Category Archives: Culture

Leading from Someone Else’s Shoes by Yashi Srivastava

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The job of a leader is complex as it is, and it gets even more so during difficult times. After the results of the recent presidential elections in the US exposed a deep political divide in the country, numerous educational and professional institutions have been attempting to reconcile various perspectives so as to move forward in their respective pursuits. Many of these institutions prioritize and celebrate diversity, and one of the questions that faces their leaders today is about what they can do to effectively manage people from diverse ethnic and political backgrounds. While this US election presents a recent and salient example of troubled times, it isn’t the only one. Organizational life is often marked by conflicts between different groups of people, and leaders are required to handle these conflicts. What can leaders do to manage such situations effectively?… …

Workplace Positivity? What’s the Right Amount? And Why?

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(Originally published on Positive Psychology News Daily, PPND, in February 2016) Did you know the right amount of positive emotion can lead to more innovation, less absenteeism, and better problem solving? What are Emotions For? Early research regarding the purpose of negative emotion has been generally accepted. Negative emotion alerts us to danger and focuses attention on self-preservation and problem solving. However, understanding the survival benefits of positive emotion has been less clear, even dismissed, until recently. Researchers, including Martin Seligman, Barbara Fredrickson, and Christopher Peterson, have shown biological reasons for positive emotions and how they relate to human survival and well-being. In my experience as a leader, I have witnessed the results of positive emotion and its effect on well-being in the workplace. Emotions at the Workplace Positive emotion affects our workforce in the most basic way: our health.… …

How Do You Find a Job When You Are Blind?

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Meet Rebecca Bridges. Wife. Mother. Management consultant at FMP Consulting. Rebecca has also been blind from birth. Knowing the unemployment rate is 70% for people who are blind, how could she grow up with the hope of finding a job that she would enjoy? Is it luck or is it something else? We have all heard the statistics. According to Simon Sinek, author of Leaders Eat Last, 1 in 3 employees seriously consider leaving their jobs. Of that number, only 1.5% of employees actually leave voluntarily. They feel safer with the job they hate then the unknown. With these types of statistics, I wondered how Rebecca found the courage to fulfill her dream. You Have to Be Better than Anyone Else Rebecca remembers her Dad giving her advice as a little girl when she complained that being blind wasn’t fair.… …

Why the Office “Good Guy” Enjoys his Work More than You

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The office good guy… you know him… he’s John, the administrative assistant who is always ready to enthusiastically serve on a new voluntary committee at work. She’s Nancy, a customer service representative who is not only genuinely happy to help customers solve problems, but will cover a co-workers’ shift almost anytime she is asked. They are unusual and everyone sees it.  They clearly care about the company and the people within. These “good guys” are good organizational citizens.  They are the people who do things beyond the formal duties of their role – like lending a helping hand to a co-worker, being an evangelist for their company, or organizing a team lunch. They are strong team players, keep the spirits of others high, maintain goodwill around them, and are actively involved in company activities… you get the idea.  And, as… …

Workplace Positivity? What’s the Right Amount? And Why?

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Did you know the right amount of positive emotion can lead to more innovation, less absenteeism and better problem solving? Early research regarding negative emotion has been generally agreed upon – negative emotion alerts us to danger, problems and focuses attention on self-preservation and problem solving. However, understanding the reasoning for positive emotion has been less clear, even dismissed, until recently. Martin E.P. Seligman, Barbara Fredrickson, and Christopher Peterson, for example, have shown biological reasons for positive emotions and how they relate to human survival and well-being. In my experience as a leader, I have witnessed the results of positive emotion and its effect on wellbeing in the workplace. Positive emotion affects our workforce is the most basic way – our health.  Research studies conducted by Ellen Langer and Alia Crum showed that simple changes in mindset can have dynamic and self-fulfilling effects on health. And this can be seen even at the cellular level. Steven Cole and Barbara Fredrickson’s joint… …

Does Corporate Training Have a Lasting Impact?

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A Look at Well-Being Measures to Evaluate As a corporate communications trainer I work with many people on a short term basis.  Over a two day session I can see an enormous impact on their personal and professional growth.  Invariably I am always asked, “Does this training really work?”  Aside from the pile of positive evaluations I have received I do not have a scientific answer for them.  Implementing well-being measures can bring scientific rigor to my field and can fine tune the work we do to serve the client in the most effective way possible. I. Corporate Training The company we work with has a policy requiring their high performing women, after a selection process, to take part in our training.  It is this training program that I will be evaluating.  We work with high performing women in cohorts… …

Leaders who Thrive by Martin Best

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by Martin Best, The Corporate Theatre See Webinar Recording from Martin Best’ recent PBDC presentation Technology has transformed old structures into a lattice of interactions that is as vibrant as a Kandinsky painting. The industrial and service ages have passed, and we’re now in a creative age where more and more of us are accountable for leading. Three essentials will help leaders thrive in this ‘new now.’ First, Authenticity: we must know our real selves. We are authentic when we are true to our purposes, beliefs and values. When we demonstrate them in actions and words, great changes can happen. In 1608 Galileo told the truth about the universe. Authority punished him for it, but he made it possible for Newton to shift our understanding from myth to mechanics. A new economics, and enlightenment, followed. We are their heirs. In 1794, Immanuel Kant wrote that Authenticity is maturity: leaders drive change when they have courage to use… …

Good Space Energizes and Motivates

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This is unlikely a surprise – we feel better when we are in better environments.  And this absolutely applies to our workspaces.  Well, Marcia Moran and I got to see some interesting samples of great workspaces on Monday night when we went to a fun event sponsored by DesignLab.  Their idea was to hold a contest for architects and have them give people a “glimpse into the future of office space.”  Vornado, the landlord, gave six different firms suites on a single floor in Crystal City.  Then, they invited the community in to tour the space and vote on their favorite suite. Each impressive space was built out and designed by the following firms: RTKL, FOX, OTJ, Perkins & Will, Smith Group, and VOA.  Right away we saw a of “infographic style” drawing on a white board that really captured much of why good space matters when thinking about Positive Business – happier employees translates to a positive impact on morale, culture and even the bottom line.… …

Improve for The Business Stage Changes the Way People “Listen”

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Thank you to Kat Koppett, who led Improv for The Business Stage earlier today. It was Positive Business DC’s first Webinar and has me thinking about approaching transformation and company culture a bit differently. You can read about my personal epiphany in Modern DC Business. What we’ll cover here takes a completely different flavor—the difference between “yes” and “but.” Linguists will tell you that “but” has strong negative connotations. Someone says “but” and we hear “no.” The word, “and,” however, is inclusive and without limits. Or is it? When discussing improvisational tools used within the context of business, Kat and Shannon (Polly) discussed how the Yes/And exercise becomes misapplied. The rule: You need to see, hear, and receive everything that’s happening and then use an offer—anything your partner says or does—including emotional context and gestures. You accept all that has… …

Anchoring Bias and Positive Leadership

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Part 4 in our “Cognitive Bias and Leadership” Series On our January 16, 2013 blog, we gave an overview of cognitive bias (our tendency to filter information through our own past experiences, likes, and dislikes) and surmised that it can lead to faulty judgments. So much of positive leadership hinges on good decision making, which, of course, affects company culture and workplace happiness. So, let’s expand the discussion. In the fourth of our series, I am going to talk about the Anchoring Bias. This bias is the tendency to favor a piece of information and “anchor on” or favor that information when making decisions, even though it may have no logical relevance to the decision at hand. With the Anchoring Bias, the information becomes our reference point to evaluate and make decisions. And, as you might guess, this can lead… …

Virtuous Business Practices – an interview with Dr. Kim Cameron

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  Dr. Kim Cameron is the William Russell Professor of Management & Organizations at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and the co-founder of a field called Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS).  POS was separate in its origins from Positive Psychology (and pre-dates positive psychology).  I had the honor of having him as my advisor for my MAPP capstone at the University of Pennsylvania.  Louisa Jewell and I couldn’t ask for a fairer or tougher advisor.  I decided to interview him to see what he’s been working on. What subjects are businesses are most attracted to? Bottom line is the driver, of course.  All business executives say “If I don’t achieve profit, return to share, then I’m not doing my job and I will not last and nor will the organization.”  Their interest is:  ‘Is there any pay… …

Interesting Conversations on LinkedIn

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If you’re somewhere in the management chain and not yet a member of either the Leadership Think Tank or Harvard Business Review groups on LinkedIn, you’re missing out on some very interesting conversations that get to the core of well-being in the workplace… or perhaps lack thereof in many American companies. One of the questions being debated on LinkedIn this week is as follows: If your employee makes a mistake, do you accept responsibility? Fascinated by the discussion thread, I scrolled through all of the comments and got a good sense for what people had to say about responsibility, accountability, and throwing subordinates under the bus. While I didn’t do a tally, it struck me that a rather large percentage of the comments had a strong authoritarian flavor, many with advice on the process and education needed to avoid mistakes… …

Self-aware Companies Win… BIG

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The Gallup Organization has identified some interesting flaws in modern economic theory. Research indicates that false assumptions about human behavior have generated serious discrepancies between accepted theory and why people buy. The delta between the two makes a difference between companies who win and those who fail, or at best, accept mediocrity. Irrational Decisions… Us? Specifically, classical economic theory says that people look at a set of data (large or small) and make rational decisions. And yet, the Gallup research shows that approximately 70% of economic decision making boils down to emotions. That means only about 30% of the decisions we make line up with the classic economic model. Neruoscientific evidence supports Gallup’s findings. According to How We Decide,the rational brain maxes out at about 7 pieces of data. As a result, using the rational brain when making complex decisions… …

Why We’re Stuck in An Authoritarian Rut

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Friday night I went to the Washington West Film Festival to see I AM, a documentary by Tom Shadyac. You know… the guy who directed Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar, Patch Adams, and a host of other popular comedies. After an accident that left him suffering with Post Concussion Syndrome and facing the possibility death, Shadyac came to grips with how his values and the way he lived his life differed. Vastly. The discomfort spurred Shaydac to make a movie about his journey to reconcile core values with personal actions. Ultimately, I AM seeks to answer two fundamental questions: 1. What’s wrong with our world? 2. What can we do about it? The movie just may have answered one of the burning questions I’ve been pondering for some time now: Why do American business leaders continue to fail to… …

Why 70% of Employees Dream of Leaving Their Jobs

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Much of workplace unhappiness stems from a controlling, or authoritarian management style… the default setting for a significant number of today’s business “leaders.” These managers use their authority to gain compliance rather than treating employees in a manner they’d prefer. Continue reading →

Brainstorming Gets A Bum Rap

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Neuroscientific discovery shows that people share emotions. Even though we often view disagreement as a negative and do whatever we can to avoid confrontation, the ability to laugh at ourselves and have fun at work helps keep things on a positive track. You can creatively address uncomfortable situations without destroying relationships. Surprisingly, the direct approach often improves morale. Continue reading →

Positively Profitable– Be Happy, Work Better

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If you want to increase profits, you might want to check out the field of positive psychology. Continue reading →