Impact of Brief Interactions

First a confession, I tweet. Not a crazy Twitter addict, but certainly I have been known to tweet (i.e. post) random thoughts and quotes into Twitterland.

It all started when a good friend (a professed Twitter addict) mentioned learning through select tweets. I signed up and began following thought leaders on topics such as Lean, Six Sigma, ITIL and various leadership attributes. He was right, Twitter was and is a method of obtaining cutting edge, quick thoughts on a variety of topics.

What I realized quickly was the potential impact of these 140 character tweets. And while my first two months was absorbing the tweets and determine who to following, I did eventually take the leap and start tweeting.

What followed was eye opening. As I started posting random positive thoughts into Twitterland my followers grew. I started with 4 followers and jumped to 46 after week one. Three weeks after, I had surpassed 100 followers with a few being respected poets, authors and thought leaders.

Then, one Saturday, I posted a tweet that maybe, probably, could have been considered a rant. (Okay, fine...if it quacks like a rant, walks like a rant, it is a rant.) What happened next surprised me, one of my followers sent me a direct message that read “stacyrea—not your usual self today?” Talk about being caught in the act and indirectly told to recast myself pronto by means of cyberspace! More than that, these connected events (positive posts = followers compared to negative posts = msg of concern/lost followers) clearly showed me the power of brief interactions to influence and potentially course correct.

It is the next series of events that added additional clarity to my thinking on this topic, because that very night, it was time to start my next book. And the next book on my reading list was How Full is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton.

How Full is Your Bucket? reveals how even the briefest interactions affect your relationships, productivity, and health. The book is organized around a simple metaphor of a dipper and a bucket. It shows you how to increase the positive in your work and your life, while reducing the negative.

The primary author, Tom Rath surfaces the topic of making every moment matter. He says, “Usually, we don’t stop to consider the impact of brief interactions. But we experience literally hundreds of potential turning points in a given day.” Rath continues by pointing out building a culture based on positive impacts (what is right) versus negative impacts (what is wrong). But from my rant example, this is easier to call out and talk about versus making a cultural change. Because an occasional rant happens...right?

StrengthsFinder reminds us that we have been raised into a culture where we focus on what people do wrong versus what people do right. Rath supports by saying, “While this negativity-based approach might have evolved unintentionally, it nevertheless permeates our society at all levels.”

But recognizing that attitude is a personal choice and if we prefer an environment based on positive emotions (which impacts our life span!), then how do we tackle the 20,000 individual moments each day while holding on to the positive elements and allowing the negative to roll off and not stay in our minds? Rath says through frequent, small, positive acts. In fact, he says the magic ratio is 5 positive interactions to every 1 negative interaction.

Enter the Theory of the Dipper and the Bucket (see next post) and increasing positive emotions in your life and others’ lives. The idea is simple: fill others' bucket, you fill your own bucket. But, like all things, just wanting isn’t enough. You must have a plan that is specific and actionable. I plan to pay more attention to “bucket management” as well as the significance of each and every interaction whether it be virtual, using social mediums (Twitter, Blip.fm, Facebook, Linkedin) or just good ‘ole face to face.

Thanks for letting me share.

~stacy

REFERENCES
How Full is Your Bucket. Gallup Press 2009. Rath, Tom. Cllifton, Donald.
StrengthsFinder. 2.0. Gallup Press 2007. Rath, Tom. Cllifton, Donald.