Featuring Rita Smith
During a recent election campaign, I created a "loonie jar" for our office. I typed up a label which read "As a certified Dale Carnegie instructor, I am personally and professionally committed to:
- maintaining a positive attitude,
-
leading by example,
- working with enthusiasm, and
- spending absolutely zero minutes in a day criticizing, condemning or complaining."
"I need your help to maintain this commitment. If you catch me griping, NAIL ME ON IT and I will put $1 in this jar for refreshments later." At the office, I read the label to my team and signed my name to it in front of them. Surprisingly, my most argumentative volunteer stepped forward and declared, "I want to sign it, too!"
"Wow", I responded, "I was expecting it to apply to me, but if you want to get on board, great!" He signed his name to the label. For the first few days, whenever he fell back into the habit of grumbling, other workers would leap to tell him "You're complaining!" Within a short while, however, his entire demeanour improved. We could go days without having to listen to the negative tirades that had been commonplace before the advent of the loonie jar.
Even our candidate got into the spirit of things and dropped in a loonie in the jar. "Why are you doing that?" I asked. "You haven't been griping." He paused to think, then admitted, "Guilty conscience!" he exclaimed.
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