The Power of Positive Interactions

Posted on June 15th, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

My friend and international bestselling author Jon Gordon has released a new book called Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your SoupTeam and Culture, about how to create a winning team and culture of greatness. Below you’ll find an excerpt on how to improve your work relationships with positive reinforcement.

Soup is a quick, entertaining read that will give you practical insights on:

•    How culture drives behavior, behavior drives habits, and habits deliver results
•    Creating relationships that are the foundation for successful careers and winning teams
•    Building trust, creating unity, and enhancing team engagement (amongst staff, volunteers, etc).

Buy a book today and you’ll get a free downloadable SOUP ACTION PLAN + access to an exclusive Group Coaching Session. The Action Plan is a 32 page document that will help you put the strategies in the book into action. Details on that offer and more about the book can be found at http://www.jongordon.com/soup-promo.html.

And now, an exclusive excerpt from Soup:

The Power of Positive Interactions
By Jon Gordon

John Gottman's pioneering research found that marriages are much more likely to succeed when the couple experiences a 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions. When the ratio approaches 1 to 1, the marriage is more likely to end in divorce. Additional research also shows that workgroups with positive to negative interaction ratios greater than 3 to 1 are significantly more productive than teams that do not reach this ratio.

So what does this mean for you and me? For most of us it means we need to increase the number of positive interactions we have at home and at work and reduce our negative interactions.

We need to engage each other with more smiles, kind words, encouragement, gratitude, meaningful conversations, honest dialogues and sincere positive interactions. And to foster these actions we need to create personal and team rituals that help us interact more positively. If we make them part of our organizational process and individual habits they are more likely to happen.

You might make it a point to smile at your co-workers and customers more often. As a manager, spend more time praising your employees for the things they do right rather than always focusing on what everyone is doing wrong. A manager I know makes it a point to personally praise 5 people every week. As an organization you might gather all of your employees on a call once a day to share a positive message. Or perhaps you might gather your sales team together each week and have your team members share success stories. The ideas are infinite. The key is to intentionally cultivate more positive interactions to fuel success.

However, please know that this doesn't mean we should never have negative interactions. Sometimes we need to confront a situation to move past it and, as we know, ignoring problems that stare us in the face doesn't work. Negative interactions are necessary so long as they occur much less frequently than positive interactions.

Positive interactions are essential to a healthy marriage, positive work environment and individual and team success. In this spirit when you are finished reading this, I encourage you to go thank someone at work or at home and let them know how they impacted your life in a positive way. Then make it a habit.

About Jon
Jon Gordon is a speaker, consultant and international bestselling author of several books. His latest release is Soup: A Recipe to Nourish your Team and Culture. Jon helps individuals, organizations and teams develop positive strategies for enhanced leadership, teamwork and sales performance. Learn more about Jon and his latest book at www.Soup11.com.

How have positive interactions impacted your relationships?

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5 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

  1. Totally agree, Keith... When people give consistent, sincere praise to people, in the hopes of adding value to them, it can transform a relationship, department, or organization! Motives are key: when your goal is making someone else's life better (not just getting them to benefit you) I've found the praise is so much more effective!

  2. What if the entire team including the boss are stressed, as most busy offices are running a the speed of light?

    I believe that it's great to give positive reinforcements, BUT if the person delivering is stressed enough it WILL not be authentic... it will sound and feel fake. I've seen it many times.

    Honest praise must be delivered from a brain state of balance NOT stress.

    Individual stress is caused by outside factors AND our own unconcious brain weaving a disaster which drives us to repeating those nasty habits.

    Habits are changed by increasing balance and reducing stress.

    Read Laurel Mellin's new book Wired for Joy. Brain science and therapy meet.

  3. I truly enjoyed reading the email I got based on the importance of positive interactions. It is so true in all sorts of personal and professional settings. One thing that concerns me is what to do when there are people who seem so genuinely positive on the surface even with their own actions, but truly may be talking negatively behind people's backs or have ulterior motives for later?? This is never good at all and must not be a misfortune. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

  4. I can't remember much about positive remarks/interactions but I can say that I just left a very good paying, interesting job because of the constant and sometimes hurtful negative criticisms. I would come home from work absolutely worn out because no matter how hard I worked, how good my work was, etc., I was quite 'good enough'. I am starting my own home business; quite busy and very happy!
    Working away and making money in Eugene, Oregon

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