What is your fragrance?
How long do you need to live in an area before you belong? Many of our friends and family have moved abroad and generally after five years they get their new passports and become residents. So five years seems like a reasonable answer. The other morning on the way to school they were talking about a very important topic on the local radio station: how long does it take to become a Capetonian? People phoned in with some funny answers, but one struck me in particular. The lady said that you can only consider yourself a real Capetonian when “You stop greeting people, you don’t introduce yourself and you don’t show up for a braai you were invited to”. I thought SHO! that’s rather salty.
On reflection, that has been somewhat aligned with my experience of having lived in Cape Town for the past three years. I’m someone who waves. If I drive past you on the way home I’m going to wave, because we are neighbours. I have learned that you are way more likely to get a smile and a wave from one of the people who work in our area than those who stay here (with some exceptions). And that’s a shame. I’m on a mission to change the perception, one wave at a time.
Recently we have been talking about influence and how to make sure that yours is positive. This brought me across a book by Dale Carnegie written in 1938 called How to Win Friends and Influence People. I must say it is fantastic – written 85 years ago it reminds us of some of the basic principles of interpersonal interaction and connection that our modern society seems to have forgotten.
He shares plenty of good insights, but the one that stuck with me is about leaving people better than you find them. Now this is something we talk about often with our clients – on individual and organisational levels – but Carnegie views it in such a practical, useful way. Imagine an old-school scale (no digital types around in 1938) with two opposing sides. Anything you add to the left influences the right – the more you add the more it tips from one side to the other. With every interpersonal interaction you have with someone – be that in person, online, via email, text or phone – you are adding a grain of sand to either side of the scale. Either positive or negative. The more interactions you have, the bigger the pile of sand.
This got me thinking about the influence or fragrance I leave behind with every interaction – especially with those people closest to me. Am I emitting a sweet, positive fragrance or a sour, negative one? The people I admire most tend to have a positive impact everywhere they go. They are fun to be around and they have an energy that makes you feel good about life.
Simple, small things make a difference: a smile, a word of encouragement, a patient answer, a kind response, body language that shows interest, a joke and a laugh. Life is made up of billions of interactions – grains of sand. On which side of the scale you drop them is up to you.
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At PurposeWorks we are all about Making You and Your Work Rock. Our focus is on Organisational Health and Design, Employee Centered Culture, Leadership Development and Performance Coaching. For more information on how we can help you create a work environment that rocks, develop a great team, become an inspiring leader or unlock your personal excellence talk to us at info@purposeworks.co.za.
