Ozvision

Morning meeting:

Every morning people gather their teams for ‘good or new’--a sort of check-in for the day. A doll is passed around, like a talking stick. The holder can share either something new (news from work, the papers, or their private lives), or something good, or simply a story they want their colleagues to know about, work-related or not.

In the first, teams gather each morning for a quick meeting called “good or new”. It's a kind of check-in for the day. A doll is passed round, like a talking stick, and whoever has it shares either something new (news from work, the press, or their private lives), or something good (simply a story they want their colleagues to know about, work-related or not).

Thus each day starts with a brief, joyful moment: a sort of ritual that says, “Let’s acknowledge that we are all here, as colleagues and as human beings.”

The second story-telling practice is based on the right of everyone to take an extra day off each year. It's called a "day of thanking". The employee gets $200 from company funds to spend in any way she wants, as long as it is to thank someone special. It might be a colleague, parent, friend, neighbor, or long-lost but not-forgotten school teacher. The only rule is that once she returns to work, she must share the story of what she gave and to whom and how the gift was received.

At Ozvision, with 40 employees, colleagues there hear three or four such stories every month. These are often deeply personal stories where colleagues are willing to share three steps in their experience―when the seed for gratitude was planted, how the person was thanked, and how their gift was received.