If you want to be remembered, remember others, first.
Thank, applaud, congratulate, recognize, or honor one person (or more) every single day.
Make it positive, personal, write it out, do it now.
I was 26 years old and a junior manager in a Minneapolis retail music store. The way they went about teaching management was to put junior managers in charge of something real. One of my first “real” management jobs was to oversee stereo components sales in the company’s downtown store. I had a pretty tough, old-fashioned supervisor who had only a few requirements for my first month as a manager: conduct a sales meeting on Tuesdays at 7:30 AM, present a new selling idea to the group of 5 to be used for the next week, write at least one complimentary note to each salesperson during the month. More than one note was encouraged.
This was a truly daunting assignment. I knew very little about stereo components. I played the trumpet. All five salespeople were national, award-winners.
One of the long-time salesmen passed away one day. It wasn’t my fault. My manager came down and asked me to go through his desk to make sure there was nothing embarrassing to the deceased or the company. The family was coming in to spend some time in the department where the salesmen had spent most of his working life.
He used an old-fashioned Army Surplus desk with deep drawers, which I went through. In one really deep bottom drawer there was a big box of papers. I couldn’t make heads or tails of them, but I soon noticed that everything inside the box was in chronological order, with the youngest documents first. As I was trying to figure out what it was all about, I noticed that on every piece of paper, going back more than 30 years, there was a handwritten note from somebody making a nice comment about this gentleman’s work.
There were several notes from the company’s founder from more than 30 years ago, plus several hundred more up to that day. Some were just scribbles, “Great job with the Wilsons, we couldn’t crack them, you sold them”, “Thanks”, “You really did a great job resolving the concerns of the Olsons, they kept the merchandise after all. Nice going.” Then it struck me that he had likely saved every positive note he ever received. There, on top, in front was my recent handwritten compliment. I kind of teared up.
When his family came, I put the box on the top of his desk. His family members began going through it and talking excitedly about how many of these notes they knew about. Seems he talked about each note at the dinner table whenever he got one. As I think back over that dramatic day, in the context of my career, my resolution was to do a lot more consistent and constant thanking people, complimenting people, and congratulating people. Every month I hear from some of the people I have thanked during the last 40 years.
The lesson and perhaps the moral is if you want to be remembered, remember others, first.
My personal belief is that every supervisor, senior manager, parent, and leader has an obligation to look for others doing outstanding things, then take the trouble to personally recognize their accomplishments. These powerful communications often have lifelong impact.
Being memorable and remembered is your responsibility. If you want to be remembered, remember others, first.
Happy New Year,
THE DECENCY SISTERS
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