Transforming Meetings: Positivity's Power

What if your meetings could be a source of inspiration, creativity, and collaboration rather than a dreaded part of your workday? In this episode of the Business Owner Breakthrough Podcast, Pete Mohr reveals the key to transforming your meetings - and your business as a whole - with a strategy called "The Power of Positive Meetings." This concept is a result of years of personal experience and scientific research demonstrating the significant impact of positivity on the brain's receptiveness and flexibility.

Here are a few things Pete covers:

• The historical context of meetings and their evolving purpose.
• The psychological study underpinning the benefits of starting meetings with good news.
• How positivity in communication can create a nurturing culture for ideas to bloom.
• The ripple effect of positivity from meetings to overall job satisfaction and productivity.
• Concrete steps to integrate positivity in your meetings, including gratitude rounds, sharing personal good news, and highlighting achievements.

It’s time to take action:
Start integrating a good news agenda in your next meeting. Kick off with gratitude rounds, acknowledge achievements, and promote personal stories. Not only will these strategies shift the meeting's atmosphere, but they will also ripple into the day-to-day operations, transforming your company culture. Remember, change is a process, so persistence is key. To aid in this process, visit www.simplifyingentrepreneurship.com/goodnews to download your guide "5 Easy Ways to Implement a Good News Agenda in Your Workplace."

Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024?  Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!

Transcript

Pete Mohr: 0:35

Are you ready to move from operator to owner? Well, decisions in your organization should be made at the lowest possible level of your business. Every day, there is a framework that can help and it's called the five P's. Understanding your promise, aligning your product process and people to it will generate the most amount of profit. And that's when the freedom comes. Freedom from the day to day management and freedom to start doing the things that you want and deserve to do, inside and outside of your business. No one ever said it was easy, but it's time to start the process on the business owner breakthrough. If you'd like to chat with me about helping you breakthrough in your business, simply go to speak to pete.com that speak to pete.com, to book an appointment and to see if we're a right fit. Ever felt that subtle drop in your spirit as soon as a meeting begins? Have you wondered if it could be any different? Well, it's time to talk about how you can incorporate the power of positive meetings in your business to help you transform from operator to owner in your business. You know, throughout history, the purpose of meetings was always simple to address these pressing concerns and problems were highlighted making the atmosphere typically tense. But what if we could address those concerns while lifting spirits? You know, what would it mean for your productivity and well being and that of your teammates, and your organization. I recently read a psychological study. And people respond with higher creativity and collaboration when their meetings begin with positive accomplishments. And general good news. And this isn't just about feel good moments, or it's really backed around science and neurological studies show that our brains are more receptive and flexible when introduced to positive stimuli. And for years now, whether it be with my team at utopia, or with my coaching clients, and all of the different groups that I coach and work with, we always start the meeting with good news. This has been a long time tradition for us. After breaking through the idea around of do we really need to do this for those people that aren't used to starting meetings with good news, that kind of attitude of the first couple of meetings, everyone will start to come prepared to share their good news, they'll love hearing others wins. And the meeting will start off, right. It's interesting that many people have a really hard time finding something to be positive about. And they'll often revert back to something negative. And you as a leader have to take a stance and let them know then in there that this is the segment of the meeting, that is for good news only, and that they'll get their chance to, you know, bring up their concerns later in the meeting. But we need to stay on good news. It's how the meeting needs to start. So let's break down positive communication in meeting structure. You know, beyond sharing pleasant news, it's about setting the tone, a culture where every voice, including yours matters. And if you picture a greenhouse where ideas like plants are nurtured and allowed to bloom, that's what positive communication can do. You know, think about it. Two leaders, one always sees the challenges, while the other finds the opportunities admits those challenges. And who do you think drives more innovation? Optimism isn't just a trait. It's a catalyst for business transformation. And that's what we talk a lot about here transforming from operator to owner to, and if you want to transform, then you need to start looking at starting all of your meetings, all of your conversations with positive news. You know, how do we make this shift if it's just not natural? Well, you start with pairing problems with potential solutions, bring up a team members innovative approach, even if it was a small project, show that every positive step no matter how minor has value, you know, I love the various groups that I work with. And I've been running bi weekly mastermind meetings with a group of about half dozen rebuilders now for a few years, and they're pretty comfortable sharing with each other by now we're on Zoom, and we kick off each session and always have with a quick round of good news. Sometimes it's personal. Other times it's about a win that they had at work, you know, either way, each person on the call gets to know a little bit more about that person and their business and becomes even more comfortable sharing some of their concerns and their wins as well. You know, often The groups that I coach, they're pretty much competitors in their marketplace, but they're willing to open up and share the things that make a difference, so that each of them can grow. And they don't look at it from a competitive aspect after that, because you're down deep and sharing the wins, you're wanting to see each other win. And it's just such a engaging environment, right? The biggest thing around this is that change can be intimidating, especially in established settings. And if you've been running your meetings for such a long time, without kind of starting with good news, some of the colleagues, some of your team members and people on those meetings will probably resist, but it's all about persistence, you know, persistence, such a key trait in being an operator and being an owner, and showcasing the benefits and highlighting the success stories. And most importantly, the biggest way is for you to lead by example and not let this go down a path that is hard to come back from positivity in meetings, doesn't just stay at the conference room or in the boardroom or wherever you are sitting around the retail floor, it spills over after these constructive meetings. That feeling of accomplishment, the pride and the optimism radiates through your day. Often we don't celebrate enough wins in our business. And this is one way to sort of let's call it force push a button in order to make positivity happen, and to celebrate wins. Think about how it affects your interactions, your decision making and the overall job satisfaction of your team. Cultivating positivity shouldn't be just limited to meetings. It's about creating an environment, a culture where everyone from the top level executives to the interns feels recognized and valued. And when the company culture echoes this positivity, you'll see fewer sick days, you'll see higher productivity and a noticeable increase in employee retention. It is a win win. It's fascinating really to think that the tone we set in our meetings can have such a profound ripple effect. But I'll tell you, from my personal experience of having done this for many, many years, it does. So all right, let's roll up our sleeves. And let's see some steps that you can integrate into your next meeting. Number one, you can do a gratitude round. Well, what is a gratitude round, you can begin every meeting with a quick round of where each participant shares something that they're grateful for. setting a tone of gratitude really Prime's the brain for positive thinking and cultivates environment of appreciation in the meeting. If you're not that big on gratitude side of things, then at least get in the share the personal good news. by allocating a short time for your team members to share positive personal news or experiences be at a hobby, maybe a milestone could be a child's achievement, or maybe just a memorable moment from their week or weekend. This creates deeper connections among team members. It really just humanizes the workplace and promotes camaraderie amongst the group, right? Number three would be to highlight achievements. When we dedicate a segment of the meeting to acknowledge and celebrate the team or the individual accomplishments, it makes a difference recognizing achievements not only boosts morale, but it also sets a proactive tone and encourages more of the same positive behavior down the road. You see it happening, you know, throughout the day throughout the week. Number four is to spotlight positive customer feedback, not negative customer feedback. We're here to spotlight positive customer feedback, we'll deal with the negative customer feedback later in the meeting. We're just sharing those testimonials from clients or customers. During those meetings, what happened to have come up since the last time we got together, right? Positive feedback provides just such tangible evidence of the results of the team's hard work. And it just underlines the value of their contributions so important to share as a group, right. And the fifth one I want to share with you today is encourage learning moments throughout right, and meetings by asking your team members to share one new thing they learned since the last gathering. This could be work related could be a new tool, maybe even a life lesson. When we promote continuous learning within our organizations. You know, it reinforces a growth mindset and celebrates new knowledge and the importance of personal development. People want to work with you. They want to keep growing, they want your business to grow, but they want to grow as well. You we need to be empowering leaders and allowing our team members to grow within the organization, and to grow personally within the organization to right, remember integrating a good news agenda that we're talking about here today. It's a journey. It's not just a checkbox, it's, it might feel a little bit unfamiliar. But if you do it with consistency, it becomes second nature. And the results speak for themselves. I can speak personally, I'm happy to share with you many examples of this that we have gone through and I've gone through, whether it be at our retail stores, or whether it be with my coaching clients. Just pick up the phone, and let's have a chat about it. Before we wrap up, I've got a gift for you. And if you want to dive deeper into building positive work environment, it's a little one page PDF, the five easy ways to implement a good news agenda in your workplace so that you can take sort of today's learnings, pop them in share them with your team, all you need to do is go to simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash good news free download, you'll just pop in your email and we will send it over to you. So it's at simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash good news. And you can download your copy over there so you have the power to begin your meetings with good news now. And when you do and you stick to it right? Without exception, you'll notice the difference in your team's decision making and your business's decision making as a whole. Your journey from being the operator of the business to the owner of the business begins with that one positive step. So until next time, make it a great day

Buzz Burbank: 12:18

and ironic media production, visit us at our ONICK media.com