The Power of Positive Listening

Listening is like driving.  Everyone thinks they are good at it.  But probably less than half of people really are.  That’s why I was interested by the research of Kate Muir. Research into how emotions change over time has revealed that negative emotions tend to fade to a greater extent over time compared to positive emotions, an effect known as the fading affect bias. Talking to others is an important way in which this process can be enhanced: frequent social disclosure of past emotional events can help dissipate negative emotions and maintain positive emotions.  The question is, how and why does talking help? Kate described experimental research which demonstrates that the degree of responsiveness of the listener during social disclosure is pivotal in how the speaker feels afterwards. Further, merely responding to the speaker is not enough.  This research provides…

Hacking Creativity by Jessica Amortegui

 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…

Natural Artistry Photography Implements Positive Practices

When we launched Positive Business DC, Donna, Shannon and I wanted to create a resource to help people raise their level of well-being by providing evidence-based research in positive psychology and neuroleadership. And so, we launched the Well-being in The Workplace speaker series. Last week, I featured Natural Artistry in my weekly column for Modern DC Business magazine. As Meetup members Andrew Murdock, Kimba Green, and Cindy Alderton shared their story, I realized that our Meetups are having a much more profound impact than perhaps we realized. Andrew is the owner of Natural Artistry Photography in Frederick, MD. His style strays from the conventional by focusing in on moments when people connect on a fundamentally human level. The vulnerability he’s able to capture and the stories his photos tell reach out and grab your attention. He took photos of the…

It’s already February. Do you know where your New Year’s Resolutions are?

Shannon Polly, MAPP, asks us where are goals are now that we are 6 weeks past our New Year’s resolution. She also recaps our recent Meetup with our Speaker, Caroline Miller, on Creating Your Best LIfe. Continue reading

Interesting Conversations on LinkedIn

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…

Why We’re Stuck in An Authoritarian Rut

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…

The 5-1/2 Secrets of Resilient Entrepreneurs

Thursday, Doug Hensch will kick off Positive Business DC’s “Well-being in The Workplace” speaker series when he reveals The 5-1/2 Secrets of Entrepreneurs. As noted in Monday’s post, Low Startup Ratio Causes Economic Stall and Job Deficit, entrepreneurship drives our economic engine—and we are unfortunately in a slump. Continue reading