Saturday Edition

dispatches from the new world of work

Jim Warren's Message!
And You?

I'm a lucky guy. Over the years, lots of people have said lots of nice things to me.

But few can top Jim Warren.

Who's he?

No idea.

Jim Warren left a phone message.

I guess I mentioned that I live in Tinmouth, VT somewhere in The Little BIG Things.

Jim W was in O'Hare.

Guess he used directory assistance or some app or another.

I'm listed in the phone book.

He called and left a message on our home phone answering machine.

He gushed and gushed about TLBT.

Wow!

There's a message or three or seven in Jim W's message:

One never gets tired of positive feedback/appreciation/recognition. (More precisely, "Thank yous.")

Spontaneous Acts of Thoughtfulness are Mighty Love Bombs.

SATs are MLBs that can lead to stratospheric profitability.

SATs are at the Heart of repeat business.

I'll [literally] remember Jim Warren, "the O'Hare guy," until my last breath.

I'll talk about Jim Warren until my last speech.

The fact that JW went to the effort (a) to call, (b) to call from the airport, (c) to go to the trouble of finding me adds multiplicative power to the act.

So:

When was the last time you "did a Jim Warren"?

Will you promise me to "Do a Jim Warren" at least once today, at least three times this week?

Will you use/urge "Jim Warren-ism" at your next ops meeting?

Will you measure your "Jim Warren-isms"?

Will you remember to tell your folks that the likes of me will remember Jim Warren approximately forever?

Will you tell your folks that this is TMALBTs? (The Mother of All Little BIG Things.)

NB1: Jim ... THANK YOU.

NB2: JW was not at all sure he'd gotten the "real me." Well, Bubba, you did!!!

Tom Peters posted this on 05/11/10.

Comments

Love that story Tom. Most of us don’t say ‘thank you’ for the most mundane things. I‘ve had bosses and colleagues who say; 'Why the hell should I need to thank someone for doing what they are paid to do?’

Those people just don’t get what you are talking about. Jim Warren would not melt their hearts like he would melt mine and clearly did yours.

We need more Jim Warren’s in business school teaching our youngsters.

Posted by Trevor Gay at May 15, 2010 2:09 PM

What I get from this is not only the thought to say "thank you", but Mr. Warren's EXTRA EFFORT to do so. How many times have you wanted to say thanks, but the effort to actually reach out and DO IT would involve more time than you currently wanted to spend.

BRAVO to Mr. Warren for overcoming the inertia and reaching out. Very inspiring. THANK YOU!

Posted by gayle at May 17, 2010 7:56 AM