Hi, my name is Chris Murchison and I'm a affiliate of the Center for Positive Organizations and a visiting leader for the group there. And I've been working with CPO for about six years and come to campus regularly to meet with students and to talk about various aspects of organization culture and the kind of practices that really support an organization thriving. I'm also a consultant. And so I've had the opportunity to work with a huge variety of organizations, for-profit, nonprofit, and philanthropic, and see their organizations in practice and how they they demonstrate their value, the things that they struggle with, the things that they do well. It's given me such interesting perspective on culture and kind of what seems to work to support positive culture, and what are the things that get in the way of culture as well, those kind of tensions and negative things that can actually bring an organization down as well. So through all of that, I've come to see that organization culture is a very important part of any organization. And when you see a positive culture and action, it's incredible. The results that you see are exciting. You see people joyful, happy, engaged, collaborating well. You just see so many positive outcomes of a positive culture that just leads you easily to believe that working to create practices that generate those kinds of outcomes must be important. And in fact, it is. I think those kinds of practices are even more important now in the face of the coronavirus. And so in my work, I'm seeing as example some things that I think are interesting opportunities to put positive practices into action. So I'm a part of a number of virtual teams right now as I'm sure all of you are suddenly. And so we all have this opportunity to lead into a different way of working with each other. And I think that in and of itself creates an interesting opportunity to think about what does it mean to to connect with your colleagues under these new conditions? How do you really pay attention to that and focus on that and create a positive environment to collaborate well virtually? How do you maintain connection with colleagues virtually? How do you do that well so it's not just a surface level connection but really a deep connection that feels as if it could be matched with what you might have in person with somebody? I'm also as you are, are as well experiencing the social distancing phenomenon. And so as I walk around my neighborhood, I actually find it interesting that there can sometimes feel this threat response as you pass someone at a distance. It's as if people don't want to approach you. And in that not approaching, it's really easy to feel if you're a threat to the other person or that you find the other person threatening and then that kind of situation. It just doesn't feel very positive. It feels like you're pulling away from the other person emotionally when in fact actually coming together and more emotionally is what we might all need right now to support each other and to feel a part of the same community. And so again, thinking about social distancing and the impact of that on us as human beings, but also as employees feels really important. So how do we maintain connection in the face of something like social distancing? It's the kind of question that I think positive organizational psychology puts right in front of us.
