I asked 2 x CEO's this week to define the meaning of "The Ripple Effect". It proved to be a difficult question for them. In short, one person’s actions can have a very positive or a very negative effect on those around them You can change a great day into a bad day or do the opposite, all by the way you conduct yourself and control your behavior towards a situation. Sometimes a person needs to walk away, get themselves under control and then come back to the situation at hand. Deal with it in a rational manner and not make what can be bad decisions Here is the definition for you. The Ripple Effect is based on the understanding that we are all connected. These connections stretch like an incredibly interwoven and complicated tapestry. Each of us exists within this tapestry. Thoughts and actions are like stones dropped in a pond and they create ripples that travel outward.
Since most of the work that I do is with corporates, another example of the Ripple Effect that comes to mind is related to the corporate world. Many companies, where the founder or the head of the company is at the center of the ripple that spreads all around them. For example, Richard Branson’s adventurous spirit and customer orientation percolates to the entire Virgin staff and even to the policies of the company. The no leave policy that they launched a couple of years ago gives the employees the freedom to work from where they want and to be on leave as and when they feel like, as long as their work gets done. Likewise, Google that was started by two PhD. Students from an ivy league has the practice of taking people who are also from premier educational institutions while Apple that was started by a college dropout boasts of enough examples of artists and poets who built their wonderful products.
Since you spread both your positive and negative behaviors and mindsets with the same intensity, there is a lot that you can do to ensure that the people and environments around you are positively impacted. If you don’t want to do anything else to make your life and the lives of people around you better, at least don’t spread negativity. In fact, doing nothing would be a far better contributor.
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