Make Every Day Excellent

Make every day your best day at work and you will inspire others to do the same.

When your personal brand encourages positive behavior, you will attract support from colleagues, friends, and strangers who share a similar philosophy of helping others. It’s as easy as saying, “Make it an excellent day!”

How Positive Messages Created My Personal Brand

In seventh grade, Mr. Petersen was my basketball coach and biology teacher. He inspired hundreds of adolescents. Among the lessons he taught was to appreciate every day. “Our time is short you’ll learn,” he said. “It’s not worth having a bad day. Even when things are tough, be thankful you’re alive, and celebrate the day.”

While my memory might have paraphrased his exact words, the message stuck with me. Middle school is tough. High school is tough. But the words of encouragement echoed on my most stressful days.

In my early twenties, the hotel where I worked had all the front desk employees attend a training seminar on taking lodging reservations over the phone. One at a time, each employee was sent to a desk in the back office where there was a computer and a phone. The trainer called that phone to make a reservation and all the other participants in the training room listened in on the speaker phone. When it was my turn for the exercise, I answered the call. When the trainer requested reservations, I said I could help. I asked what date he would be arriving. Upon hearing the response, I said, “Excellent,” and I could hear laughter over the phone from my peers in the background. “I can help you make that reservation,” I continued. After the call, I returned to the training room. My colleagues informed me I had said “excellent” four times while making the reservation. I immediately realized my positive language set me apart from the others in the exercise, and the only lesson I remember from that day is that my peers thought my repeated use of the word “excellent” was unprofessional.

When I started teaching students at the college level, I attended the Lilly Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. I participated in Dr. Louis Schmier’s session on student-centered learning. With more than thirty years of teaching, Louis spoke of his idealistic philosophy he lives every day to help others become who they are becoming. Wow! It was no small wonder that despite being a regular figure at the conference and his session being in the largest conference room, it was standing room only. I was surrounded by colleagues who shared my belief in positive language and caring for others. I discovered Louis signed his emails with the phrase “Make it a great day.” Upon returning to my office on the Monday after the conference, I emailed Louis to say I was putting a few of his ideas into practice. And for the first time, my email signature encouraged, “Make it an excellent day! Curtis”

After a decade, that simple, positive message at the end of my emails has reached thousands of individuals. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, but I still get a few odd reactions from colleagues who are new to hearing positive reinforcement in the workspace. Their response is often a mix of surprise and discomfort. Sometimes I’ll get a fast reply inviting me to make it an excellent day, evening, or weekend as well.

Proper business etiquette continues to recommend “Dear” in the greeting and “Sincerely” in the signature. These conventions represent the formal approach, but they are so commonplace, they are almost meaningless. When I’m making hiring decisions, I make broad judgments about candidates based on their applications. I’ve read hundreds of cover letters and it has had no impact on me whether “Dear” or “Sincerely” was used. But, I notice when the candidate breaks from tradition to reveal a conviction or personality trait. The candidate who closed with “Blessings to you and your family” gave me an impression he was sharing his religious faith. The young lady who closed her cover letter “Happy Bow Season. Safe Hunting!” was expressing her enthusiasm as an outdoors adventurer and deer hunter. When I read them, I felt like I knew something memorable about each candidate based on their closing remarks. Another manager felt the remarks were “inappropriate” for a cover letter. I found them unconventional, but that’s why they both stood out to me. They revealed something about the character and personality of the individuals. There is a big risk that revealing too much of yourself can create an immediate bias for or against a candidate. However, in each professional situation, you must decide how much of your personal brand is appropriate to express. Sometimes you must work within the boundaries of corporate compliance, your supervisor’s whim, or what you’re willing to risk.

Ten Tips to Create a More Positive Workplace

If you consistently demonstrate the following behaviors, you and your co-workers will be more likely to enjoy your work.

1.     Listen: Talk less and listen more. Whenever possible, wait to hear what someone else has said and take time to think about how others are affected when making major decisions.

2.     Apologize: Admit when you’re wrong. Be gracious and let others know you’re sorry. In public, if it affected someone’s reputation or many individuals. Otherwise, in private.

3.     Care: Take pride in your work, your appearance, and your team. Be compassionate when things go wrong. Share credit when things go right. Take care of every individual.

4.     Empathize: Appreciate that everyone experiences the world differently. Try to understand why someone else feels the way they do. Learn from them especially when you disagree.

5.     Engage: Ask questions. Follow up with others. Take an interest in someone else’s work. Pay attention when someone wants to share details about their family or hobbies.

6.     Smile: We all experience stress and joy every day. Both are contagious. Spread joy by smiling and focusing on the positive. A smile shows a positive message without using words.

7.     Play: Find appropriate times to act light-hearted. Tell a joke. Sing. Dance. Have fun. Be a little silly. Show others work isn’t always serious. Encourage them to laugh with you.

8.     Share: Open up about yourself. Bring a treat to work. Share with a co-worker or everyone in your department. Ask for advice when something is bothering you. Ask for help.

9.     Encourage: Anyone can say, “Good work!” Speak up when your colleagues and bosses excel. Skip “I told you so” and instead thank them for taking a risk. Be an ally.

10. Appreciate: Say “Thank you.” Take more credit for mistakes and share more credit for successes. Focus on solutions to help others. Recognize your role in the system.

Leaders Set the Tone for the Team

A few years ago I was contracted as a management consultant by a middle-aged entrepreneur. In our first meeting, he outlined his plan. As head of his emerging company, he asked for my feedback after explaining some of his plans to help continue the company’s rapid growth. When he finished, he requested, “Be honest. Tell me how you think this will work.”

My typical fashion of response is to ask questions and offer how I might hypothetically do it differently. Consultants are outsiders and know less about the organization. I proceed with a diplomatic caution until I better understand the social and political landscapes in the organization. In this case, my initial approach was delicate in addressing concerns: “Have you considered…” and “If it were me, I would want to make sure...”

After a brief discussion, he stopped me. “Curtis,” he said, “I need a polite, assertive naysayer in our meetings. I already have a team of people who believe in what I’m doing. I need an outsider who can be the voice of dissent. I don’t just want to pay you to say ‘no,’ but I want you bring up what could go wrong, so they can plan for it.”

Essentially, his four top members of the team overlapped in their ideology. They believed the company would succeed. They believed in the products and services the organization offered. Most of all, they believed in the head of the company. He wanted his team to focus on the dreaming up new visions and possible directions for the company, and my role was to help point out the problems with those visions. He wanted to focus on adding his own ideas and choosing assignments and priorities for each team member based on the meeting.

Part of the reason he wanted me to be there was because the company’s accounting and finance officer had attended previous meetings, and she was very gruff. She was dismissive of ideas she didn’t feel would be successful and her negative tone discouraged other team members from wanting to offer ideas. The entrepreneur also knew that he couldn’t lead the meeting, take notes, brainstorm ideas, and create assignments. But most of all, he wanted to be a cheerleader to champion each idea and wanted someone else to be the critic. Part of what he was trying to accomplish was setting the tone for creativity and new visions for how the organization would evolve. He needed someone else to give constructive criticism, so he could engage the team as the lead visionary who supported the ideas and new directions offered by each team member.

Early in my career, I worked at an organization where there was a mandatory Monday morning meeting for managers. The company president drilled through the current projects and assignments and each team member provided a brief progress report. Within my first six weeks at the organization, we sat waiting for fifteen minutes for the company president. There was whispers that he appeared to be a foul mood, which were confirmed when we could hear him shouting in anger. A few minutes later, he arrived, apologized for being late and his previous outburst. His temper flared again near the end of the meeting to learn that the shipment from one of the vendors was delayed, so we wouldn’t be able to finish a major project on schedule.

I wasn’t in charge of any of the projects, so I was stressed, but somewhat relieved that his anger was not directed at me. But it felt very uncomfortable. What would happen if it was one of my projects? He screamed at employees when the problem was from the vendor. It was customized equipment, which is a non-refundable special order, so they didn’t order it until they were sure they were ordering exactly what they needed. If they had ordered it sooner and it was the wrong order, it could have cost the company several thousand dollars for a specialty item that might never be used, and they would still be waiting to get the right item.

My supervisor pulled me aside. He acknowledged that everyone was on edge, but that he was going to talk to the president at the end of the day. All the veteran employees had been through flare-ups like that in the past from the president, but the supervisor felt it was getting worse. Additionally, when the week started like that, my supervisor confided that it reduced morale and productivity throughout the week. Employees would hope he would spend more time in their office and hope the president have a good week and an enjoyable weekend so he would come to work in a better mood on Monday morning, so that the next meeting was better.

The two approaches showed me how different leaders approach the role of facilitating meetings and creating a positive working environment. Both were attempting to address problems. The entrepreneur was almost unwilling to criticize his team members because they were in a major growth stage and he wanted them to stay overwhelming positive in their beliefs in him and the organization. The president used anger to let associates and managers know that they were responsible for their actions, and he expected them to do a better job to anticipate delays. The personalities and leadership styles affected their employees, but they also shaped how employees and colleagues felt about the individuals and their companies. In other words, it affected their personal brands and their corporate brands.

When the president yelled at his team, it was counterproductive. The employees were less likely to take risks when they feared reprisals for their mistakes. Many employees didn’t just have a stressful day, but felt they had to tiptoe around the office all week. I watched it get worse during my time with the company. On the other hand, the entrepreneur only needed my help for a few months because his team thrived. His team's attitude grew more positive each week.

Choosing to make every day excellent helps reduce stress for you and your co-workers. Creating a positive work environment encourages creativity, happiness, and productivity. When team members want to come to work, they will care more about how they represent your organization and grow stronger relationships with clients, customers, vendors, visitors, and others. Happiness is contagious. Spreading joy at work helps improve your social currency because more people will enjoy interacting with you. Having a positive attitude and outlook improves your personal brand. Most studies show you’ll also help improve your organization’s bottom line, which makes you and your organization more valuable.

Smile. Laugh. Enjoy.

Make it an excellent day!

Curtis R. Burdette is the founder and principal consultant of Starfish Training, Learning, and Consulting (TLC). He is a business leader and management consultant whose career journey includes TV, IT, higher education, hospitality, career coaching, and business consulting, Curtis helps organizations and individuals to discover, build, learn, and grow.