{"id":63303,"date":"2014-03-05T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=63303"},"modified":"2014-03-05T08:31:11","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T13:31:11","slug":"reputation-builder-give-back-pay-forward-learn-from-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=63303","title":{"rendered":"Reputation Builder — Give Back, Pay Forward — Learn from Everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sheryl L. Christensen, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ California<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Reputation Builder — Give Back, Pay Forward — Learn from Everyone<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Sheryl_Christensen\"<\/a>One of my favorite books of all time, as far as its helpfulness with real world social interactions, has\u00a0<\/span>been Florence Littauer\u2019s book, Silver Boxes – The Gift of Encouragement<\/a>. Ms. Littauer compares all\u00a0of the positive things that we say to each other to beautiful silver boxes (gifts!) with bows on top.\u00a0We accumulate these boxes as we hear supportive feedback and we begin to feel more and more\u00a0empowered and positive about ourselves with our increasing stack of silver boxes; we also begin to\u00a0experience this same feeling by adding to other people\u2019s stacks of silver boxes.<\/p>\n

The problem is that sometimes it doesn\u2019t take a lot, in fact maybe one severe or negative word from\u00a0someone, to wipe out our entire stack of silver boxes. Should we work at becoming less thin-skinned\u00a0and not allow other people\u2019s harshness or negative input to affect us in the extreme way it sometimes\u00a0does? We could work on this, because allowably not every interaction that seems negative to us has\u00a0been meant to be so by another person. We all see things differently. Our perspectives are not all\u00a0coming from the same place and we don\u2019t share a frame of reference with everyone we come into\u00a0contact with. There IS some push and pull going on with every interaction and the interpretation of\u00a0these events can travel in an almost infinite number of ways, depending upon each person\u2019s focus (and\u00a0previous experiences) during a given conversation. Sometimes we think that we are saying one thing\u00a0and the other person isn\u2019t actually hearing what we think we are saying at all\u2026.<\/p>\n

This frustration has most likely happened to all of us at least once. Whether we ever have the\u00a0opportunity to express that there has been a misunderstanding is often dependent upon the nature of\u00a0the moment as well as our rapport with the individual going into the conversation. Many times one or\u00a0the other person walks away from this type of situation assuming that they know exactly what the other\u00a0person meant D: and the opportunity may never come to clear the air or clarify one\u2019s viewpoint.<\/p>\n

One piece of good news is that we can create more opportunities for clear interaction when we\u00a0support each other by being consistently encouraging. When we feel positive about the people we are\u00a0communicating with, we tend to be more open<\/em> and to listen more openly<\/em> to each other; we also tend to\u00a0feel more forgiving if there is a misunderstanding.<\/p>\n

Clearly, committing to this type of encouraging action doesn\u2019t always feel<\/em> safe or sensible in every\u00a0environment. Especially when we find ourselves in \u201coppositional\u201d situations or where we feel we are\u00a0being professionally undermined. It may take a while (and small steps) to turn a situation around or\u00a0it may never turn around. But in the end, I feel that if we consistently contribute in a positive way,\u00a0that we can feel good about our own influence and involvement. If we succumb to being a party to\u00a0increasing negativity then we may regret not only having surrendered our values but also our part in the\u00a0resultant damage to our workplace and our reputation.<\/p>\n

In our working life, there will be disagreement: there are numerous ways to view and to accomplish\u00a0a particular task or goal. But in this teeming bowl of potential<\/em> conflict, there is so much we can learn\u00a0from each other through the encouragement of open communication and by accepting the validity\u00a0of alternate points of view. By building our reputation as someone who esteems and supports our\u00a0colleagues (someone who is generously giving silver boxes!), we create a deep reserve of workplace\u00a0community and social capital as well as significant movement toward that overarching and critical goal:\u00a0a forward-looking, dynamic, and thriving organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Sheryl L. Christensen, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ California Reputation Builder — Give Back, Pay Forward — Learn from Everyone One of my favorite books of all time, as far as its helpfulness with real world social interactions, has\u00a0been Florence Littauer\u2019s book, Silver Boxes – The Gift of Encouragement. Ms. Littauer compares all\u00a0of the positive things that…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":63645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,3629,5223,5917,6009,6010,4689],"class_list":["post-63303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-california","tag-positive-attitude","tag-sheryl-christensen","tag-silver-boxes-the-gift-of-encouragement","tag-social-interaction","tag-staying-positive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/sherylchristensen2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-gt1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}