The Seven Core Principles in Action

The Seven Core Principles of the Science of the Positive provide a concrete process that helps us frame, execute, and evaluate our work in a way that increases our effectiveness in our organizations and our communities.

Through a series of structured activities, I engage community leaders in their own personal reflections and support them in developing shared principles for their leadership teams and coalitions. By engaging with their personalized core principles, organizations and coalitions can create a positive, strength-based frame for their work; identify and connect with the true spirit and purpose of what they do; build greater leadership capacity; ask the right questions and collect the most salient data; find effective, authentic ways to engage with their communities; and create the conditions most favorable to lasting cultural transformation. These principles become an invaluable tool to help them navigate times of complexity and ambiguity.

Steph Johnson, Coordinator of the Fairmont Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition in Fairmont, Minnesota, incorporates the Seven Core Principles into every coalition meeting. Before each meeting begins, the coalition members review their principles to, as Steph puts it, “get everyone into the spirit of our work. This way we start things off on the right note and set the tone for a purposeful meeting.” 

Before getting pulled into the mire of busy –- of deadlines, to-dos, and deliverables -- effective leaders start with spirit first, and make sure their efforts are aligned with their guiding goals and principles. Keep up the great work in Fairmont, Steph!