Focus on improvement. Finally, we can't truly get better unless we are focused on continual improvement. Not just hitting our quarterly or annual goals, but understanding why we did (or didn't) hit them and pushing ourselves further at every step. Even though it may sound like a lot of work to some, it is better to
Thanks again for everything you do, and let's work together to create better brands, happier customers, and engaged employees in the months to come!