Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes with the greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. To quote Swami Sivananda (Indian Yoga master, Physician, Monk and Founder of The Divine Life Society, 1887-1963) “Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.”
Practicing intentional positive workplace culture takes some time and committed actions. Firstly ensure that you feel comfortable being a leader as some leaders lack full confidence in leading their team when thinking about the big responsibility they have for the performance and well-being of their staff. Key No.1 is: VISION you need a vision on where you are taking the company or team and you need to build it with your people so they feel part of that vision thus are contributing to that vision and can get excited about helping the business or team get there. Within this vision will be your mission statement and a key point to create a positive workplace culture is to have happy engaged employees. Key No.2 is: GOALS as a leader you need to set your business goals and then with your people create sub-goals for them to achieve that align directly into the goals of the business or team. Performance criteria must be set for it’s critical to have clearly defined measures so your staff know exactly how they’re going, you can celebrate successes and find specific areas of weakness to work on. Key No. 3 is: RELATIONSHIPS look after your people by listening to them, understand exactly where they are now and then where you can take them. One of the biggest aspects missing in having positive workplace culture is lack of communication. People like to be heard so give them a forum or time to speak. Also staff often feel undervalued as it’s easy to get wrapped up in all the things to do that positive praise and positive feedback can become non-existent. Especially in hard times when things aren’t going right don’t forget to give genuine praise.
