I was speaking to my sister recently and she was so excited about the harvest that she picked from her winter garden - several nice bunches of greens. We are from a farming family and we were taught how to sow seeds, when to to plant, and when to harvest.
It made me think about the importance of planting and sowing seeds that will spring up a mighty harvest. I'm not just talking about the need for preparation, but the seeds of kindness that can boost spirits and productivity. The seeds, as I see it, include planning and preparation, but the harvest is multiplied with positive communication.
For the last three years, I've had an experiment going on that proves my point. In the midst of Covid, I realized that people were already under a great deal of stress and feeling very unsure about the future. The last thing I wanted to do was to chastise them if their productivity fell off a bit. Now, that's not to say that I turned a blind eye to someone who was simply not doing their job.
Every evening as I review our nightly retail sales, I send positive comments to the individual store managers. Even if they don't make their goal that particular day, but they meet one of their productivity goals, I congratulate them on that accomplishment.
Over the years, I have found that these positive affirmations worked to build the confidence of the team as a whole, as well as boost sales. They have also told me how much they appreciate the positive words and how proud it makes everyone on the team feel. No one wants to be constantly told what they're doing wrong and some things are out of their control, like weather conditions or a competing event in the community that day that kept shoppers away.
Life can be difficult at times, and beating yourself up or your team really doesn't do any good. Instead of sowing seeds of productivity, you may be sowing seeds of resentment and anger.
Try sowing positivity and kindness at work and see what the harvest produces.
