Used by permission bensbells.org
A friend shared this link with me since we converse occasionally about motivating ourselves and those we work with. We are in vastly different areas of the work force. He is a manager with Microsoft and I am in Private Practice Audiology. The message he brought to me rings true across careers when it comes to having a positive attitude in the work place.
What happens when someone starts complaining? Everyone jumps in to add to the complaints. What we should be doing is finding a positive solution to the problem. As business managers/owners we have to be leaders in this area, by finding ways to incorporate positive solutions throughout the work place. The more employees we have, the more difficult it is to communicate positive solutions on a one-on-one basis.
Often times my office has a person who is not a team player or is more negative than other workers. This aspect of their personality does not always come out during the interview process. Sometimes it takes me a while to find this out, because people act differently around me since I am the “boss”. Others do not want to “tell” on the negative person, but eventually I find out their negativity is affecting the other workers. Now, you can criticize me for not knowing this, but I know it happens to most managers/owners. So I choose to figure out how to bring these people over to thinking positively.
This year I am going to start having my employees give 1 to 3 gratitudes and perform a random act of kindness each day. There are most likely places in your hometown trying to get their message out. In Tucson, Ben’s Bells gives small rewards to those who make spontaneous acts of kindness. We all have to be living in the moment and not create worst-case scenarios about the future in our minds. I will let you know if this experiment is helping everyone in my offices by the end of the year.
I don’t know if you can change another person’s attitude, but here is a practice that is working for me: as soon as I wake up and think about the day ahead, I’m grateful in advance, and I expect a day that is productive and joyful.
You can’t change, but you can influence. You hit the main point though, we can really only be responsible for ourselves, and like follows like. If we work on being positive ourselves, then we hope it will radiate out to others. Thank you for giving what works for you!