Contagious

A cold makes its way through the entire office. A yawn ripples through a meeting. A rumor spreads through the team. 

We’re wired to think of contagion as a threat—something to be avoided. But what if the most powerful things we transmit aren’t germs at all?

What about kindness? Compassion? What about an idea, or a jolt of creative energy? Science says: yep, those are contagious, too.

A study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, for instance, found that a leader’s positive mood directly increases positive emotions and coordination among team members. Your enthusiasm is literally contagious.

Another study in the Journal of Applied Psychology confirmed that creativity works the same way; when employees work alongside confident innovators, their own creative output rises. We catch the creative habits of those around us.

And in a study published in PLoS One, a single act of kindness was shown to trigger a cascade of giving that rippled out three degrees of separation—your good deed can inspire someone who inspires someone else.

The evidence is clear: we can consciously design a better contagion.

Instead of fearing the next virus, what if we decided to become one? Instead of catching a cold, what if your team caught a flash of creative inspiration?

Instead of a COVID virus, you could launch a Creativity Virus—a concept so compelling it spreads on its own.

The science confirms we’re all carriers, constantly emitting signals that others catch and spread. We can’t help but be contagious, so the only real choice is what we resolve to be contagious with.