The Positive Energy Workplace

I'm in Tucson right now, writing this sitting pool side in some beautiful weather. It's gorgeous here right now, not too hot, just a light breeze - all good. I'm here for some meetings with colleagues, a client and my private master mind group. We get together about every 6 months to work on our businesses, flush out ideas, put strategies in place, etc. I've been a part of these types of groups since 2003 in one way or another and find the space that gets created as a group highly productive!

Right now in this economic and business climate we are inundated with information. Good information. Useless information. Hype. Not hype. Words of motivation. Words of dread. Words that inspire and make you want to make your business and life better than ever before. And words that may make you want to pull your covers over your head and "wait" until all this grief and recession stuff is over.

What to do with all this information overload? How can it help us? How can we move through it as effectively as possible? Two things come to mind (and course there are more!)

1) Check your mindset,

2) Get into - and stay -in action.

So let's do that here....

Qualities you'll find in a healthy team/organization*:

• The organization's vision is shared, communicated and alive. People have bought into it and know how their role directly supports it.
• People are self aware AND self possessed (in other words, they're self-aware AND able to shift behavior/do something about their impact)
• Systems are in place so people know what to do, how to do it, and who does it (and can cross function in roles)
• People are literally healthy and energized
• People have fun (even during tough times)
• Profits are healthy
• Employees are engaged

What if the most simple and key principles of effective leadership and engagement were already in your bones and just needed a playful reminder?

At the beginning of the school year, my son's 2^nd grade class established class "ground rules" aka "Rules of Engagement." These rules were set as guidelines by which they agreed to be treated and treat each other. When I went in for our student led Parent Teacher Conference last month, I was kind of taken aback by the wisdom and emotional intelligence that a savvy group of 2nd graders exhibited in their agreements.