By Jenelle Schultz - our wonderful Business Fitness Client Manager ...

Some of us from the Business Fitness team last week attended Bruce Sullivan’s seminar – well worth the trip into the city, even if the coffee at the Chifley was a bit ho-hum!

The seminar was titled, ‘Building Rippa Relationships at Work and at Home! With the Energy, Attitude and Resilience of a Four Year Old.... Almost Every Day!’

Long title, but a simple message – it basically boiled down to ‘if you want to have a better day, change your actions!’

So true… both at home and at work, we spend so much time complaining about the outcome of situations, when really we need to look at what we’ve done along the way to contribute to the result.

We all left the seminar invigorated – how could you not be after such an energetic and funny presentation? – but, like so often happens with these events, a few of us commented at lunch that the sort of changes Bruce talks about are really difficult to implement once you’re away from the enthusiasm of the group session.

The brains trust (over a steak, some arancini balls and a diet coke) agreed that the old adage ‘one day at a time’ was the best way to go – taking small bites at a problem gets a better result. If you bite off more than you can chew, you may have to admit that it was ‘my turn to be an idiot’ (another of Bruce’s phrases – his book Rippa! is worth a read).

If I had to pick one small bite from the seminar that could be easily done, it was Bruce’s theory on ‘adding to’ not ‘taking away’ from at situation … he says that we need to think about what we bring to the table – what we can contribute – rather than tearing down an idea or a system just because we can.

The problem here is that it’s easier to pick holes in things – I’m as guilty as anyone – show me an idea or a process and I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it!

But retraining our thinking to ask ‘what can I add here?’ is much more useful – coming up with a new way of doing things could lead to greater efficiency gains than just simply stopping an old inefficient process. Plus, being part of a better solution makes you a more valuable team member.