Some business leaders are willing to spend thousands on HR systems to improve employee engagement, while in their leadership style overlook the value of kind words—which cost them nothing.
This post really resonated with me and motivates me to not only be nice, but practice acts of kindness with those around me. I am thinking of ways I can do a better job of this. With some of the artists I have been contracting with, I have found myself thinking, "If I compliment them too much, they will slack off." Which after reading your post, I realize that is the wrong attitude. Although I consider myself nice, I don't find myself taking the extra step to communicate the things I notice in others. With my son, I really could do a better job of putting this into practice. Lastly, I like what you say about work not being a family. I find many organizations like to call work places a family, and really, it is not. We are colleagues and we work together for a common goal.
Great post, great practice. I think this applies beautifully in the workplace, and just as well in our lives outside of work.
Little sideways move here, but I think it may be in the same neighborhood: A few years back our cybersecurity team got told we all needed to complete two courses on Emotional Intelligence. AS you might imagine that was greeted with a whole lot of skepticism about the value of it (we're all too technical and hardcore for that) and even push back about it being a "BS" type of training.
I can say that it is some of the best training I've had and I know a decent percentage of my "hardcore' colleagues were also converted :)
This post really resonated with me and motivates me to not only be nice, but practice acts of kindness with those around me. I am thinking of ways I can do a better job of this. With some of the artists I have been contracting with, I have found myself thinking, "If I compliment them too much, they will slack off." Which after reading your post, I realize that is the wrong attitude. Although I consider myself nice, I don't find myself taking the extra step to communicate the things I notice in others. With my son, I really could do a better job of putting this into practice. Lastly, I like what you say about work not being a family. I find many organizations like to call work places a family, and really, it is not. We are colleagues and we work together for a common goal.
Great post, great practice. I think this applies beautifully in the workplace, and just as well in our lives outside of work.
Little sideways move here, but I think it may be in the same neighborhood: A few years back our cybersecurity team got told we all needed to complete two courses on Emotional Intelligence. AS you might imagine that was greeted with a whole lot of skepticism about the value of it (we're all too technical and hardcore for that) and even push back about it being a "BS" type of training.
I can say that it is some of the best training I've had and I know a decent percentage of my "hardcore' colleagues were also converted :)
That's a good story, Patrick. I used to deprecate training like that. But as I've aged, I appreciate it more and more.
Same here, and it was certainly interesting to see the range of reactions to it as the courses went along.