Positive Positive Positive Positive

Being a manager is never easy.  Can I say that again?  Being a manager is never easy!

The ups and the downs.  One minute they all love you, the next minute they all think you are out to get them.  Its a daily struggle, but one that I hope I am getting better at.  

Lately the mood in the office has been anything but pleasant.  We are going through a big transition and that means a lot of change and lot of refocusing.  To me this means great opportunities and a less stressful work environment.  To others this is just one more reason to complain.  Negative attitudes are like a disease.  They infiltrate the weak and latch on to those who are easily influenced.  It has become an epidemic in our office and the more complaining the more the morale drops.

By the end of last week I had had enough.  I had being dealing with bad moods and bad attitudes for the past month and was tired of everyone being disrespectful and down right rude.  I went home on Friday angry and frustrated, setting up a meeting first thing Monday morning to talk about the need for a serious attitude adjustment with my staff.   

On Sunday morning I went to church and listened to the message.  During the sermon, my pastor read a quote by Aristotle (he sure was smart) that made me stop and really think:

"You are what you repeatedly do.  Excellence is not an act, it is a habit"

On Sunday night I sat on my couch and prepared for my morning staff meeting.  As I sat there thinking, the quote floated through my head.

The last year of work has been hard on everyone.  Our director (who is no longer with our office) created pure and chaotic chaos (yes...chaotic chaos).  No structure, no positive feedback, no interest in what we did.  Day after day.  It had become a habit to be negative and angry.

So on Monday morning I sat my staff down and talked about this.  I talked about the struggles we've had, talked about the path we had all stumbled down.  I talked about my expectations for respect and hard work.

And then I did a super cheesy manager thing. I turned into an inspirational office poster.

  (you know the ones) 

Yes, that's right.  I said the quote: 

"You are what you repeatedly do.  Excellence is not an act, it is a habit"

If you repeatedly act in a negative way, it will become a habit.  I told them I understood how hard it is to break a habit (I don't even know how many times I've tried to stop biting my finger nails!), but it is not impossible. What if every day we made a conscious effort to be positive.  What if we walked into work with a smile on our face?  What if we walked into work and got excited to be there!  What if we stopped making a habit of getting involved in the office drama and the daily complaints?  What if our habit was to achieve excellence instead of failure?  Right now, the only thing holding us back are our bad habits.

Maybe I got through to them and maybe it was too early on a Monday morning for them to care about my motivational speech.  If anything, I have also had a change in my attitude.  I myself was not immune to the doom and gloom of the office and I understand now more than ever that to be a good leader you must lead by example.