EMU Today

YPSILANTI –  With high turnover rates ravaging the workforce and The Great Resignation underway, two educators have banded together to develop a book that aims to change the narrative. The book demonstrates that creating a positive work environment can only happen if employees are valued and shown they’re a necessary part of the team, department and organization. 

Kimberley Barker, full-time lecturer at Eastern Michigan University, in collaboration with Mary Ceccanese, owner and principal consultant of Dynamic Connections LLC, published “YOU Can Create Positive Change at Work!” The book includes helpful exercises, reflective questions, examples, research, and tools that inspire readers to take action, in addition to a toolkit for front-line employees and managers.

“​​Despite the flood of books on business leadership and about creating a positive and dynamic corporate culture — directed for the most part at decision-makers in the C-suite — too many employers still fall short of the mark,” said Barker. “In this book, we offer suggestions filled with real-world examples, helpful ideas, life stories, and concrete ways that can change your workplace and your life.”

The book is categorized into four building blocks known as FUSEs. Each FUSE builds unique strengths that can be used independently and collectively to create an acceleration to an engaged, energized, thriving, and successful workforce. The four FUSEs include:

• Forging a Positive Workplace: Addresses the hallmarks of a positive work climate, which are compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude.
• The Upside of Change: Acknowledges the inevitability of change, are our reactions to change, and how to create a tipping point for you and your team. It all begins with sharing our stories.
• A Strengths-Based Approach: Highlights the importance of discovering what your strengths are and how to do this, being a continuous learner, how to become more creative, and being a problem solver.
• Engage in High-Quality Connections: Interactions between people based on trust and respectful engagement. These connections energize us. They also have a long-term impact on everyone who is involved.

“Creating this book was a four-year labor of love because we both care deeply about the employee who comes to work every day and we want them to have a positive work environment,” said Ceccanese. “We can teach employees how to get your boss to become your fan, how to create the team that is going to get the job done, and we want to show everyone who reads this book how to become the best version of themselves at work - and possibly in life,” said Barker.

Barker received her doctorate in organization development from Benedictine University. She also has her master’s of business administration and bachelor of science in business administration from Hawai'i Pacific University. Barker has taught at the university level since 2010, along with five years in human resources and over 15 years in hospital administration. 

Barker and Ceccanese want to use the book to help instill positive business principles so anyone can become the leader they were meant to become, beginning with essential and front-line employees, to managers, to those in the C-suite. 

To learn more about creating positive change in the workplace, visit the Dynamic Connections website. 

About Eastern Michigan University

Founded in 1849, Eastern is the second oldest public university in Michigan. It currently serves more than 16,000 students pursuing undergraduate, graduate, specialist, doctoral and certificate degrees in the arts, sciences and professions. In all, more than 300 majors, minors and concentrations are delivered through the University's Colleges of Arts and Sciences; Business; Education; Engineering and Technology; Health and Human Services; and, its graduate school. EMU is regularly recognized by national publications for its excellence, diversity, and commitment to applied education. For more information about Eastern Michigan University, visit the University's website.