BLOG 256 - Shiny Happy People

“One evening an old Cherokee spoke to his grandson

He said, ‘Inside us all is a

 battle raging between two wolves.

One wolf is Evil.

It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed,

arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride,

superiority, and ego.

The other is Good.

It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.’

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, 

‘Which wolf wins?’ 
The old Cherokee simply replied,
 ‘The one you feed.”

Excerpt from Hungry Like the Wolf Cherokee Tales

Joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love. These emotions are some of the key components of positivity. There is overwhelming evidence on the power of positive thoughts and feelings. These are the emotions that make human interaction flourish.

Positivity has been the key buzz word for success for the last 60 years .

People are wild about positivity and are almost afraid to look at solutions to negativity – because to do so is to acknowledge that there is a flip side .Often when I think of wild positivity I see in my mind Monty Python’s Life of Brian… all those crucified martyrs up on their crosses jolly as you like doing the can-can and singing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. Wild positivity is about changing the meaning of situations  - so despite the fact that being crucified meant they could expect to die imminently from suffocation, loss of body fluids , multiple organ failure and exposure… it was a case of ' best not look on the grim side, let's see this crucifixion as our last hurrah! SMILE EVERYBODY!!!!'

But that is NOT real positivity. Looking on the bright side is NOT positivity. Being positive isn’t the same as being in denial.

Being positive is feeling good about where you are because it keeps generating those positive emotions. We are simple beasts us humans… keep feeding the feel good factor and we become winners.

Unsurprisingly this has lead to using positivity to drive fabulous results in people management. Getting the people stuff right is a huge deal to businesses.

Gone are the days when human resources was seen as fluffy stuff   - positivity in staff is now seen as the biggest contributor to a happy bottom line. Positive staff generate more profit   - and in these recessionary times… Positivity is big business.

But where to start?

So many companies talk about positivity and try real hard… but find the left hand ends up undoing what the right hand is doing by monitoring all positive procedures but cancelling  out all positive findings if one  act of negativity is found.

How often do we hear H.R peeps cry despondently:

“Oh dear all that good work cancelled out by that one little blip”

And that is where they are going wrong. The measure is not made by giving power to errors . Acknowledge them yes… but you have to decide if you wish to be penal or corrective. If your end goal is to punish any mistakes – then issue penalties for errors. But if you just wish have everyone on the same page…use errors as a training indicator.

What anyone does wrong is never the measure of who they are or what they are capable of. Measuring how many things a person does wrong is not positivity.

Celebrating successes in exclusion to  errors isn’t the measure of all  a person can be either. Being in denial of mistakes is not positive.

It’s about measuring where someone is, accepting that measure but always be moving forwards with ways to improve.

I was very impressed by a television station in the West of the United Kingdom who have designed their own positivity test for staff.

They run the same test every two weeks, designed to reflect how the whole organisation is feeling in a snapshot 24hrs.

The rationale being that a one off measure could never represent an employee’s positivity more generally, due to life’s ever changing circumstance.

So using a scale from 0-4  each member of staff from cleaner to C.E.O fill out a survey on the company intranet.

·         What is the most amused, fun-loving, or silly you felt?

·         What is the most angry, irritated, or annoyed you felt?

·         What is the most ashamed, humiliated, or disgraced you felt?

·         What is the most awe, wonder, or amazement you felt?

·         What is the most contemptuous, scornful, or disdainful you felt?

·         What is the most disgust, distaste, or revulsion you felt?

·         What is the most embarrassed, self-conscious, or blushing you felt?

·         What is the most grateful, appreciative, or thankful you felt?

·         What is the most guilty, repentant, or blameworthy you felt?

·         What is the most hate, distrust, or suspicion you felt?

·         What is the most hopeful, optimistic, or encouraged you felt?

·         What is the most inspired, uplifted, or elevated you felt?

·         What is the most interested, alert, or curious you felt?

·         What is the most joyful, glad, or happy you felt?

·         What is the most love, closeness, or trust you felt?

·         What is the most proud, confident, or self-assured you felt?

·         What is the most sad, downhearted, or unhappy you felt?

·         What is the most scared, fearful, or afraid you felt?

·         What is the most serene, content, or peaceful you felt?

·         What is the most stressed, nervous, or overwhelmed you felt?

The company publishes the results every 12 weeks by department.  It is a hotly contested thing to be the department with the highest positivity score. Knowing that positivity is generated by the way that people are made to feel… has led to this station reading some rather enviable reward’s.

The station has recently appeared on the Top 100 Best Places to work in the UK and has a Top Three position in the Best Media Employers in the UK. Incidentally…. All these happy bunnies are making the company money .As local television watches advertising revenue fall 14% year on year, the staff of this particular company are so invested in their employer that they came up with some innovations on retransmission and other revenue streams that have added some 15% to the bottom line. Now that’s a wildly positive result in anyone’s language!!!

Flourishing people. Flourishing business. The person who came up with the idea of keeping the staff feeling positive about their workplace must be a hero in that station I should imagine!

I wonder if he had a Cherokee grandfather who taught him that all he had to do….

Was feed the right wolf.

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