The Starfish Story – engaging hearts and minds

As the old man walked the beach at dawn he noticed a young man ahead of him carefully picking up starfish from the sand and placing them back into the sea. Finally catching up with the youth, the old man asks why he was doing this. Because the stranded starfish will die if they are left in the morning sun, he replied. But the beach goes on for miles and there are thousands of starfish everywhere, scoffed the old man, how can your efforts possibly make a difference? For a moment the young man contemplated the starfish in his hand before tossing it gently into the waves. It makes a difference to that one, he said.

A story by Loren Eiseley

This lovely little story was sent to me this morning. In the absence of starfish in the Milton Keynes area this sunny morning, I will be metaphorically be trying to make a difference in my own little way. What starfishes will you make a difference to today?

Lost purse leads to amazing customer service!

Being the slightly ditzy person that I am (I know it’s hard to believe!), I once again found myself in a situation where I’d lost my purse and was having to go through the process of cancelling my cards. The fact that the most likely reason for me losing it is because I left it on top of my car and then drove off is another story!!!!

Anyhow, the reason I write this short and sweet blog is because on a trip to my high street bank, I experienced some of the best customer service I’ve received for a long time. Two ladies behind the counter bent over backwards to help with what I needed and were absolutely lovely in the process. So I decided to find their manager and let them know what a great job they’d done. I asked one of their colleagues if I could speak to their manager and you could see immediately that they thought that someone was in trouble! The manager came out and couldn’t have been nicer but was also hesitant to begin with and surprised when all I had to give was positive feedback. The best thing for me though was seeing her immediately take some action to feed this back on to the two ladies who had made my day.

It made me a bit sad to think that for the most part we are so used to hearing how we could “improve this”, “make this better”, “try harder” that recognition for a job well done comes as a surprise.

When you’re out and about – whether at work or at play – if you see somebody deliver great service, go out of their way to help you or just make you smile – let them know that it makes a difference to you!

Appreciation changes everything!