Today’s guest author is Becky Robinson, writing in support of the launch of Lead Positive, the latest book from Kathryn D. Cramer, PhD. Dr. Cramer, who is passionate about possibilities and potential, is an Emmy-winner, business consultant, psychologist, and author who has written nine books, including the best-selling Change the Way You See Everything. She created and has dedicated her life to asset-based thinking (ABT), a way of looking at the world that helps leaders, influencers, and their teams make small shifts in thinking to produce extraordinary impact. Her latest book, Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say & Do , shows leaders how to increase their effectiveness through her revolutionary mindset management process, Asset-Based Thinking.
Last week at a business lunch, one of my colleagues said a surprising thing.
In referencing some subcontractors who left our company last summer, she declared “Their leaving our company is one of the best things that have happened to our team.”
I remember how I felt when they left. I cried. I took it personally. I felt discouraged. I wanted to quit. I struggled to identify the right people to fill in the gaps they left.
At our business lunch, my colleague continued talking: “It was the best thing that happened,” she said, “because it forced you to become a different kind of leader. The difficulty inspired you to create new solutions and ways of working and we are a stronger company because of that difficulty.”
Seeing possibilities in problems is a hallmark of Asset-Based Thinking, a proven process that forms the basis for Dr. Kathy Cramer’s new book, Lead Positive.
While we may find it easy to reflect on past experiences to draw out the positive, it is far more difficult to do so in the moment, when we will, Cramer writes, focus on the negative more than 80% of the time.
My wallowing in self-pity? That’s normal. What isn’t typical is being able to short-circuit the negative and choose a positive perspective.
When we lead positive, we will see, say, and do different things. In the ending of one relationship, I might choose to see an opportunity to work with and empower someone new. I might choose to say something different when relating changes to my team. I might choose to act with confidence in outlining and planning a path forward.
When we lead positive, we can turn the worst things into the best things.
How can you rewrite past events to see possibilities and identify opportunities?
How can you reframe the present to choose a positive perspective in the moment?
How can you look to the future with hope and optimism?
