Success through Positive Affirmation

We are constantly meeting and interacting with people in the workplace. We interact with our employees, our employers, our customers, our vendors, and everybody in between, and naturally form opinions and impressions of these people based on a variety of factors. It is not surprise that such biases shape our everyday interactions with them and mold our expectations of their performance.

But Steve Roesler of The Steve Roesler Group, in his blog All Things Workplace (http://www.allthingsworkplace.com/), believes that our expectations influence our peers' performance as well. According to Roesler, we tend to see people in two different lights: "The Halo Effect" occurs when we allow one good trait in a person to paint our entire impression of them in a positive shade, dulling our perception of their potential downfalls and flaws. Conversely, "The Horn Effect" describes our tendency to allow one or two flaws or negative traits to influence our whole perception of a person negatively. If they are lacking in one key trait, they are assumed to be lacking in many others as well. For example, an employee who is constantly overdue on a specific project (perhaps due to unreasonable deadlines or work load) is assumed to be lazy, uncommitted, or unintelligent.

These expectations can actually influence the way that people work. If we are constantly expecting negative performance, it is likely that we will keep getting negative performance. Our expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies.

What a great message for business people! It is so easy to be unsatisified with the people we work with each day. I appreciate Mr. Roesler's message that we have the power to influence the world around us and shape people to give us the best or the worst of themselves. Our peers follow our lead, looking to us to encourage and affirm them. How many of us have had somebody in our lives who saw us as the best we could be, and for whom we rose to the occasion every time to meet their image of us? I would bet we all have.

Here at Davinci, our top goal has always been to affirm those we work with, because their success is our success. We are in the business of nurting businesses, of assisting them to reach their fullest potential. We move the road blocks out of the way because we know that every single company and individual we work with has so much potential, and are pleased to make their road to success that much easier. It is not just about the services, it is our atmosphere of positive affirmation and success that sets us apart. We are passionate about being a positive force, in one way or another, in our clients lives.