Happiness Advantage/Orange Frog Training
An investment in our people is the best investment we can ever make.
We all know the flavor or the day, the initiative of the year, and even the assessment system choice from the state can, and will, come and go in our lives as educators. Some of them stay around for a while; some are a flash in the pan. Some actually make an impact; some are nearly laughable.
So, what is the difference with our vision of The Happiness Advantage/ Orange Frog? How is this different than any other educational or business initiative to move an organization forward? This is whole-heartedly an investment in our people. This is an investment in each other. This gives us all an actual brain advantage that impacts your personal lives even more than your work. This is about all of us working together for a better quality of life for both us in the here and now and our future generations.
The Orange Frog is a parable based on the positive psychology research in Shawn Achor’s book, The Happiness Advantage. The research is clear – being positive results in more resilient, adaptable and successful people and organizations. And… it’s contagious.
Throughout the training, participants hear lots of interesting and compelling research and evidence in the field of positive psychology and the impact it has on us as individuals, on entire organizations, and on our children. Multiple parts of the day also allow participants to be involved in activities and reflective conversations based on the fact that “what we say and do matters”, the influence of others – both positively and negatively, and the application of happiness not only as a mood, but as a work ethic.
Ultimately, participants walk away with an understanding and action plan that center around seven specific, actionable, and proven patterns that predict success and achievement.
We have had an exciting start to rippling this out to every single one of the district’s employees. We have an aggressive goal of having all of our adults trained by the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year. Tentatively, we have plans to train all elementary teachers in late February, early March. All middle school and high school teachers on our Professional Development days slated at the end of the school year, and all other employees over the summer months.
After just training around 100 of our employees, including administrative staff, district office staff, building secretaries, and counselors, we have heard some of the best feedback from the difference this makes in their lives. We can’t wait to see the larger ripple effect when we are all bleeding orange and truly living with the competitive edge and advantage this gives us all.
Posted: Wednesday, February 8, 2017