Page 154 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

HOW DO I BUILD A POSITIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT? (EFFECTIVE WORK CULTURE OR SETTING)

to generate solutions to some real business challenges. After
employees winnowed their ideas into recommendations,
they were to present these ideas to their business leader.
These employees spent most of a day generating and filtering
their top priorities for sparking and supporting more innova-
tion. When the business leader came at the end of the day
to hear their recommendations, the employees were excited
to share. But when the spokeswoman for the group shared
the group’s first recommendation, the leader slammed the
table and said, “Is that all you’ve got to show for a day of
working on this? We’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work. I hope
you have something better than that!” Needless to say, the
employees’ enthusiasm turned to silence and the anticipated
sharing of ideas quickly evaporated. Without intervention,
the work environment in this unit would sour dramatically.
Colleagues have suggested that ideas are the new eco-
nomic currency. The money of new ideas grows on the
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trees of imagination and is nurtured by encouragement,
good listening, and respect, followed only later by careful,
respectful pruning. Leaders who build positive work envi-
ronments encourage the growth of good ideas by creating
listening posts where employees share and discuss options.
These listening posts may be a café-type conference area, an
electronic blog, or a town hall meeting. Town hall meetings
work well when leaders create a positive work environment
by acknowledging employee creativity, expressing gratitude
for their work, inviting open discussion of new ways to act,
and making real-time decisions that demonstrate their will-
ingness to try new things. 6
Being open to new ideas means that leaders ask questions
and seek to learn. In contrast, one leader shared his experi-
ence with a corporate executive on a two-day tour of the local

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