In an era of AI avatars and digital overload, something as simple as a handwritten note can feel like a relic of the past. In fact, many Gen Zers can’t even read cursive.
But for First Watch CEO Chris Tomasso, old-fashioned notes of appreciation are a ritual.
The leader of the $1 billion-a-year in revenue breakfast and lunch chain takes time each month to handwrite congratulations to cooks and dishwashers celebrating major milestones, like 10, 20, or even 30 years with the company. With more than 15,000 employees, Tomasso has penned over 500 notes—and believes the small gesture has an outsized impact.
“I just love people that pick their lane, they love it, and they don’t want to do anything else,” Tomasso told Fortune. “They want to be the best dishwasher they can, and so I want to thank and reward loyalty, longevity, [and] the contributions that they make to the company.”
Tomasso traces his approach to a moment early in his career. At 26, he received a handwritten thank-you note from his CEO at Hard Rock Café—a letter he’s kept to this day. When Tomasso became a CEO himself in 2018, he decided to carry that same people-first philosophy forward.
“I tried to minimize the [CEO] title as best I can when I’m interacting with people,” Tomasso said. “I eat lunch in the break room with everybody, which always, for whatever reason, blows new employees away—that I just sit down next to them and bring my lunch and have lunch with them. I think it’s a shame that there’s that feeling.”
It’s a simple act that reflects a broader leadership lesson: connection matters.
“Our job is to create an environment where our employees are happy and feel appreciated and they take care of the rest,” Tomasso added on LinkedIn. “And they do it better than anyone.”
The power of a thank-you
While technology has made the world faster and seemingly less personal, slowing down to send a handwritten thank-you note is a practice countless business leaders say still can’t be beat.
Geoffroy van Raemdonck, the CEO of Neiman Marcus, has long embraced the gesture. Before the pandemic, he would send three to five handwritten thank-you notes every day. With the shift to remote and hybrid work, he now supplements them with text, emails and quick phone calls—but the sentiment remains the same.
“I was taught by great mentors of the power of sending a thank-you note,” van Raemdonck told Fortune in 2023. “It’s really important for me—the moment of ‘thank you’—because I know what it is to receive a thank-you, to be acknowledged.”
Mike Wirth, chairman and CEO of Chevron, also takes time to send “old-school, on paper” messages of appreciation to employees across the global energy giant.
“I think back to when I was early in my career, and if a CEO had sent me a letter and actually knew what I was doing, it would have been a really big deal for me,” Wirth said on the How Leaders Lead podcast with host David Novak. “And so I try to remember what it was like to be in the jobs that I’m visiting and that I had those jobs myself one time. And I want to make sure that people know that I appreciate them.”
The art of putting pen to paper isn’t lost on younger leaders either. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, for example, often ditches screens when he’s problem-solving.
“I think of writing as externalized thinking. I still, if I have a very hard problem, or if I feel a little bit confused about something, have not found anything better to do than to sit down and make myself write it out,” the 40-year-old said on the How I Write podcast.
“I’m a big believer of, I take a bunch of notes, and then I clearly rip them out so I can look at multiple pages at the same time, and I can crumple them up and throw them on the floor when I’m done.”
Ultimately, as AI continues to reshape how the world communicates, putting pen to paper may continue to prove that connection can outlast convenience.
