Work. As if.

This ends the first week of work at Moody for me (Steven). I've had a great time getting caught up with people and jumping straight into working on airplanes... after a minimum of 4 hours of meetings each day, of course :)

We'll be focusing on filling each other's buckets this year at Moody. No, not literally. No, Dad, not 'those' buckets, either. Jim did an excellent job introducing the idea of using positive motivation to succeed rather than negative criticism as our driving force while interacting with students and one another. He did so by going through portions of the book, "How Full is Your Bucket?", by Tom Rath, (http://www.amazon.com/Full-Your-Bucket-Positive-Strategies/dp/1595620036) a summary of research done in the field of positive psychology. Now, before you start seriously doubting the theology of MBI, we used the book as a general guide and searched Scripture for specifics.

Basically, the principle is that every person has an internal bucket, which can either be filled or emptied by the actions or words of other people. The fuller the bucket, the more productive and content the person; and the person who fills the bucket enjoys the same.

A good number of Scriptures came to mind, including:
"Spur one another on to good deeds..."
A bazillion Proverbs...
"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." - Philippians 2:1-4

Psychological studies have shown that while criticism may at first improve a student's test scores, they decrease over time with continued criticism. Praising them for what they do correctly, however, produces drastic improvement in both the short and long term. Figuring out how to balance positive/negative criticism is a difficult balance in life, much less in the 'no mistakes acceptable' field of aviation.

According to a study done of newly married couples, several scientist's were able to predict, with 95% accuracy, whether or not the couples would stay together after 10 years. Their grading criteria? The amount and consistency of positive comments vs. negative ones. They found that couples with a positive/negative ratio of 5 to 1 nearly always were still together at 10 years (although, as one of my coworkers put it, "These aren't 'blowing sunshine' comments, but actual positive remarks.").

As a maintenance shop supervisor, I'm looking forward to helping my lead mechanics apply this principle to their maintenance crews (5th year students who are given the responsibility of running an inspection). Lord-willing, we'll be able to encourage one another to excellence, keeping one another's bucket filled so we can focus on what really matters.