Cambridge Business Association
Contagious Culture
Book

Contagious Culture

Show Up, Set the Tone, and Intentionally Create an Organization That Thrives

Anese Cavanaugh
McGraw-Hill, 2015
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • For Beginners
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

Individual employees can dynamically – and intentionally – shift your corporate culture in a positive manner based on their feelings, behaviors, personal magnetism and relationships with their colleagues. Consultant Anese Cavanaugh explains her fresh “Intentional Energetic Presence” (IEP) method, designed to help workers “show up” effectively and impressively at work and, in the process, transform their organizations for the better. getAbstract recommends her insightful manual to executives, entrepreneurs, teachers and parents and to those who want to become the best they can be and positively influence those around them. 

Summary

Spread the Mood

For better or worse, how people act, carry themselves and come across reverberates with other people. Individuals’ emotions and attitudes, the positive attributes – and even their liabilities – “infect” others around them. If you’re upbeat and positive, others will feel the same way. You’ll have the opposite effect if you are depressed and negative.

Understanding human nature makes it clear that individuals create and spread their own culture in multiple contexts: at work, at home and with their friends. This influence mechanism is called “contagion”; people’s moods and attitudes are contagious and infect those around them.

The contagious negative energy a person can create and the destructive impact of a colleague who “shows up” in sour spirits can be costly at the office – and in life. If you have a negative employee who wastes 90 minutes a day in weakened energy and productivity, multiply that person’s average hourly pay by the time lost each week to see the economic effect of a discouraging presence.

The “Intentional Energetic Presence” Method

Analyzing your Intentional Energetic Presence (IEP...

About the Author

Anese Cavanaugh is a corporate consultant on leadership, collaboration and strategy. She created and teaches the Intentional Energetic Presence method. She writes the “Showing Up” column on Inc.com and contributes to other publications, including HuffPo and CEO.com.

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