Last fall I was asked to speak to 3,000 employees of a large

supermarket chain in the Midwest on building customer loyalty and

regenerating the spirit in your workplace.

One of the ideas I stressed was the importance of adding a personal

“signature” to your work. With all the downsizing, re-engineering,

overwhelming technological changes and stress in the workplace, I think

it is essential for each of us to find a way we can really feel good

about ourselves and our jobs.

One of the most powerful ways to do this is to do something that

differentiates you from all the other people that do the same thing you

do.

I shared the example of a United Airlines pilot who, after everything

is under control in the cockpit, goes to the computer and

randomly selects several people on board the flight and hand writes them

a thank-you note for their business. A graphic artist I work with always

encloses a piece of sugarless gum in everything he sends his customers,

so you never throw away any mail from him!

A Northwest Airlines baggage attendant decided that his personal

signature would be to collect all the luggage tags that fall off

customers’ suitcases, which in the past have been simply tossed in the

garbage, and in his free time send them back with a note thanking them

for flying Northwest.

A senior manager with whom I worked decided that his personal signature

would be to attach Kleenex to memos that he knows his employees won’t

like very much.

After sharing several other examples of how people add their unique

spirit to their jobs, I challenged the audience to get their creative

juices flowing and to come up with their own creative personal

signature.

About three weeks after I had spoken to the supermarket employees, my

phone rang late one afternoon. The person on the line told me that his

name was Johnny and that he was a bagger in one of the stores. He also

told me that he was a person with Down’s syndrome. He said, “Barbara, I

liked what you said!” Then he went on to tell me that when he’d gone

home that night, he asked his dad to teach him to use the computer.

He said they set up a program using three columns, and each night now

when he goes home, he finds a “thought for the day.” He said when he

can’t find one he likes, he “thinks one up!” Then he types it into the

computer, prints out multiple copies, cuts them out, and signs his name

on the back of each one. The next day, as he bags customers’

groceries-“with flourish”-he puts a thought for the day in each person’s

groceries, adding his own personal signature in a heartwarming, fun and

creative way.

One month later the manager of the store called me. He said,

“Barbara, you won~t believe what happened today. When I went out on the

floor this morning, the line at Johnny’s checkout was three times longer

than any other line! I went ballistic, yelling, ‘Get more lanes open!

Get more people out here,’ but the customers said, ‘No no’ We want to be

in Johnny’s lane-we want the thought for the day!”‘

The manager said one woman approached him and said, “I only used to shop

once a week. Now I come here every time I go by because I want the

thought for the days” (Imagine what that does to the bottom liner) He

ended by saying, “Who do you think is the most important person in our

whole store? Johnny, of course!”

Three months later he called me again. “You and Johnny have transformed

our store! Now, in the floral department, when they have a broken flower

or an unused corsage, they go out on the floor and find an elderly woman

or a little girl and pin it on them. One of our meat packers loves

Snoopy, so he bought 50,000 Snoopy stickers, and each time he packages a

piece of meat, he puts a Snoopy sticker on it. We are having so much

fun, and so are our customers!”

That is spirit in the workplace!

– Barbara A. Glanz