A 1999 study conducted by Sigal Barsade at the Yale School of Management show that cheerfulness and warmth spread easily among working groups whilst irritability caught on less so. It will not surprise you to know that laughter is very contagious. When we hear laughter we find it difficult not to laugh or smile ourselves. Do you recall getting caught up in a spiral of giggles in a group? One starts and others follow. We get caught up because the brain has an open loop circuit that is designed to detect smiles and laughter and respond in kind. Scientists theorise that this dynamic was hardwired long ago because smiles and laughter had a way of cementing alliances and keeping our species alive.

I have read of many experiments to change attitudes to groups of people by forcing contact. If there is no enjoyment in the contact the attitude doesn’t change. It hardens.

The main implication here for us is that we can change the moods of others. The loop is open to outside influence. Be they customers, team members, peers, managers or family members, we can be a major influence in helping others to feel happy.

Some simple ways of doing this are:

• Greet enthusiastically. Don’t tell people how you are. Tell them how you’d like to be. Try some colourful words like: sensational, never been better, enjoying my life!

• Smile. Even if you don’t feel like smiling, others will react to your smile and smile back. You will see their returned genuine smile and react automatically with a genuine smile. Fake can become genuine.

• Shake hands warmly. Physical contact will help people feel better about themselves and about you. Match the strength of their grip and look them in the eye. Soft for soft. Hard for hard.

• Farewell warmly. People will remember the last words you say so make them memorable. ‘Hope to see you again’, ‘Great to see you’, ‘ I have enjoyed speaking to you’.

Humour and laughter spreads quickly to create an upbeat climate. Lose you sense of humour and the world becomes grey. Spread humour and colour returns. Look around you for humour and reasons to be happy. If you woke up this morning you are way ahead of those that didn’t! year.

Paddy

laughter, humour, sense of humour, attitude

Imagine if you threw rose petals at people. At the end of the day your hands would smell like rose petals. On the other hand, what if you threw elephant poo at everyone you met. The magic of positive reinforcement is not well understood. Put very simply, what you reinforce is what you get more of. If you acknowledge and reinforce behaviour it is likely to be repeated.

There are two ways of reinforcing behaviour. Oh by the way, positive reinforcement is anything you say or do that the other person takes as positive reinforcement. It needs to be as close to the performance as possible.

Back to two ways of reinforcing behaviour. Positive reinforcement follows the performance – it can be a simple ‘thank you’, a gift, a note. The person is encouraged to repeat the performance. You noticed and you showed that you noticed.

Negative reinforcement also works.The person repeats the performance to avoid getting another negative reinforcement from you.This doesn’t work as well as the positive. They may only repeat the performance when you are around and they will only do enough to stay out of your bad books.

If you ignore good behaviour and only notice poor behaviour you run the risk of seeing the good behaviour disappear because it is not being noticed and seeing the poor behaviour reduced ‘when you are present’.

Have you noticed how careful people drive when they see a speed camera? No incentive to drive well, only punishment if you don’t. Same with seat belts. There is an immediate negative reinforcement- you need to take time to settle in and your clothing gets crumpled. The positive is in the future… if you have an accident. The negative is now and certain.

So… let’s get started on using positive reinforcement. Look for opportunities to apply positive reinforcement. When people behave well, comment immediately. Make your comment positive and as close to the performance as possible. Ignore poor behaviour, if you can, and wait for any movement in the right direction. Acknowledge and reinforce any approximations towards good performance.

Do you want your hands to smell like roses or elephant poo?

If you have any stories about the effectiveness of positive reinforcement, please send them to me. My most recent example was at a hotel. As I finished signing my name, the person at the desk commented ‘ lovely handwriting’. You won’t believe the care I took when signing for my meals.

Paddy

hand smell, elephant poo, smell like roses, good behaviour, bad behaviour

Some years ago I heard a speaker advise the audience to identify the colour of a person’s eyes when first meeting. Of course, the colour doesn’t matter but if we are focused on someone’s eyes when we first meet, we will be giving them our full attention which will have a very positive impact.

My wife and I recently attended a sales evening for time share and it was very obvious that few of the sales people looked at the audience except for glances. The impression they gave was of passing interest not real interest. You will notice when people look closely at your eyes. You will certainly notice when they don’t.

So here is a very useful exercise that will improve your listening skills and help you build rapport very quickly with everyone you meet.

For the next day, look closely at people’s eyes and identify the colour of their irises. It is especially important that you do this as you are first meeting them. Really look deeply into the colour and see how it varies from the outside to the inside of the iris.

eye language, listening skills, building rapport, positive impact