At the end of 2024, my team had the opportunity to meet in person, and I wanted to bring them some New Year’s gifts. I wasn’t a manager yet and didn’t know my teammates well enough to give personalized gifts, so I decided to give them books. I picked four books that really helped me in my career, but which one would go to whom? I got creative!
Part of our retrospective meeting is choosing a “meme of the month”. And I also decided to appreciate their meme-making efforts 😂. I created a fun presentation full of memes, with a wheel of fortune at the end. Whoever “delivered” the most high-quality memes was the first to spin the wheel, and so on. Everyone enjoyed this fun little activity, and we agreed that these books would be an extra motivation for us to get together again and do a book swap!
1. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones;
2. Thinking, Fast and Slow;
3. No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention;
4. Principles: Life and Work.
In fact, the idea behind choosing these books is this: we have skills, abilities, and values. When you are less experienced, you want to focus on your skills, and with "Atomic Habits" I learned how to pick things up quickly and easily; then there are abilities, and with "Thinking, Fast and Slow" I learned a lot about my decision-making process, biases in general, and other “deeper” things; "No Rules Rules" is all about values, and it gave me a lot to think about my own values, and in the end I chose "Principles: Life and Work", because principles are how your values are implemented
Love these thoughtful idea,Anton. The Grafana widget hack is brilliant such a subtle yet impactful touch. Have you noticed if personalized gestures like these improve retention or team morale in the long run?
This week's 1:1 gift: "Radical Candor"
Next week's 1:1 gift: "I have some feedback for you, it might be difficult to hear..."
(lol)
For promotions, I would fire off one of those confetti tubes. Got this idea from another EM who used an air horn, but that was too much for me.
😂😂
I think even those simple gestures as confetti do wonders - just to show you care.
At the end of 2024, my team had the opportunity to meet in person, and I wanted to bring them some New Year’s gifts. I wasn’t a manager yet and didn’t know my teammates well enough to give personalized gifts, so I decided to give them books. I picked four books that really helped me in my career, but which one would go to whom? I got creative!
Part of our retrospective meeting is choosing a “meme of the month”. And I also decided to appreciate their meme-making efforts 😂. I created a fun presentation full of memes, with a wheel of fortune at the end. Whoever “delivered” the most high-quality memes was the first to spin the wheel, and so on. Everyone enjoyed this fun little activity, and we agreed that these books would be an extra motivation for us to get together again and do a book swap!
Wow, that's super creative, loved it! :)
I'm curious, which 4 books are those?
1. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones;
2. Thinking, Fast and Slow;
3. No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention;
4. Principles: Life and Work.
In fact, the idea behind choosing these books is this: we have skills, abilities, and values. When you are less experienced, you want to focus on your skills, and with "Atomic Habits" I learned how to pick things up quickly and easily; then there are abilities, and with "Thinking, Fast and Slow" I learned a lot about my decision-making process, biases in general, and other “deeper” things; "No Rules Rules" is all about values, and it gave me a lot to think about my own values, and in the end I chose "Principles: Life and Work", because principles are how your values are implemented
Love these thoughtful idea,Anton. The Grafana widget hack is brilliant such a subtle yet impactful touch. Have you noticed if personalized gestures like these improve retention or team morale in the long run?
I have tried different ones, those are Lakshmi’s ideas :)
My sample size is a bit small, but I would say they definitely do
Great piece as always, it's incredible how far low-cost, high-impact gestures can go. Love the placard idea!
Thank you Greg! I agree, there is just no excuse to skip trying one of those :)