It’s Holiday Time! Plan Your Gratitude and Make it Personal ©

Christmas, Chanukkah, and Kwanzaa are just around the corner. Good leadership involves good planning. If you're a business leader, start thinking about your gratitude plan now.

Someone in your company, maybe even you, is going to send out holiday cards soon. Wait! If you were planning to send "generic," non-personal cards, don't waste your time. Your customers are too busy to open and read messages that have little thought and no personal meaning behind them. Generic cards send messages you don't want to send. Here's what they communicate, "Even though you spend thousands of dollars as a customer of our company, I am having someone on my staff send you this generic card. I don't have time to tell you how your business with us makes a difference in the lives of our employees and many others. I don't even have time to sign this card. So have a happy holiday and tape this great card to your wall!"

Buck this terrible trend! Get personal. Tell your customers how much they mean to you. Tell them why their business matters. And make sure your letters pass the "lick test." Your signature should smudge when someone's wet finger runs across it. If it doesn't, you're showing again that you don't care enough to even know what's being sent to your customers. Your photocopied signature says, "I don't value you enough to personally sign my letters."

I laugh every time I hear people say, "I don't have time to write personal thank you notes." I have an easy answer for them. They should send a blanket letter or email to all of their customers and everyone else they know at the beginning of the year. Here's what they could write: "I am way too busy to thank you personally for anything you're planning on doing for me this year. As I would prefer not to have the burden of thanking you for going out of your way for making my life better, please don't do anything especially nice for me. Don't give me presents. Don't help me with my projects. Don't open doors for me. Just cut me out of the picture. This way I will have no need to spend time personally thanking you."

Here's another great excuse I hear people give. "They know I appreciate what they did for me." Maybe they do, and maybe they don't. The number one reason people leave their companies is because of their bosses. Typically the employees who leave feel underappreciated; they don't feel that their bosses have appropriately recognized their contribution to the company. People leave marriages for similar reasons; they feel that their spouse does not value them.

One of the greatest gifts we can give others is the gift of appreciation for what they contribute to our lives. The best companies know this. Leaders know that companies are simply a web of individuals who coordinate their work on behalf of the company. All employees are just people; they want to be appreciated by their bosses, peers, direct reports, and customers.

So as you plan for this holiday season at work and at home, set enough time aside to thank people personally for everything they did to make your life better this past year. You'll feel good that you did, and you can bet they will appreciate your gratitude even more.

David J. Pollay is a syndicated columnist with North Star Writers Group, creator and host of "The Happiness Answer™" television program, an internationally sought after speaker and seminar leader, and the author of "Beware of Garbage Trucks!™ - The Law of the Garbage Truck™." Mr. Pollay is the founder and president of TheMomentumProject.com, a strengths-based training and consulting organization with offices in Delray Beach, Florida and Washington, D.C. Mr. Pollay is also the associate executive director of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA). Email him at david(at)themomentumproject.com.