I received an email last week from a colleague of mine thanking me for some advice I had given him about distributing a survey through a listserv not owned by the School of Government.  At the time, I didn't even realize how important my critical thinking was.  It was just my way of thinking out loud about the process that he was going through to collect the data he sought.  I was able to lend some insight into the process, but I definitely did not think I would get such a nice email follow-up. 

His nice email went as follows:

This made me start thinking about the importance of sending thank you notes or emails.  It is really nice to get an unexpected email from someone thanking you for something small that you did.  I think that we should make this more of a habit.  Of course, I'm not trying to add more work to our already busy lives, but this business, like so many others, is about relationships.  There is no better way to build a relationship than to say something nice for someone. 

Here's my quick list of why we should send more thank you notes.

1. They don't take THAT MUCH TIME.  As I just mentioned, as an event planner, I'm usually pretty busy on a day to day basis, but a quick thank you to someone that helped you out shouldn't take that much time out of your day. 
2. It makes your day.  This point is two fold.  Not only do you have the potential to make the other person's day better, but by doing/saying nice things your entire mindset is shifted and it actually can make your day better too!  We all need little things to make our day better sometimes. 
3. You build a relationship.  The person that sent me this email isn't someone that I work with on a daily basis, but now I am eager to work with him further on projects.  Of course, my work will very much dictate our interaction.  Still, his thank you note proved that he is a very nice and thoughtful person.  I would most certainly go out of my way in the future to have interactions with him work related or not. 
4. It is contagious.  This point goes to the idea that people should pay-it-forward.  A little act of kindness can be contagious.  Since receiving this little thank you, I've tried to make sure that I send a thank you to someone that has helped me and/or saved me some time. 
5. People savor it.  I'm not sure if other people do this, but I keep a little folder in my email called "praise emails".  Whenever I receive a thank you email I make sure to file it in that folder.  It's really convenient to look at these during review time to come up with examples of how you contributed to your organization.  It's also really great because most of the emails we receive on a daily basis have some kind of directive or question that needs answering.  I savor my thank you emails greatly. 

Now, when you craft a thank you note you obviously want it to be meaningful.  A simple "thanks" doesn't usually make the cut to put in the praise email folder for me.  However, the ones that are specific and descriptive have enough depth to them to be noteworthy.  Make sure you write what you're thanking the person for and how it helped you.  Trust me, it means a lot.  People work hard and want to be recognized for their efforts.  There's no reason not to let them know you appreciate what they do. 

There are so many people I work with that make my job easier, and they deserve all the thanks in the world.  Luckily, the School of Government has faculty and staff that are truly lovely to work with.  People here are really thoughtful and quick to acknowledge good work when they see it.  It certainly makes coming to work everyday easy!