There’s Power in Being Positive

While it may sound cliché, there is power in positive thinking. By focusing on positive thoughts, we can reframe challenges as opportunities, reduce stress, and increase resilience. Positive thinking fosters a mindset of gratitude and optimism, which can enhance relationships, improve mental health, and boost overall well-being. It encourages a proactive approach to life, shaping our perception of the world, and motivating us to pursue goals with confidence and determination.

Your Fantastic Future

Imagine that it’s five years from now. Like “Monkeyz Van Winkle” (Rip’s better looking, simian forebear), you wake up from a long sleep. The world around you has changed. You’ve changed. Your business has changed.

Your community is humming with economic activity. Elected leaders from both parties are cooperating. They’re looking not only for short gains, but the big picture.

Your kids are doing great. They’re involved in school activities, sports, and each has a budding musical talent: one is quite the singer, and the other is quite the pianist. Your spouse went back to school, got an advanced degree, and is now pursuing a new career. On the home front, things couldn’t be better.

Your business is booming. Challenging and rewarding work is pouring in, staff is talented and independent, and you’re growing as fast as you like.

It all seems too good to be true:

• What’s been going on for five years?
• What actions did you take or set in motion back then resulted in this optimal future?

Appreciative Inquiry

The scenario above is a type of “Appreciative Inquiry” exercise, a way of looking at what’s working well (or has worked well), figuring out why it’s working well, and then focusing attention on doing more of it—figuring good things will come of it.

Positive thinking and appreciative inquiry are closely connected through their shared focus on strengths and potential. Positive thinking encourages individuals to adopt an optimistic outlook, seeing possibilities rather than obstacles. Similarly, appreciative inquiry is a change management approach that emphasizes identifying and building upon what is working well within an organization, community, or relationship.

Appreciative Inquiry uses questions to probe for answers that emphasize personal or professional strengths. The idea is to assess when we or our organization functions best, and identify the characteristics present to make it so. According to the Center for Appreciative Inquiry the resulting positive stories and scenarios tend to “stir imaginations and generate excitement about the individual, team, or organization and what it is capable of accomplishing in the future” much more so than data and graphs.

Try It

As a group exercise, either for a business, a team, an organization, or even a family, the place to start is to develop a series of positive questions to explore a situation. The thinking is that just by asking such questions, you start to bring about change—and you want the questions framed positively since that will steer the inquiry and feedback in generally more favorable areas.

In the above “Monkeyz Van Winkle” scenario, our situation is forward looking. We imagine it’s five years in the future, things are going great in all aspects of life—beyond our wildest dreams—and we want to figure out how we go there.

Here are some sample questions you might use to guide your inquiry relating to your business (you can adapt these same types of questions to a personal/family situation, or even a broader societal issue):

1. What does success look like for you? How does it differ from today? How is it the same?
2. What processes or systems did you put in place five years ago that made this future possible?
3. What external challenges did you face or overcome on the way to success? How did you address them . . . And who was responsible?
4. What internal challenges did you address, and how did you address them?
5. How did you identify the key people involved? What were the criteria?
6. What essential talents and skills did they need to learn? How did they acquire them? Who was responsible for coaching and developing them?
7. How has your brand (personal or business) evolved in the past five years? What’s new? What’s the same? How do you fulfill your promises to the people in your life or to customers?
8. If an organization, how active are your current senior leaders in the day-to-day activities of the company?
9. How actively are you developing the next generation of leaders for your organization . . . or your family?
10. If an organization, how will your company continue to grow and evolve with the times to ensure a thriving, successful business for the foreseeable future?

Let’s Get Creative

Engaging in appreciative inquiry can drive positive transformation for companies and individuals by focusing on strengths and successes rather than problems. This approach fosters a culture of optimism and collaboration, encouraging creative solutions and innovation.

How can Barrel O'Monkeyz help you imagine (and achieve) a better future for your organization?

We serve as a seasoned, outsourced marketing and communications team for companies looking to ramp up sales and launch new products. Our barrel is full of talent and creative minds ready to prove we don’t just monkey around! Contact Barrel O’Monkeyz Today