Do you know when you lose someone, you often reflect back and wonder if there was more you could have done whilst you still had the chance?  Well this week something a bit like that happened on one of the communities I moderate on.

One of the moderating team, a well respected member of the community for several years, wrote a message in the staff room part of the site saying that he was handing in his badge.  He revealed that his love for the community had been slowly ebbing away and as he was no longer enthralled and excited to be a member, he didn’t feel able to continue as a moderator.

Nothing could be done to change his mind, and so an announcement was made on the public forum that he’d be a moderator no more, at which point a flood of tributes for him gushed forth from members saying what a great guy he was and so on.

All worthy praise indeed, but unfortunately a little too late to bring him back into the fold.  Now of course it’s only natural that members come and go.  They are after all mostly volunteers and so there may be many things going on in their life that hinder their ‘duties’ on your community.  Rather than providing you with an excuse however, I feel this is all the more reason to show some love to your team as often as possible.

I wrote about some research last year that looked into the kind of things that gave us the biggest kick and made us feel great about ourselves.  The usual suspects were expected to be dominating the list.  You know, things like sex or chocolate.  Except none of those things came out on top.  Do you know what did?  A simple thank you.

So all of you community managers out there, don’t wait until your staff lose their love and slowly drift away.  Instead make sure you show them how appreciated they are, and show them as often as you can.  The research showed that this simple means of boosting self-esteem is a sure fire way to achieve an engaged team.