Pay It Forward

Today's entry is based on a little experiment that I've been running now for just over 2 months, which I like to call the Sugar Challenge. Based on a concept from the book "Pay It Forward" written by Catherine Ryan Hyde, I started an experiment at my office to test the impact of attitude in the work environment.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Pay It Forward concept, here's a quick recap. In the book, Reuben St. Clair, a seventh grade teacher, creates an extra-credit assignment in which the kids in his class must think of an idea to change the world and then put that idea into action. One of his students, a boy by the name of Trevor, comes up with an idea to do something good for 3 people and then when they ask how to pay you back, you tell them that they have to pay the good deed forward to 3 more people. And so the good deeds begin to exponentially grow and incorporate more and more people.

So how does this relate to me?

Back in early March, I started to put out candy or treats in a little basket on my desk at the office. Instantaneously, people appeared for a tasty little snack, said thank you, and walked away with a big sugary grin on their faces. But what did this show, besides for the fact that a little bit of free sugar in the middle of the afternoon is enough to make anybody happy!? Dissatisfied with my findings, I continued to put out sugar and observe some more. My first observation, was that I started to notice less and less work conflicts. All of a sudden, there was less backlash from internal resources when I needed them to redo work, or that there was more patience from people when I delayed on providing a deliverable. I concluded from this that the candy was basically acting as a form of payment or a bribe, wherein I'll give you a little sugar and then, out of guilt you do me a little favour. This realization troubled me and so I put a hold on the candy distribution, but I didn't receive the outcome that I had expected...

With the lack of sugar, people didn't stop being easygoing, but their attitude did begin to change, reverting to an all work, all stress attitude. Once again intrigued, I put out the candy and really watched people's behaviour. What I discovered, is that the candy wasn't acting as a bribe, but rather it was acting as a conduit to the past, inducing a youthful lightheartedness among my coworkers. All of a sudden, I started to see a sense of fun being incorporated back into their daily work routine, a feeling which due to an unfortunate series of circumstances had disappeared. Work was still being done, stress was still being had, but all of a sudden there seemed to be this mass epiphany that we are all in this together, so let's get our work done, but let's make sure to have fun doing it.

Now for the Pay It Forward part, the sugar wasn't just altering their behaviour towards me, but their behaviour towards each other and even more intriguing it was altering their behaviour towards clients! It was amazing to watch my coworkers go from one end of the spectrum, where they are at their wit's end over a client, eat a jelly bean, and then all of a sudden jump to the other end of the spectrum, re-energized to take on the world.

So, in the end, maybe I'm just being naive and forcing my perception of reality into a concept created by a fictional novel. But, if for a second I'm right about this, how amazing is it that a little bit of sugar can make such a drastic change!