Who is behaving positively in your organisation ? I remember once, when I worked for Procter and Gamble in the UK, that our VP Supply Chain issued a letter to all the managers in the organisation which went something like : ” I had a meeting today and, whilst I enjoyed the general pleasantries and chat exchanged in the 7 minutes that it took for all the participants to arrive, this was 7 minutes out of a busy schedule which we should not be in the habit of wasting in general chatter. In future, I request that you arrive on time and ready to start at the prescribed hour. This is a matter of simple respect and courtesy, as well as efficient time management”. 7 minutes!!!! How many times do we turn up 7 minutes late for meetings? NEVER!!! We always turn up 10 – 15 even later – for meetings. 7 minutes. It seems ridiculous. But positive organisational behaviour is also about respect for others and not wasting others time, and even 7 minutes, is not so positive. Our director was seeing the start of slippage in the way people behaved and chose to address it before it became the new behaviour of people. We were all astounded when we got the letter, but we reverted to arriving on time! For a while. ☺ I don’t recall a second letter. Is this an organisational issue? Yes, it certainly affects the organisation. But it relies on the individual responsibility to change. So organisational behaviour is about individual behaviour. Over 20 years ago, when I was recruited as a young manager to Procter and Gamble. no-one talked to me about positive organisational behaviour. No-one said to me – “elaine, we have positive organisational behaviour here, see what it looks like, can you do it ?” – No one even told me how to behave. But in general there was something in the air. There was an unspoken rule around certain things that you do and certain things that you don’t do. The letter from