It might be a random comparison, but here it goes: in Spain (or Canary Islands?) it is a common thing to gift employees a “cesta de Navidad”. It is a basket (now often more a box) full of goodies like local cheese, jamón serrano, wine and much more. As I personally don’t eat cheese nor meat this present for me was more a gift to my neighbours and friends last year. I still was happy, because I had some great memories sharing the good food with nice people.  
 
This year I suddenly received a message from my colleague that I had a special box with vegan ingredients in it. It made me so so happy! Why? Not because of the food that I love eating but mainly because my personal preference was taken into account in a simply thing as gifts. And for my (very busy colleague) it was probably just extra work to organize it. 

My key take-away from this? Extra effort to accommodate personal preferences is ALWAYS worth it! 

Maybe I sometimes wonder if people in my team could change their working hours to fit better to everyone else in the team? Maybe I sometimes wonder people in my team could also write in the team chat instead of emails because I feel that’s more effective?. Maybe I sometimes wonder people in my team could learn better English to communicate more effectively with the rest of the team? In the end, I realized with this gesture from my colleague again how great it can feel when people pay attention to your personal preferences and accommodate them!  

How about you, which extra miles have you gone to accommodate your colleagues’ preferences? Or which extra effort have your colleagues gone to accommodate your personal preferences?