Garrett Winters, principal of Coffee Middle School in Douglas, GA had a birthday last Wednesday and his office staff and assistant principals pitched in and gave him a really nice and very portable Yeti Cooler.
They ALSO gave him some affirmation with a quick and easy thing you can add to your repertoire as a leader. The team has recently started doing “One Word” on the occasion of someone’s birthday. It’s as simple as it sounds– someone on your team has a birthday and when you get together everyone shares “One Word” about the person having the birthday. (No cheating… no compound or hyphenated words that aren’t normally done so!)
Simple enough… you go around the circle and everyone shares that one word. It’s a GREAT affirmation of what others are seeing in you and an easy way to help create a positive workspace. It helps establish a culture of looking at each other with appreciation and thinking specifically about what qualities your colleagues are showing you in the course of your work together.
Of course, you don’t HAVE to wait another year to let others hear the good you see in them… but the “Birthday One Word” activity sets the expectation that at each person of the group’s birthday, you’ll have the opportunity.
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