Theories abound in the business world! I have found the “peak-end” rule to be the most applicable to my work career.  After reading Daniel Kahneman’s work, I will now design my training session so that they have a memorable peak and an impactful ending for my employers, colleagues and coachees.  The peak-end rule says that people judge their experiences almost entirely by the “peak” or most powerful moment in an experience, and how they ended.  Once we have experienced an event, our future choices are based on what we remember about these past experiences – our remembered utility.  Therefore, in order to truly get what we want, our expected utility has to align with our experienced utility, and our experienced utility has to be faithfully remembered in our remembered utility.  Unfortunately, these three utilities rarely align.  And these usual misalignments… …

            “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”  – Benjamin Franklin.   We live in one of the only nations in the world who has a founding document (actually, it was the Declaration of Independence) that includes “the pursuit of happiness” as a stated goal of its people.  Perhaps only one country, Bhutan, is ahead of the United States with the commitment to “Gross National Happiness” in their actual constitution.  While, in America, there may be lingering sentiment from our Protestant forefathers that pleasure is an evil or sin to be avoided, ultimately all human beings want to be happy.  Because of this, I believe that not only is it appropriate and effective to actively seek to increase your own positive emotions, but there are three… …

This is the second part of an article I started quite a while ago on Positive Business DC. Click here for the first part. What are some examples of social entrepreneurs and the context which has helped cultivate those strengths? Cristóbal Colón, a Spaniard, studied psychiatry and was put in charge of a work therapy program at a hospital.  His job involved assigning the patients useless task to keep them occupied like making ceramic ashtrays.  Colón grew frustrated and knew that these people were not unintelligent and that they needed to feel worthwhile.  Colón set up a dairy business in Cataluña called La Fageda and was able to persuade a loan officer to grant him the seed money in order to do so.  Today La Fageda has the third largest market share for yogurt (behind only Dannon and Nestlé).  It… …