I’ve just come off the phone from a client, Barry, who said ‘I should leave companies more often!’ He went on to say ‘I’m leaving my current organisation and I’ve received so many great farewell notes from people telling me what they’ve appreciated about me’. What surprised him was that some of the notes were from people he didn’t really know but clearly he’d had an impact on.

I take a couple of learnings from this. First, we are all very probably shining our Light on many more people than we realise – oh, and on some days casting our Shadow too! Let’s not underestimate the positive impact we can all have on others.

Second, we somehow have a world full of people who appreciate others but don’t necessarily say so in the normal scheme of things. And my betting is that this applies at home as well as at work. Is this ringing bells for any of us????

So this week please consider flexing that ‘appreciating muscle’ and let people know that we value them and what we value them for.

Why wait until they are leaving?

By Steve Radcliffe