IS BEING AN OPTIMISTIC A GOOD THING?

There are quite a number of motivational speakers and self-improvement books out there with a surprisingly simple message: believe that success will come easily to you, and it will.

There is one small problem in this argument, however, which unfortunately doesn't seem to stop anyone from making it: it is utterly false.

In fact, not only is visualizing "effortless success" unhelpful, it is disastrous. This is good advice to give only if you are trying to sabotage the recipient. It is a recipe for failure.

THREE PRACTICAL WAYS TO ENGAGE YOUR TEAM

Listening carefully to her team members, adjusting her recognition and praise in response to their concerns, and most of all, by persevering, Elżbieta Górska is making her department more productive while also making it a better place to work.

Elżbieta Górska-Kołodziejczyk manages a warehouse in a Poland’s formerly state-owned paper-making plant in the city of Kwidzyn. International Paper purchased a majority stake from the government 14 years ago, and dramatic changes have taken place at the plant since then. Four-thousand five-hundred people once worked in the facility, but now only 1,600 are needed. The enterprise used to produce 200,000 metric tons of paper each year, but now ships three times as much. As a state facility behind the Iron Curtain in 1980, it packaged paper in five different wrappers. Today, as a private concern and with Poland now a member of the European Union, the paper leaves the plant in 300 different patterns or brands, bound for stores across the continent.