There’s nothing more disheartening than walking into the office and being greeted with doom and gloom. As the person with the title, you have 3 choices: ignore it, support it, or counteract it by intentionally creating a positive environment.
Better yet, let’s not stop at postive, let’s go for crazy-happy!
(like my niece and nephew in this great Marilyn-Monroe-inspired picture!)
While not the end-all-be-all, positive environments contribute greatly to people’s fortitude. If we insist that our people be positive with our customers then we cannot tolerate an environment that is not affirmative, optimistic, encouraging, and upbeat the rest of the day.
As moxie-leaders, we have the opportunity – and the obligation – to foster an environment that sustains its energy, not sucks it. To do this, recognize that your environment is made up of individual people, and individuals make or break environments.
Therefore we create crazy-happy environments one person at a time.
How do we do this? By encouraging people to keep their perspective, say “yes!” to opportunities, have compassion, look for the good, clap regularly, laugh often, and cheer.
6 Ideas for Creating Crazy-Happy Environments:
(1) Create a Toastmasters chapter
A whole organization dedicated to clapping for people’s efforts around speaking. Inevitably uplifting.
(2) Start a mastermind group
An opportunity for people to connect over brainstorming and problem-solving.
(3) Encourage communities
Encourage people to connect with each other in communities such as book clubs, running clubs, and charity work.
(4) Launch a mentoring program
The fastest way for people to learn something new is to have someone else guide them. Through a mentoring program, you are encouraging people to learn from and guide each other.
(5) Enroll coaches
Coaches can be internal or external. Teach people to coach each other with proven coaching skills and you’ll create a positive environment in which people are growing personally and professionally.
(6) Reframe naysaying as merely a challenge
Challenge people to put naysaying comments and negative people into perspective. Negativity is merely a reflection of another person’s fears. Encourage compassion, and then encourage people to benchmark such naysaying against a life’s worth of evidence to the contrary. Then ask them to use such naysaying as a challenge to stretch and succeed.
