Barbara Fredrickson gave a great Keynote at Agile 2011 – Why care about positive emotions?
The essential message is that we can create positive environments and emotions to create an upward spiral of openness, resilience, and better performance.
This is in line with my use of Agile as a way to transform the world of work. And of getting innovation and results through play.
The flow of the diagram below is: Positive emotions –> Expand’s Awareness –> Other thinking –> Mind Meld
Dr. Fredrickson argues that Positivity is a lifestyle change that can result in a upward spiral of positivity with all the associated benefits. Masking the negative does not help, we actually need to focus on the positive – at least three positive events for every negative event.
I really appreciated Barabara’s message, however, the one part I will differ on is that in many environments we need to create trust and safety to reduce the background noise of negativity. This needs to happen in tandem with positivity.
You can learn more through Barabara’s website or book.
