I Listened to an Interview with Chip Heath and Discovered that We Did Something Right!
As I was doing my morning walk on the treadmill, I was listening to a Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Chip Heath was being interviewed about his new book “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard”.
I found this very relevant information and was intrigued with Chip’s comments. Especially as they pertained to “getting the emotion right” when it comes to changing the way we are working in an organization. He says that looking at the bright spots is a really strong motivational technique rather than just focusing on the need to change.
Mostly, I was excited to find out that we did something right! At our annual goal setting meeting in January. We started out the usual way with listing everything that we are working on now, things we didn’t accomplish in the past year and items we wanted to accomplish in 2010. As in the past, this can be pretty heavy stuff and can be a bit of a downer. The meeting tends to focus on where we fell short in our projects.
We took a short break from our work, and during that break, I was struck by a thought that maybe we should start with listing all of our accomplishments from 2009. We were pleasantly surprised when doing this that we filled up a complete page and then some. Then we went on to list some items in our personal lives that we accomplished in 2009. This was a much more uplifting way to start.
When we got back to the office, I sent an email out to everyone asking them to list 5 accomplishments from 2009 and also asked them to cc: everyone in the office. Too many times, we spend our time together at meetings moving forward with projects and never looking back to see where we have come from.
We have a huge year this year at work. We are in the process of renovating a manufacturing plant to move Integrative Flavors’ soup base operations to this summer. The advice Chip gave, in this brief interview, validated to me that retooling the way we approach our projects will go a long way to a successful year!
