The Positive Energy Workplace

You're an awesome person. A great leader. A fantastic collaborator. Super smart... Fabulous. You use your time well. Lead your energy. And manage your money with intention and rigor... Wonderful. You want to do more good work. Have even better relationships. Be more inspiring. Attract more meaningful partnerships into your life... Lovely. How's it going?

In my work with business leaders and their organizations, the majority of them want to avoid "hierarchy" in the organization in as many ways as possible. Many of them are highly successful at doing so. They set structures in place to create more of a "flat" organization, they get clear on organizational values, and they get very intentional about the culture they want to create. While the reporting structure may have a hierarchy to it (this structure can be an intentional system that supports culture vs. hinders or lids it), the goal is to have a collaborative and peer-oriented mindset with non-hierarchical behaviors.

When I do IEP (Intentional Energetic Presence) Cultural Assessments for companies, I go in looking through the lens of "What's the energy of the company?" What's not being said? What's going great/where are they super strong? What needs attention? And where might possible blind spots be that may be creeping up, especially as they grow quickly and on-board more people?

In the first column of this series I talked about shifting your culture's mindset from "j.o.b.s" to "callings" and tapping into purpose to energize, fuel, and bring out the best in your people. In part 2, I talked about shifting your culture to a healthy mindset of collaboration and competition. This week I'm talking about the most important thing you have in an employee: their personal level of accountability and nourishment. In order to innovate into 2020 (starting yesterday) we must cultivate a culture that allows for, and inspires, a greater level of accountability and nourishment than ever before. Our future literally depends on it.

As we move towards 2020, workforce trends will require that leaders hire talent based on their callings, and not just to fill a job.

In order to innovate to the next level in your organization, to attract, cultivate--and keep--top talent, and to inspire and tap into the greatest desires and creativity of your employees, you'll need to address 4 things: their sense of purpose and contribution, their sense of creativity and autonomy, their mindset of collaboration and partnership, and their own personal nourishment and self-care so they can do all they want to do and have the impact they want to have. Here are a couple of ways to tap into this NOW.

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: