“Missing Manners, Missing Business” Explains Laurie Brunner

Management expert Laurie Brunner reminds us just how impactful sending a handwritten or e-mailed thank you letter can be in her most recent PRESIDENT & CEO Magazine article, The Lost Art of Thank You.  Brunner makes the case that in business as well as personal life, a simple and sincere thank you letter can dramatically increase the chance of a positive outcome and even stay with the receiver for years to come. 

Brunner’s article does a great job highlighting that this simple kindness can make the world go ‘round and that even historic leaders Nelson Mandela and George H.W. Bush follow this forgotten, yet symbolic art form. For decades thank you letters were a critical business practice that has seemingly vanished, along with actually saying “Thank you” for a job well done. Yet it has not diminished in importance and relevance.

Brunner reflects on a recent encounter with a colleague who has kept an old, well-faded thank you letter from a past employer written on cheap notebook paper in his wallet. Just a few scribbled lines impacted this man enough to carry it with him daily for 18 plus years.

Expressing appreciation for people and the work they do is a practice that has declined, but the feeling of being thanked still has a long lasting impact.  Brunner encourages her readers to re-establish the lost art form of saying thank you as a way of encouraging progress and building bridges both professionally and personally.