"As leaders, we spend a lot of time hiring and retaining talent, reviewing metrics, examining competitors, setting strategy, and ensuring execution. These tasks are essential to success. But what's even more crucial is the attitude we bring to them. Negative mindsets limit possibilities from the very start. Positivity opens up a world of options and opportunities."
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jun2010/ca2010068_804146.htm
"For those of us who believe we're too set in our ways to change our attitudes, there's some good news. As consultant David Rock wrote in the journal Strategy + Business, recent neuroscience research has found that "the human brain is highly plastic. Neural connections can be reformed, new behaviors can be learned, and even the most entrenched behaviors can be modified at any age." This is consistent with our own research and practical experience at the Center for Creative Leadership, where we've found that leaders are in fact made, rather than born, and that they can keep improving throughout their entire careers, provided they're willing to make the effort.
So it's very possible for people to change and become more effective professionals in the process. But, as leaders, how do we encourage them to do it? We should, of course, start with ourselves. Based on her research, Fredrickson recommends we try to experience positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones. That's the tipping point, she says, at which our overall ability to see new possibilities and overcome challenges starts to grow exponentially. Her research shows that only 20 percent of Americans actually achieve that ratio on a regular basis. (You can take her quick test to see if you're one of them.)"
Four ways of building a positive workforce:
1) Express appreciation.
2) Encourage fitness.
3) Focus on teams.
4) Give skepticism its due.
Skepticism is a crucial counterpoint to positivity, and it's not the same thing as negativity, which destroys rather than nurtures
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