When you’re running a business, your team is your most important asset and biggest resource. Without them the business could not function so it’s essential that your employees feel encouraged and inspired on a daily basis.

Individuals, teams and even whole organizations can reap the rewards. Motivated people are highly adaptable, particularly when it comes to change , and they have a positive attitude at work. They help to spread an organization’s good reputation, reduce rates of absenteeism, and improve performance and profit.

Why is poetry important to our world today? If you turn on the TV, you can probably see why. Yes, it’s mostly a ratings war that portrays the world we live in today as ugly, chaotic, violent and without mercy. That we’re living in a fractured world.Poetry, if we let it and embrace it, can offer us a way to empathize with one another. In its immediacy, poetry is a counselor helping us to understand one another. Leading us away from hate to love, from violence to mercy and pity.

Here is the following poem that can motivate your team, if you place it around the room.

1. Builder or wrecker

I watched them tear a building down; 
A gang of men in a busy town. 
With a mighty have and a lusty yell, 
they swung a boom and a side wall fell.

I said to the foreman, "Are these men skilled"
As the man you'd hire if you had to build?"
He gave me a laugh and said, "No indeed!
just a common laborer is all I need.
And I can wreck in a day or two 
What it took the builder a year to do."

And I thought to myself as I went my way,
"Just which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care 
measuring life by the rule and square, 
or am I a wrecker as I walk the town
content with the labor od tearing down?"

-Unknown author

2. Climb ‘Til your dream comes true

Often your tasks will be many, 
And more than you think think you can do.
Often the road will be rugged 
And the hills insurmountable, too 
But always remember, 
The hills ahead 
Are never as steep as they seem,
And with Faith in your heart 
start upward 
And climb 'til you reach your dream
For nothing in life that is worthy
is ever too hard to achieve
if you have the courage to try it, 
And you have the faith to believe.
For faith is a force that is greater 
Than knowledge or power or skill,
And many defeats turn to triumph 
if you trust in God's wisdom and will.
For faith is a mover of mountains, 
There's nothing that God cannot do, 
So, start out today with faith in your heart,
And climb 'til your dream comes true!

-Helen Steiner Rice

3. Compensation

I'd like to think when life is done 
That I had filled a needed post. 
That here and there I'd paid my fare. 
With more than idle talk and boast; 
That I had taken gifts divine. 
The breath of life and manhood fine; 
And tried to use them now and then. 
In service for my fellow men. 

I'd hate to think when life is through 
That I had lived my round of years 
A useless kind, that leaves behind 
No record in this vale of tears; 
That I had wasted all my days 
By treading only selfish ways, 
And that this world would be the same 
if it had never known my name. 

I'd like to think that here and there
When I am gone, there shall remain 
A happier spot that might have not. 
Existed had I toiled for gain; 
That someone's cheery voice and smile 
Shall prove that I had been worth while; 
That I had paid with something fine
My debt to God for life divine.

- Edgar Albert Guest 

4. Don’t quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, 
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill, 
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit, 
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns 
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure tums about, 
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with another blow. 

Often the goal is nearer than, 
It seems to a faint and faltering man, 
Often the struggler has give up, 
When he might have captured the victor's cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown. 

Success is failure tumed inside out- 
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are, 
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit- 
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Unknown Author 

5. For every hill I’ve had to climb

For every hill I've had to climb,
For every stone that bruised my feet, 
For all the blood and sweat and grime, 
For blinding storms and burning heat 
My heart sings a grateful song-
These were the things that made me strong!

For all the heartaches and the tears, 
For all the anguish and the pain, 
For gloomy days and fruitless years, 
And for the hopes that lived in vain, 
I do give thanks, for now I know 
These were the things that helped me grow!

'Tis not the softer things of life 
Which stimulate man's will to strive;
But bleak adversity and strife 
Do most to keep man's will alive.
O'er rose-strewn paths the weaklings creep,
But brave hearts dare to climb the steep. 

- L.E Thayer