Is there a better “feel good” word than encouragement? Have you ever received bad encouragement? Do you receive too much encouragement? Do you give too much encouragement?

This past Monday I participated in a very simple, but incredibly powerful exercise on encouragement. Prior to sharing a devo and our WorkMatters vision with the employees of NorthStar Partnering Group in Fayetteville, AR, they passed out a sheet of paper and a pen to every team member. Each person was asked to write their name at the top of the page and hand it to someone else in the room. They wrote one encouraging statement about that coworker, then passed it on to someone else. After each paper had four comments written, it was folded in half and placed in a bowl to be distributed back to the owner.

As I reviewed the encouraging comments that came back to me, I was struck by the power those words carried. The entire room was uplifted!

In the marketplace, it’s so easy to become critical and judgmental. The pace, the pressure to deliver, demanding bosses, different approaches to solving the same problems, and the list goes on…

Here are three simple suggestions for us all:

1. Play the “Encouragement game” in your place of work.
2. Before you criticize or judge, think it through. See if there is a better way to communicate your message.
3. Be intentional with your encouragement of coworkers, peers, bosses (spouses, children…you get the point).

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