Category Archives: Master of Applied Positive Psychology

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?… …

Hacking Creativity by Jessica Amortegui

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 Join our Hacking Creativity Webinar on September 24 at noon EST.  Register here. I believe everyone has the potential to be creative when given the time, freedom, and autonomy. And, combined witha subtle dose of inspiration,  that creativity may turn into full-blown innovation. In business, creativity used to be reserved for the designers, marketers, and artistic talent that represented the antidote to buttoned-up organizational cultures. In today’s  increasingly ubiquitous “VUCA” environments, where volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity have seeped across industry verticals, creativity is no longer reserved solely for the hip folk clad in skinny jeans.  The ability to innovate across the corporate value chain – from strategy formulation to go-to-market execution – is a pre-requisite for market competitiveness. Those who do it best relish an ascent up the corporate ladder with increased reputational capital: they are the leadership game-changers. Armed with this insight, a group of six students from… …

entheos Interview: What Appreciative Inquiry Has Taught Me

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An Interview with Shannon Polly, MAPP and Kathryn Britton, editor of Positive Psychology News Daily en*theos International Day of Happiness Virtual Conference Kathryn: Getting back to the personal of this, what’s the most interesting thing that you learned about yourself in the course of doing AI summits? Shannon: Oh that’s a great question. A number of things, I think one of the things I learned is that even though I’ve had all of this training in positive psychology I still too have a negativity bias and I have not been cured of that. I was doing an AI summit leading into strategic plan for an organization recently and the AI summit was great because the positivity principle is built in and really started to design the strategic plan and I started to slip into “well the lease is up in 2017 and what if we lose it” and then I had to jolt myself out of it and… …

entheos Interview: The “Four D” Process of Appreciative Inquiry

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An Interview with Shannon Polly, MAPP and Kathryn Britton, editor of Positive Psychology News Daily. en*theos International Day of Happiness Virtual Conference Kathryn: Tell us a little bit more about the process; you said the process is very organized so that makes it kind of keep things on track. So maybe you could lead us through what happened with the Cincinnati Summit. Shannon: Sure. So first you know there is a maybe 25 minutes of what is this principle, what’s the process of Appreciate Inquiry, what are we taking people through just to orient them, you don’t want to have more than about 30 minutes of it because then peoples energy tends to wane. What you want to do is immediately get them into one-on-one interviews. So you have people in tables of eight usually and you have them find a partner and you asked them they have a program guide in front of them and generally they are asking… …

entheos Interview: Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry

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An Interview with Shannon Polly, MAPP and Kathryn Britton, editor of Positive Psychology News Daily en*theos International Day of Happiness Virtual Conference Kathryn: Good morning Shannon, thank you for joining me here we are in celebration of world happiness day. Before we jump into your topic, Appreciative Inquiry, could you tell us a bit about yourself? Martin Seligman with Shannon Polly Shannon: Sure, thanks for having me Catherine. I am a positive psychology practitioner, I’m a coach, a facilitator, trainer, speaker and I live in Washington DC. I have my own consulting company call Shannon Polly and Associates and I also found an organization called Positive Business DC and our mission is to increase the tonnage of happiness starting in the nation’s Capitol, but not limited to the nation’s Capitol, so my passion is around helping individuals and organizations learn how to flourish by using training and positive psychology practices. Kathryn: Alright thank you, so tell us a little bit about… …

You can….Profit From the Positive

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 There are so many good books coming out these days!  It’s hard to keep up.  But if you still have some beach reading time, I recommend Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business by Margaret Greenberg and Senia Maymin, Ph.D.  When you can get Tom Rath (author of StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Strengths Based Leadership) to say:  “Profit from the Positive is one of the most practical and accessible business books I have read in years…. It is rare that a business book compels you to action right away. When you finish reading Profit from the Positive, it will influence your behaviors the next day” you know you’ve hit the jackpot. This book is a no-cost, no-permission guide for boosting individual, team, and business performance. Whether you lead three employees or 3,000, this book shows you how to… …

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… …

Anticipatory Savoring: The IPPA World Congress

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I’m flying to Los Angeles tomorrow.  I’m leaving my 2 1/2 year old and my 7 month old (whom I’m still nursing, if that isn’t TMI) and I’m leaving them for four days with my mother-in-law.  And I’m spending a lot of money to go to the 3rd International Positive Psychology Association conference.  (Conferences are expensive!  This one is $740. Not to mention the added lectures and workshops that you can go to before and after the event.) But it will be worth it.  I’ve been to the first two and each time I’m learned as much as going to a graduate level course and made good connections (and gotten jobs) from/with the people I’ve met. The IPPA website as such press worthy quotes as:  ”Presentations, workshops, and poster sessions will feature leading-edge research, as well as applications of positive… …