Bringing the power of positivity to your team.
The belief that positivity impacts your team outcomes isn’t just feel-good fluff. You’ve felt it, you’ve seen it, and it is backed by research. When your team collectively feels positive, they are more cohesive, supportive, and more likely to cooperate and coordinate. People are social creatures and feeling good greases the social mechanisms that facilitate team functioning, putting you and your team in a better place to succeed. Whether you are in a leadership role or the newest member of a work team you can make a difference. Here are a few suggestions for you to experiment and start bringing the power of positivity to your team.
Improve YOUR Positivity
Most often it is best to start with where we have the most control, ourselves. Like I said previously, we are highly social creatures. We are influenced by the emotions we see in others, whether we like it or not. This is called emotional contagion, and it is part of why going to live sporting events and the movie theater are so fun. If you can improve your mood in a constructive way, your team will naturally pick up on it and be more likely to be positive themselves. As you review the rest of the suggestions, think of using them yourself and then encouraging your team to experiment with them.
Smile!
When someone on your team sees you smiling, they are more likely to smile. This is because the same part of their brain that is activated when they smile is activated by seeing you smile. PBS has a great 4.5 minute video (1) on this if you want to learn more about this and the interesting studies on mirror neurons.
Gratitude
Thank you are two of the most powerful words in the English language when said with sincerity. People want to feel valued and recognized. A genuine thank you validates them and gives them a little boost. It makes you feel good too. Neurologists have shown that gratitude influences your brain in the areas which facilitate social interactions (2). A great way to help generate gratitude in your team is through service. As you serve members of your team, they will have more opportunities to feel gratitude, and if you are taking advantage of opportunities to express gratitude yourself, then they will be more likely to reciprocate.
Focus on Progress
Winning feels good and by recognizing progress you can make the work your team does feel like a win more often. Outcomes are great, but there are things out of a team’s control that can influence outcomes. Progress is much more controllable while being directly related to outcomes. So focus on progress and make every day feel like a win.
Humor
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln told jokes and funny stories. He is quoted as saying, “why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh occasionally I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do (3).” Humor is a whole industry, but you don’t have to be a professional comedian to use humor to generate positivity in your teams. You should keep it clean and, like professional comedians, be prepared for your jokes to fall flat. I like to lean into that because sometimes weak jokes are the joke themselves. My jokes are not funny, my loving spouse would readily acknowledge this, but I almost always get my target to quirk a smile with the follow up comments of “I’m just honing my craft,” or “shooters gotta shoot”. A co-worker of mine is beloved for his terrible puns. As long as you keep it clean, you can’t go wrong.
A Caution and Conclusion
Evidence and experience suggest that a team with a general feeling of positivity will have improved interpersonal and performance outcomes (4), but don’t overly focus on positivity or push it to the extreme. Emotions naturally ebb and flow, and all have their time and place. The most important thing is that you keep experimenting and find what works for you and your team.
References
1. Nova Science Now. (n.d.). Mirror neurons. PBS & WGBH Educational Foundation. www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/hew06.sci.life.reg.mirrorneurons/mirror-neurons/
2. Fox, G. R., Kaplan, J., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. (2015). Neural correlates of gratitude. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 1491. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01491
3. Thomas, B. P. (1981). Lincoln’s humor: An analysis. Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. (3)1, pp. 28–47. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0003.105/--lincoln-s-humor-an-analysis?rgn=main;view=fulltext
4. Peñalver, J., Salanova, M., & Martínez, I. M. (2020). Group Positive Affect and Beyond: An Integrative Review and Future Research Agenda. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(20), 7499. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17207499
