Want to accomplish more?  Want to be better?  Be nice.

The author, Margaret Wheatley, offers incredible insight from her work on the critical importance of relating with one another in our work.  Let’s start with this perspective:

“Whatever boxes we stuff staff into, people always reach out to those who will give them information, be their allies, offer support or cheer them up. Those lines and boxes are imaginary. The real organization is always a dense network of relationships.”  “In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.”    —  Margaret Wheatley  — 

With most surveys asking what employees value most in their jobs, the predominant top responses are good relationships with colleagues, the ability to learn and the ability to contribute.  Money and pay are generally down the list a bit.

Our best co-workers enjoy learning from one another and creating solutions that work.  For many, trusted work relationships are at the social center of their lives.  It’s that important to us.  The networks of relationships become the real force of successful and adaptive organizations.

Be nice.  Be genuine.  Play an active role within a culture that itself drives a great deal of the success of organizations.  After all, culture eats strategy for lunch.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”   —  Aesop  —

MITM