The Positive Energy Workplace

When I talk with people about the holidays I generally get one of two reactions — “Love them! Can’t wait!” or “Ugh…Yes, the holidays, I’m exhausted already.”

Usually the response leans a bit heavier on the second reaction. Why?

A lot happens during the holidays: parties, shopping, planning (so much planning), trying to wrap up the end of the year, holiday gift lists from our wee ones that have no bounds, being with the pain of loved ones that are no longer with us, personal changes, family conflict, who’s going where, when and how, and how do we not insult “Aunt Betty” if we don’t stay long? Etc. etc. etc. You get the idea. Pick your combination. It can all be too much.

Heading into a media interview for the book last week, I was ready to roll. Excited. Prepared. I’d done all my pre-work, set my intentions, taken really great care of myself. I got on the call, the host was running late (for great reasons), the audio needed some tweaking, and right before we launched they said something about “I don’t know how this is going to go over with our audience, let’s hope they like it”. 

In the book Contagious Culture: Show Up, Set the Tone, and Intentionally Create an Organization That Thrives (McGraw-Hill), I invite readers to take an inside-out approach to leadership and cultural optimization. People often think that leadership and culture are all about skills and what we do, but speaking even louder is who we are, how we show up, and the energy and intention we bring to the table. Being an effective leader and creating a culture that thrives is rarely about having better skills, changing other people, or even holding huge corporate cultural initiatives--our quickest path to shifting culture and dynamics is more simply in shifting ourselves and how we show up.

Well… today is the day. Contagious Culture: Show Up, Set the Tone, and Intentionally Create an Organization that Thrives hits bookshelves at retailers near you. It may be impossible for me to write a fantastic post today (I’m sure I’ll have greater wisdom and insight to share in the next couple of weeks once some of the dust has settled and it’s all sunk in), and in the meantime… I couldn’t not say hello today. 

I recently had something big fall apart with my team. It's really quite simple, we had a vendor who had an agenda, and in the land of "assuming good", I missed it. Five months of trying to collaborate, find clean solutions, and do good work—and the whole time, ulterior motives were at play.