Personal Notes

Yesterday I ranted a little about how important it is to stay personally involved with people by corresponding with them and returning their phone calls yourself when at all possible. Gauging from my site hits yesterday, it seems I hit a nerve.

One caveat from yesterday before I move on - vacations and weekends are exempt from my personal 24 hour rule. The trade-off is that Monday mornings are usually spent digging out from under a pile, but it is nice to unplug for a couple of days. I'm not nearly as good at unplugging as I should be, but I'm working on it.

In addition to returning phone calls and emails personally, I've adopted one other habit that I firmly believe may be one of the best kept secrets in leadership (not just ministry... leadership). That secret is the power of a handwritten, personal note.

I learned this from my buddy Rodney Cripps, who is now a pastor at a church in North Carolina. I helped him out with a retreat one time, and two days after we returned I got the most encouraging handwritten note from him thanking me for being a part of the event. He was a busy guy, but that was a habit he kept up, and it made a huge impact on me (that retreat was almost ten years ago, and I still have the note).

Because Rodney's note made such an impact on me, I decided to adopt this thing as a habit for myself. Yeah, it takes me a couple of hours every week, and yes, I suffer from extreme writers' cramp on occasion, but it's worth it.

You want to reinforce vision and values with the people you're working with? Think of it this way: a handwritten personal note from the leader will be read nine or ten times. Do you think they read your memo on vision and values that often? Don't count on it.

For example: one of our values as a ministry is being "externally devoted" - putting our hands and feet where our mouth is. Yesterday and Sunday we had about 20 young singles spending their evenings with one of our local ministry partners. Today, I'll be sending out about 20 hand written notes telling each of those young singles "thanks" for "putting their hands and feet where their mouth is." They'll know I noticed, and I get to reinforce our values in a piece of mail they'll enjoy reading. Why would you not write personal notes to people you want to encourage?

About a year ago, Max Lucado spoke at a conference I attended. What he talked about had a profound impact on me, so I sent him a note telling him so. About a week later, I got a handwritten personal note from Max Lucado telling me "thanks" for my note. If Max Lucado has the time to write me a personal note thanking me for a thank you note, you have the time to hand write a couple of notes each week to the people you serve with.

Just like yesterday's topic, it's all about investment. Is it worth 5 minutes of your day to fire off a few sentences to someone who is serving in ministry (or the company) well? Give it a try and see how much they appreciate you appreciating them. You won't be sorry for the investment.