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What creates trust, respect, caring, and having each other’s back?
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| This week’s eJournal includes: ♦ Our weekly exercise to experiment with
♦ Announcement about classes
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Registration is now OPEN!
The Fall 2017 Catalytic Thinking 101 Survey Class is now open for registration. Read more…
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Building Strong Work Teams: Starting with What’s Awesome!
This
week we’re kicking off a series rooted in Catalytic Listening, focused
on building supportive, effective, and joyful work teams.
In the
blog post that kicked off this series, Hildy talked about the opposite
of that state – the sad norm in far too many workplaces.
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our modern desire for speed relegates relationship-building to the
Waste of Time department. In some twisted logic, that business model
says that it is more efficient to skip relationship-building and get
right down to work.
Then,
when lack of trust and miscommunication lead to drama, missed
deadlines, cutting corners or all the above… we blame the team members
themselves. It never occurs to us that we have set that team up for
failure through a business culture that insists relationship-building
is a waste of time.” Read the whole post here…
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In
our own work at Creating the Future, we’ve seen firsthand the magic
that can happen when people know each other and trust each other. And
so we’ll start this series where we start every one of those meetings:
asking for our Awesomes.
What’s been awesome in your life since we last met?
Watch any of our meetings at Creating the Future* and you’ll see that we start every meeting by taking time to ask, “What has been awesome in your life since we last met?”
This
practice began with our very first board meeting, and has become so
engrained in our organizational culture that even if just two of us are
getting meeting, we begin by sharing our awesomes.
There are several reasons this practice is effective.
- The
importance of building real relationships among our team members cannot
be overstated. During these opening moments of our meetings, we talk
about family and accomplishments and vacations and movies. We laugh
together and celebrate together. That makes it a lot easier to
understand where each other is coming from as we get down to work.
- The practice of sharing our own awesomes and
listening to what’s been awesome for our colleagues helps us leave
behind the hectic pace of the work day, to become present to each other
and to our work together.
- The
brain science: By grounding ourselves in what is awesome, our brains
are released from the fear-and-stress mode that is often a part of the
normal work day. By keeping that fight-or-flight center calm, our
brains can more easily access the regions where reason and creativity dwell. Starting meetings in that positive, energized state is actually more productive, in and of itself.
Try this:
Start
your next staff meeting or team meeting by asking about something
positive, preferably outside of work. Yes, we like the question, “What has been awesome in your life since we last met?”
But
that may not be the most effective wording for your team. Find language
that makes sense in your culture. It could be as simple as, “What’s been the best part of your day so far?”
If your work culture is more like the one Hildy described in her blog post,
where these sorts of conversations are frowned upon, focus your
question on work-awesomes to trigger those creative brain juices.
- What reminded you of the importance of our mission this week?
- What evidence have you seen this week of our values in action?
You
may just find, as many of our team members and students have found,
that this practice fits beautifully at the dinner table as well -
replacing “How was your day?” with the daily question, “What was your awesome today?”
From
the strengthening of relationships to the brain science of creativity,
the simple act of asking for what is good and powerful is one more way
of bringing out the best in yourself and those around you. That is why
it is part of the Catalytic Thinking framework. ** |
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Want to learn alongside other people who are trying out these practices?Join us at the Catalytic Thinking in Action community on Facebook -
a welcoming place where you can ask questions and learn from people
like you who are experimenting with these practices. We look forward to
seeing you there!
** You will love our original inspiration for this practice – a video by Hank Green that still gets our juices flowing every time we watch it!
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Keeping Our Programs Freely Available Most of the programs at Creating the Future are free or low cost, with liberal tuition assistance when they aren’t.
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| If you find our programs of benefit, we hope you will consider contributing, to help keep these programs available to as many |
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Creating
the
Future
is a
collection of
people around
the world,
supporting
each other in
a grand
experiment.
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The
experiment:
To
determine how
much better
the world
could be if
the questions
we ask in our
day to day
lives are
bringing out
the best in
each other.
If
everyone,
everywhere, is
bringing out
the best in
every person
they encounter
– and if the
systems that
guide our
behaviors are
built to bring
out the best
in all of us -
how much
closer will we
all be to a
healthy,
humane world
that works for
all of us?
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SUBSCRIBE to
get this e-Journal
Creating
the Future
3849
E
Broadway Blvd #238
Tucson,
Arizona 85716 USA
Creating the Future is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization in the U.S.A
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