When a Culture Spills Over

So what happens when an organization wholeheartedly embraces Positive Leadership as a way of living?

Well, their employees get happier, more productive and more willing to pitch in and help when needed. Their customer relationships get better, and their workforce energized. Their people go home at night with energy left over for family and friends.

While looking through my files this week, I found this wonderful story from a Positive Leader at a large client company who I worked with for about a decade.

Like most of my clients – they were already pretty darn good at what they did. They had an extreme customer focus and their potential for growth was huge, as they went about acquiring other companies. (That’s always a cultural challenge.) I had trained hundreds of their leaders from top management to the supervisors, so everyone was touched in some way by Positive Leadership.

This is a letter I found in an old file this week and I must tell you, I’m tickled pink reading it again. I’ve changed the names but want to share this letter I received from one of the leaders.?

“Working here just got better and better,” said Rebecca Berry as she looked back at her career. You’ll find Rebecca and her husband Roger working with a growing team of professionals, and smiling about it every day.

Rebecca and Roger started off really small and built their division over time with hard work and as she puts it a lot of “faith, optimism and support” from the owner of the company. ?

As they grew – often working into the night – they began to see they could create their “dream jobs” here. As the staff grew to take over those late at night activities, in her words, “Life was good, growing at a manageable pace and beginning to settle into our growth.”

They put in lots of hours and saw that as a privilege and an opportunity to create their “dream jobs” in a business they loved.

Their customers and employees were happy, and they were proud of the amazing progress of all the dedicated people that worked for them.

Neighbors were telling neighbors, business was building organically. Rebecca and Roger’s positive attitudes moved them forward quickly and helped them to minimize the obstacles that occasionally moved into their path.

Little did she know that her ability to stay positive was to be challenged when the company acquired another similar business in the area. As happens in so many places, the ‘rock-the-boat challenge’ of absorbing another culture and lots of new people often leaves the captain a little queasy.

As often happens when a company buys a competitor, there are belief systems in both companies that sometimes have people seeing the guy down the hall as the enemy, instead of the new friend. Those situations are breeding grounds for gossip, negative attitudes and behaviors that are upsetting to all.

Her strategy was to hold true to her values and do her best to understand the people who had to make a dramatic change in the way they did things, the values they came to work with and the expectation that they would deliver something called a “Distinguishable Difference.”

While her desire to understand was strong, the power of the negative talk and attitudes were strong too.?

Working through the negativity that was festering until the emerging culture could begin to take form, Rebecca noticed that her energy level – once so high – was diminishing – work wasn’t energizing her anymore, it was sucking the life out of her. (Her words not mine.) The merger with the other (ABC) company was not due to a hostile takeover, but then, why did she feel so beat up?

As the people of ABC grieved for the “way we did it at ABC” (a perfectly normal response to an acquisition) Rebecca was hearing that so often took its toll on her. She started to feel tired and empty. Life had started to feel like an upstream battle.

Still she persevered. She could envision a team that worked well – that was getting the job done and that was having fun. After all, that was the way they always did business here.

She got her team together and shared the newly expanded company values, she talked about the importance of the customer’s expectation and the link between how they treat each other and how they treat the customers.

When she showed up at Positive Leadership training, she was – as she put it, “not in the best frame of mind.” She was worried about her own attitude.

When she left our workshop she had chosen a whole new frame of mind and that’s made a whole world of difference for the people in her division.

As I heard from others in the area, Rebecca’s turnaround was nothing short of miraculous – and the culture is coming together beautifully under her watchful new eyes.

Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

In the Positive Leadership course I teach, Rebecca heard the invitation to personal change when I said “Give yourself permission to leave some of your belief systems behind and adopt a few new ones while you are here.” And that she did.

She told me that coming to the workshop was like a breath of fresh air for her – like going to a spa and getting a massage. She got home that night and she was “cranked”. She’d learned that there is a formula for success and high performance , a positivity to negativity ratio of 5:1 – and she set out to achieve it.

Her first action was one of appreciation – she shot an email off to the CEO of the company to say thank you for sending her to the program and telling him how much she had needed it.?

She said that programs like this are what make for the company’s distinguishable difference. (She thinks it’s pretty wonderful working for a company that thinks so much of its people and their development that they have their own University.)

The next day she left for work a changed woman. Filled with new knowledge – a little brain science, a little happiness science, and a lot of common sense about being more emotionally intelligent. She took the “high road” and from the get-go made sure here positivity ratio was as high as she could get it.

The next day, on the way to work, she popped the Zach Brown Band into her car player and listened to “Life is Good Today” and created the first of many of her own “Positivity Practices” – getting herself geared up for a great day.

She got to the office and there was nice note from the CEO there – which made her feel important to the company and made her feel valued. She made a point to pass that positivity along as she told each person in the office about how together they could raise the “Positive Capacity” and have a great place to work together, a great place to become “Superstars” together.?

At least once a month now, they declare it “Dilly Day”. A way to recognize everyone’s hard work.? A drive to the local Dairy Queen and they empty the freezer of dilly bars for all the employees to enjoy.

People have developed a new consciousness about one another’s well-being. They celebrate birthdays. They communicate more, people are smiling now as they look for each other’s strengths and appreciate what each player brings to the party.

They even do potluck dinners together and are learning more and more about each other over time.

Everybody in the office got new chairs and Rebecca went out and bought everyone a flower to put by their computers. She takes every opportunity she can to show kindness and understanding. She remembers that to the people that came from ABC, their company ?used to be the “other guys.” That’s why it was challenging to pull the whole group together as one. And she did it!

When I asked her what it took to do all she’s done she said “patience, persistence and insistence on wanting things to be positive.” And with the support of the CEO and the district manager and the corporate staff she and Roger take the high road. They think about the things that matter – the people and the customers and the 5:1 “thriving” relationship ratio and they make choices using their heads and their hearts.

Way to go as the positivity spills over right into the community they serve!

Want to create a massively positive culture - let's talk! 20 years of work in Positive Psychology and 30+ years in employee and customer loyalty and I'm here for you when you are ready to make some positive changes.

[email protected] use the subject line "It's time to spillover"

Thanks - I look forward to meeting you!

JoAnna