For a Happier Workplace and Resilient Mindset, Focus on the Wins!
If you want to create a happier, more resilient workplace then you need to relentlessly champion, celebrate and focus on the wins. A study of Olympic athletes shows this isn’t always easy to do – but to develop a growth mindset in your workplace culture, you need to focus on the wins and the gains, not the losses!
American psychologist Thomas Gilovich coauthored a paper in 1995 that looked at the relative happiness of Olympic athletes in the 1992 Summer Olympics, and they discovered a weird thing: that very often, the bronze medalists were happier than the silver medalists, which doesn’t seem to make sense on the surface. Last time I checked, silver is better than bronze!
So what was going on? Well it’s of course because so many of those silver medalists were thinking to themselves, “I missed it. I lost gold by that much.” They were focused on what they lost, whereas the bronze medalists were thinking, “Whoosh, I made it onto the podium! No one ever talks about the fourth place person.”
What a great inspiring lesson for all of us. If we’re going to be more resilient and happier in our lives, we need to focus on what we’ve gained, not what we’ve lost. We need to focus relentlessly intentionally on the wins.
And when it comes to creating a rocking, inspiring workplace, we need to do the same thing. We need to build a culture where we are championing the wins, where we are focusing people relentlessly on the positives, on the wins, on what’s working, instead of talking about what’s not working. We need to create a culture that supports a growth mindset that keeps people moving towards those positive wins.
So what about you? What are you doing in your workplace to focus people on the wins? To focus people, to get them talking about and celebrating what they’ve gained instead of talking about what they’ve lost? Please leave a comment in the comment box, and if you haven’t already yet, please subscribe to my channel, Inspiring Workplaces, where we talk about all things culture and workplaces that rock, and yes, go for the gold!
Michael Kerr is a Hall of Fame business speaker and the author of 8 books, including The Humor Advantage and The Jerk-Free Workplace.
