The Positive Energy Workplace

I was recently in Costco with my daughter. We stocked up on water, TP, her favorite ice cream bars, that extra kitchen gadget we absolutely had to have (and more things that weren’t on our list), and we headed to the checkout.

We stood in line. It was packed. Lots of people loading up their baskets with water, TP, and ice cream bars. Everyone seemingly in their own worlds. On their phones. “Killing time.” (I don’t love this phrase. Do you?) Waiting out the line. Not a lot of presence, connection, or intention happening in the grocery store line.

It was our turn. I handed my card to the guy and asked him to do two separate rings. He asked me for two cards. I was confused.

You walk into work on a Monday, feeling pretty great, and are immediately greeted by the "stress bug." People zooming around, stressed out about the week at hand, discussing their weekend dramas, worrying about their next meeting, or just feeling overwhelmed by all the "magic" of Monday. Your mood starts to shift as you feel the pull of the "dark side" — the dark side of stress. What started out as an awesome Monday is quickly becoming a bummer. And nothing bad has even happened to you. In fact, not much has really changed for you from the moment you walked in the door. The only thing that has changed? You're surrounded by stress.

I'm frequently asked to work with business leaders and their organizations to help them unlock leadership potential and build healthy cultures. Even upon the initial conversations, I can tell fairly quickly how easy our work will be and how quickly we'll create impact by three things:

The quality of your feedback has the power to make or break results in your organization, strengthen or dissolve connection, build or break trust, and elicit creativity or carefulness. What's the quality of your feedback?

I find feedback to be one of the most important leadership skills people can work with yet also one of the most intimidating; people fear it, avoid it, sugar coat it, and "feedback sandwich" it leaving the receiver with diluted feedback, hurt feelings, and lost opportunities that do no one any good.