Here’s a video of Barbara’s acceptance speech from her 2011 induction into the NSA CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame.

Are most of your meetings dull and laborious? Here is an idea to make them more efficient, more creative, and more fun!

Get red, green, and yellow paper plates. Glue each one to a tongue depressor or other kind of stick. Give one of each to each person in the meeting.

When someone agrees with what a person is sharing or wants to vote “yes” on a question, they hold up the green plate. When someone disagrees or wants to vote “no” on an issue, they hold up the red plate. When someone wants more discussion, has a question, or wants to share their opinion, they hold up the yellow plate.

You will be surprised at how much clearer this makes everyone’s communication and how much more efficient your meetings will be. It also adds the element of creativity and fun to what most employees dread the most — boring meetings!

For more creative ideas to spread contagious enthusiasm and enhance employee motivation, go to www.barbaraglanz.com/ideas www.barbaraglanz.com/ideas/

Make a Thanksgiving Tree

The Idea:
It doesn’t just have to be the month of Thanksgiving that we share our gratitude and appreciation for blessings in our lives. One of the ways to keep “an attitude of gratitude” in our homes or workplace is to make a Thanksgiving tree.

The Idea In Action:
Many years ago I created a Thanksgiving tree for our home. I took a large manzanita branch, sprayed it gold, and secured it in a base of plaster of Paris. Beside it I kept a basket of small plain cards with holes punched in them, another basket of pieces of colored yarn, and a pen. The tradition in our family is that the month before Thanksgiving, the tree is placed on a table in our living room, and each family member writes down things for which he or she is thankful and hangs them on the tree. We also encourage guests in our home to participate. At the dinner table on Thanksgiving Day we read the cards from the tree as an affirmation of our blessings. Then we save the cards from the year before, and we read those as well. It is a wonderful way to remind us of all the goodness in our lives and reinforces the importance of sharing our appreciation.

Tips:
This could be used year round in a family to focus on the good things happening each day. We found that guests in our home for the month of Thanksgiving would almost always take time to read at least some of the cards on the tree. Many from the children brought smiles to their faces and added a special sunshine to their day. If the tree is kept up all year long, it will be important to remove the cards on a regular basis to make room for others and to encourage continual appreciation.

This idea is excerpted from Barbara’s book, “CARE Packages for the Workplace –Dozens of Little Things You Can Do to Regenerate Spirit at Work,” McGraw-Hill.

To learn more about Barbara’s work, her books, and to subscribe to her free email newsletter, go to www.barbaraglanz.com.

Three years ago I was asked by Francine Lazarus, Ed.D. who was a teacher at an elementary school in the Tampa, Florida, area, if I would come to speak for their teacher inservice day at the beginning of that school year. Her husband is an executive with Publix Supermarkets in Lakeland, and when I spoke for all their managers, each of them was given a copy of “The Simple Truths of Service Inspired by Johnny the Bagger®.” Francine was so taken with Johnny’s story that she decided to use that as a theme in her classroom and wanted the other teachers in the school to be inspired as well.

Last year I heard from Francine that she had been promoted to be the principal of her OWN school, Bellamy Elementary. She decided to use “Service from the HEART” and Johnny’s story as the annual theme for her whole school. These are some of the ideas she has shared with me of what they are doing:

Barbara,

Congrats on your well-deserved honor! I’m very proud of you and you looked SO beautiful 🙂 I’ve shared the information with my faculty/staff so they know about the person who inspired the idea for our school theme this year.

Things have really taken off with Johnny and “The Simple Truths of Service!” There are HEARTS all over the school and every day the teachers e-mail me with new ideas…I’ll take some pictures for you.

We’re thinking of ordering those rubber bracelets that the kids wear with a HEART of Service message on them for the students to give out in the community when they want to recognize Service from the HEART. During Pre-Planning, each team of teachers adopted their own “Personal Signature” and brainstormed ways to bring their idea to life throughout the year. My music teacher is teaching David Roth’s song about Johnny, “A Little Something More” (I ordered the CD at Maythelightmusic.com) to the teachers on 8/30, and we’re going to put a special heart of service “thought” for parents in the weekly bulletin that goes home every Friday.

Everyone loves the books and the Johnny pads. Everyone says this theme has much more meaning and importance than themes like “Wild About Learning… or Dive into Learning.” From Johnny, our students will learn to be caring citizens while adopting an “above & beyond” work ethic!

Barbara, thank you so much for the work that you do…It TRULY makes a difference!

Bellamy Takes Education To HEART With A HEART Of Service!

Francine Lazarus, Ed.D.
Principal
Bellamy Elementary School

To order “The Simple Truths of Service” book, the DVD of the story of “Johnny the Bagger®”, and the DVD, “Service from the Heart”, click here

For more information about “Johnny the Bagger®” and Barbara’s presentations on “Service from the Heart”, go to www.barbaraglanz.com

QUESTION: What do all customers want?

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