I was hanging out with Julie this weekend when she received a text from our daughter, “I love you soooooo much”. Wow – what precipitated that, I asked? Julie had sent Isabel a care package with the usual goodies including, of course, food. But here’s what prompted the Wow: Julie made a little cardboard box and labeled it “You Are Special”. She filled it with notes like, “You’re really creative”, “Thanks For Being A Good Listener” and “You’ve already accomplished so much”. Julie told Isabel to take a note out of the box and read it whenever she was having a bad day or feeling stressed. Hey, I need one of those boxes, and I bet you do too.

What a fantastic team building exercise this could be – and you can do this without having to hire a team building facilitator like me. At your next group meeting ask everyone to create a box for one of their co-workers. Then ask your entire team to add notes to each of the boxes. The following week have everyone take their individual boxes filled with notes and keep them on their desk. This could be really powerful because these are affirmations created by co-workers who know us.

Try this with your team, then please come back and comment here to let me know the impact this has. I can’t wait to hear your news and I’ll report back on everyone’s experience in a later blog post.

Creating and implementing ‘You Are Special Boxes’

  • Ask each team member to create a personalized box for another co-worker
  • Have everyone add personal notes to each of the boxes
  • Distribute the personalized boxes to each of your team members
  • Ask everyone for periodic updates about how they’re using the boxes
  • Monitor how this increases communication, sharing and morale
  • Comment back here to let me know if this was an effective team building exercise

Billy Kirsch

About Billy Kirsch

Billy is a Grammy & Emmy nominated, CMA & ACM award winning songwriter with numerous Top 10 hits to his credit. His team building programs and keynote speaking presentations help people tap into their creative abilities to become more innovative and engaged in their work. Clients include Fortune 100 companies and organizations throughout the world.