Something Simple Yet So Powerful #organizationalculture

Michael Berry
Aug 9, 2017 · 1 min read
John Alberghini (superintendent) and that other guy

Every day for the past year we (John Alberghini, Superintendent, and that other guy) have sent a happy birthday email to everyone in our organization on their birthday. In that email, we included the above gif.

This was a new thing for our staff. It was new to me too. And the feedback we received was incredible. I can’t tell you the number of times people went out of their way to thank us for the email, thank us for the funny “video” and to thank us for taking the time to recognize their special day.

This is one of those small things that’s really a big thing.

I can’t recommend following this practice enough. We’ve actually made an updated gif for this year, just to keep it fresh!

Why a gif? Because we can include it in the body of an email, there’s no sound so people can see it wherever they are and because there’s just something not as personal as sending someone a link to a video. Call me ol’ fashioned.

Michael Berry

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