Creating a Positive Business Culture

For the past few weeks I have had trouble thinking about much other than helping create positive cultures in businesses I care about. At the very same time, these businesses know they need to do this but don’t feel they have the time, expertise, and energy to keep business going while creating this positive culture. That’s precisely why, Larry, Cheryl, Kari, and I created Culture By Choice! We can help businesses do that. True, it’s not an easy task but it is doable. To help businesses take the first step, I am using a positivity survey developed by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, (author of the book Positivity). It asks organization members to consider their last day at work and rate specific emotional experiences. It is best to do this over several days, as those emotional experiences can vary from day to day, and record an average score for each identified emotional experience.

If you would like to try this out, send me an email (jaynewman@culturebychoice.com) and I will arrange for up to 20 people in your organization to complete the survey. It will take a few conversations to arrange the process but I am willing to help. If you are interested, contact me.

The evidence supporting positivity’s impact on organizational success is overwhelming. In fact, if you find a sustainably successful organization, there is an extremely high probability that analysis will show that the organization has a higher than 3:1 positivity ratio. Any organization that wants to dramatically improve their chances of achieving sustainable success should make their number one priority, “creating a more positive emotion supporting culture.” The starting point is always knowing what the current conditions are. What is your organization’s positivity ratio? What are the key factors that impact your positivity ratio? How can you influence those factors in a positive way? What will you do over the next few weeks to get the ball rolling? Can you do it without assistance? Or will this become one more initiative that fizzles out due to lack of sustained focus?