"I want to recruit you, and train you, for the Responsibility Revolution. I want to help you feel good about your company and grow more good within it. I want to help you feel more fulfilled by your job, by helping your company to see the value of giving back to the larger world." Tim Sanders – Saving the World at Work
Ripples are small waves, and we all make them in life and in work. Though it appears that water is moving, really it is the energy which is moving with very little water transferring. The technical term is “flexible medium for energy transfer” but I won’t bore you here.
Waves can either propagate, or cancel each other out. When waves or ripples are aligned, they build. When they are at cross-purpose, the energy driving the waves is cancelled and the waves disappear. Even the most powerful rogue wave – if faced with an equally powerful but opposite wave, would immediately turn the ocean into a placid mill pond (science link).
A few months ago, I wrote a post on risk mitigation and what Charlie Sheen could teach us about great talent derailing (article link). However, there is the flip side of the coin. We all make ripples in life, some are positive, some are, as I highlighted in the article, very negative. I vote for choosing the positive. We can all make a difference at work. This may take the form of coaching a peer, asking the tough questions, being the first to call out that the emperor has no clothes, or taking that needed step back and figuring out how certain individual waves of ideas should be compounded into a powerful force to create lasting positive change.
What ripples are you originating? Are they building up the positive? Are you building on others and hence can more energetically influence for a broader agenda? Are you cancelling out someone else’s good idea with your energy? Are they cancelling out yours? Who else can you align with and, in so doing, be more powerful in the right fashion?
We all impact and add energy to our work and team –what ripples are you making?
Tim Sanders sharing a “ripple effect” story inspired me to write this post. You can view his video here…Video
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