I sing in a traditional Male Voice Choir. Not quite normal, I know, but we’re pretty good, and they’re a great bunch of blokes.
http://Hampshire Police Male Voice Choir (HPMVC)
The sad side is that we have a fair number of elderly members, and so funerals and wakes come along a little too often.
Anyway, I went along to a lovely guy called Pete’s wake last week. As we were chatting, one of his lifelong friends stood up to say a few words. Pete was a jolly soul, and there were a fair few entertaining stories of this group of friends’ antics over the years.
There was one story that really hit a chord with me.
It’s easy to be kind
Pete, in his Royal Navy days, got deployed to Europe. The team that he joined, which his friend was part of, was ‘toxic’; people from different nationalities not getting along and making no effort to be pleasant or considerate.
When Pete joined, he was put in charge of organising work shifts for the team. He sent a note round simply asking people to let him know any important personal dates that were coming up for people in the next 3 months – birthdays, anniversaries etc. He then made every effort to schedule people with time off on those dates.
This simple piece of thoughtfulness immediately started to change the culture of the team. People started taking an interest when others had personal events, and along with Pete’s natural cheeriness, people started to be more kind, more friendly and generally happier.
The friend didn’t go into whether productivity increased. I bet it did. And I bet the quality was better, as people would have started to properly collaborate and help each other out rather than building walls around their jobs.
Simple lesson for life
A life lesson that I’ve learned is that if you like to live in a happy world where people smile at you and be nice, then start smiling at people and being nice. If you want to live in a grumpy world surrounded by miserable people, then go out of your front door a grouch every morning and your dream will come true:)
And funnily enough, grumpy doesn’t get the best out of your team. Although lots of managers seem to think differently….