Soldiers For The Cause The Opposite of a Soldier of Fortune
I just looked up the word “appreciate” in one of my old dictionaries and found one of the definitions to be: Increase in value. I like that definition.
Appreciative Inquiry is a tool used in business today to cause people to look at themselves and business situations in a positive way. Too often in business we ask ourselves the question “what did we do wrong or who was at fault?” You know how that line of thinking goes. We tend to do it to ourselves as well. “Why did I fail? Why couldn’t I have done a better job?” We are really hard on ourselves at times.
May I suggest that we take the time out of our busy schedules to write down all the things that we like about ourselves including some of the traits that we are proud of. Also what do our friends and co workers say about us that raises our self esteem? After compiling the list then I suggest that you pair up and share your list with another associate. The exercise can be very rewarding. It raises your self esteem and you come away from the exercise exhilarated.
Recently, I was told about someone in business that used this concept of Appreciative Inquiry and the results were amazing. One of the managers was concerned about employee turnover and demanded to know why employee turnover was so high. One person said:” Wait a minute, there are a whole bunch of employees that have been with us for a long time and why don’t we ask them why they have stayed with the company?”
In other words approach it from the positive thought of employee retention or appreciative inquiry into the positive world of employee retention.
They received so much good information on why employees stay for long periods of time and used this information to retain employees. The results were outstanding and the turnover issue went away.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were not so quick to criticize ourselves or others and substitute it with the practice of Appreciative Inquiry? It will increase our value to ourselves, our employer, employees, customers and humanity in general.
Sounds like a good deal to me.
Photo Credit: syzygy-co.com
