There is no contest between the company that buys the grudging compliance of its work force and the company that enjoys the enterprising participation of its employees .- Ricardo Sempler 

Do you work with vampires? People who seem to suck the blood of positive culture right out of the room?

You know, the sad, mad, sarcastic and toxically cynical c0-workers who sour and taint what might otherwise be a much better feeling in the workplace.  Sure, even if they never left their caustic caskets and occupied a neighboring cubicle, work wouldn’t be perfect or problem free…but it would be better.  It would be fun and a heck of a lot easier to focus on solving problems, adding value, magnifying returns, and making a more significant difference.

Too many people are working in toxic or semi toxic workplace environments. The cultural norm they endure is “require” instead of “inspire”. The blame for this environment might be dispersed in equal parts to leaders, policy, peers and so forth. But let’s step away from the blame game, which is un-winnable at best, and look at the kind of co-worker you are, or that you endure.

Let’s look at the “Vam-Peer Factor” and what may really be sucking in your culture

Let’s have a moment of personal integrity and see if it might be us who are contributing to the pain of our shared existence.  One simple question we might ask ourselves is –  “When people walk away from me are they feeling better than when they walked up?”  After any interaction with you – do people leave feeling “more” or do they leave it feeling “less”?

More what?  More capable, more hopeful, more energized, more filled with belief in themselves, others, the mission, the cause, more committed, more connected.  With more skip in their step, more curve in their smile, more love in their buckets.  With more potential and possibility unleashed.

Less what?  Do I really need to answer this?  Yes, well less of everything on the more list.  We can all probably think of several examples right now of people we have walked away from feeling drained of the good stuff.  It’s as if they were “energy vampires” who sucked hope, positivity, potential, and happiness right from our very beings.   Many of the more senior vampires have the sinister ability to drain an entire room full of people at one time

Do you vampire?  Or do you Inspire?

Today- don’t suck!  Instead set a goal that everyone leaves their experience with you…feeling MORE.

ANNOUNCEMENT – Many of you have noticed that I have not posted to this list in quite some time…. I have transitioned nearly all of my writing (or attempts at writing) to Linked-In, Instagram and Twitter – so let’s stay connected there.  @kirkweisler

I will still post to www.kirkweisler.com but will stop sending out to an e-mail very soon.

Make Your Culture Count –

We get what we give – Let’s give more to everyone…not because we have too, but because we WANT TO!!

. ~ Kirk Weisler