Excellence is contagious
Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School, produced a study showing that obesity was contagious. If you gain weight, the people you spend time with are likely to gain some as well.
This was no surprise to me. After all, I definitely followed suit during my wife’s two pregnancies. But I read a suggestion today that it’s not just obesity that’s contagious, but other character traits as well.
It certainly makes sense to me that if you hang around with motivated people, you’ll become more motivated. If you hang around with smart people, you’ll become smarter. If you hang around with exceptional entrepreneurs, you too will take on some of the traits that make them exceptional.
This notion–called Social Contagion–shines a spotlight on the importance of your peers. Your 20 Club or your Remodelers Advantage Roundtable dramatically impacts how you grow your business. The great homebuilders in your community challenge the others to improve. The top performing salespeople help bring out the best in the rest of the team. The project managers who consistently deliver an exceptional customer experience make everyone else bring it up a notch or two.
Who are your peers? Who are your employees’ peers? Are they the kind of people from whom you wouldn’t mind catching a serious case of Proficiency or Genius or Kindness?