The following story was sent in by a subscriber in response to the Reminder about Being the Rainbow in Someone Else’s Cloud. “My wife and I were in downtown Raleigh waiting outside for our restaurant to open for dinner when I noticed a man walking up the street near us. He was slightly hunched over, hands in his jeans pockets, looking down at the sidewalk. He had on a brand-new tan cowboy hat.. As he walked past us I said, “Nice hat.” He turned to me and said, Thanks,” As he walked away he straightened his posture, held his head up, shoulders back, and changed his walk to a stride. I am so glad I spoke those two words.” This is a wonderful example of what we all need to do more of.
Recommended Reading
Instant Turnaround!: Getting People Excited About Coming to Work and Working Hard
Transform Your Workplace!
Imagine a company where people are excited about coming to work and giving their best efforts every day. In this innovative and engrossing business parable, Harry Paul and Ross Reck show managers at all levels how they can immediately and easily increase productivity by tapping into the discretionary effort of the people who work for them. Starting from the most basic aspect of business reality—that people intentionally regulate the amount of effort they put into their jobs based upon how they feel they’re being treated—the authors point out that the most important part of the job of every manager, team leader, supervisor, and executive is to treat people in such a way that they become excited about applying all their discretionary effort toward performing their jobs.
At the book’s center is the story of Nancy Kim, a human resources director at a magazine that is struggling with all the problems associated with unhappy employees—low productivity and morale along with high absenteeism and turnover. After she openly challenges the CEO’s new management-by-the-numbers system, she’s charged with turning the situation around immediately. Filled with real-world studies, Instant Turnaround! shows anyone how to turn the workplace into a destination—a place where working hard feels like hardly working because it’s engaging, enjoyable, and fulfilling.
Leave a Reply