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. Research studies conducted by Ellen Langer and Alia Crum showed that simple changes in mindset can have dynamic and self-fulfilling effects on health. This can be seen even at the cellular level. Steven Cole and Barbara Fredrickson’s joint study on the effect of emotion on the human genome suggests that high levels of positive emotion affect the immune system, reducing inflammation and correlating with a strong expression of antiviral and antibody genes. In turn, good health means reduced absenteeism from the workforce.

Positive emotion is also linked to more innovation, better problem solving, and a more connected workforce. According to Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory, positive emotion is associated with more holistic thinking and skill enhancement.

I have seen broaden and build in action many times. One particular example sticks out in my mind. I was leading a marketing team of an Internet software company during the dotcom crash in March 2001. The timing of the crash, which struck fear in every tech worker I knew, was unfortunate since we were in the midst of planning an important launch. Not only was there worry about the impact on the launch itself, but people feared for their jobs. This all came at a time when we really needed to be engaged and at our most creative. Instead of members of my team bringing their best games to the table, the energy in the room was low. So, spontaneously I declared it to be the perfect opportunity for us all to go on a team outing. After several races at the local go-cart joint and some laughter and trash talk over a meal, we were all able to come back to the task with our creative juices flowing. I believed the change to be directly tied to the shift in emotion.

Negative emotion also plays an important role in well-being. Negativity constrains our experience of the world, narrowing attention and increasing analytical thinking. In emergencies, for example, we need to bring a narrower focus to the table. In fact, optimistic thinking is sometimes associated with underestimation of risks.

Achieving Balance

Fredrickson popularized the positivity ratio, the ratio of positive emotions to negative emotions as measured over time. To flourish, Fredrickson recommends a positivity ratio of about 3 to 1 (see references for more on the ratio***). The positivity ratio plots as a U curve showing that a higher positivity ratio is healthy and productive up to a certain point and then declines. In the workplace, I have witnessed this when excessive fun and games leads to decreased productivity. The key is a high positivity ratio without extremes, with 11:1 being the upper bound of the positivity ratio for flourishing.

Emotions (both positive and negative) are contagious. According to Sigal Barsade, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, we can catch moods. It only takes one of five employees to affect or “infect” the group. So, it is important to understand where excessive negative and positive emotions are originating in the company.
Ultimately, emotions have many implications for well-being in the workforce. Taking human emotions into account in workplace operation and reflecting on the implications in policies and programs could indeed improve well-being in the workplace. Interested in suggestions on just how this might be done? This topic will be discussed in the upcoming Part 2 of this article.

***Positivity Ratio: Many studies have shown the positivity ratio for flourishing to be above 3:1, including studies by John Gottman, and Robert Schwartz. Fredrickson has also acknowledged that the nonlinear dynamic model developed by Losada has been questioned, but stands by the Positivity Ratio.

References

Barsade, S. G. (2001, August). The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion In Groups. Working Paper Series on Organizational Behavior. Yale School of Management. New Haven, CT.

Crum, A. (2014). Change your mindset, change your game. TEDX talk.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. New York: Crown.

Greenberg, M. & Maymin, S. (2013). Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business. McGraw Hill.

Peterson, C., (2006). A Primer in Positive Psychology New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. New York: Free Press.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2013, July 15). Updated Thinking on Positivity Ratios. American Psychologist. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0033584

Gottman, J. M. (1994). What Predicts Divorce?: The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Schwartz, R. M., Reynolds III, C. F., Thase, M. E., Frank, E., Fasiczka, A. L., & Haaga, D. A. (2002). Optimal and normal affect balance in psychotherapy of major depression: Evaluation of the balanced states of mind model. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 30(04), 439-450. Abstract.

A message from Robert Rosales

From Languishing to Flourishing at Work

Whether organizations and their employees languish or flourish largely depends on the quality of the social connections they nurture. We spend most of our waking hours at work and thus improving social connections will impact productivity, engagement as well as community, organizational and individual wellbeing.

The bottom line is that focusing on enabling high-quality relationships at work changes everything, for the better. Is it that simple? Yes. Is it easy? No. It takes persistence and hard work. But it’s worth it.

Learn critical skills to develop better relationships at work by watching the following webinar.

Connecting for Success with Robert Rosales.

Kat Koppett

Thank you to everyone who attended Improv for Business, our very first Positive Business DC Webinar!  We had a great turnout so be sure to join our Meetup so you don’t miss any announcements.

If you missed it, our guest speaker was Kat Koppett, founder of Koppett & Company and author. Kat and Shannon Polly had a riveting discussion about the principals of  Improv and how applying to business can be transformative.  If you missed it, you can check out this Modern DC Business article and also the recording of the webinar itself.

If you did not get enough, and I know we didn’t, Kat has graciously offered to do an online “on-the-fly” sample instruction.  So, if you want to participate, just post a message here on our Facebook page.  Here is the question to answer:  ”What’s a part of your business you want to improv?

Intrinsic activities are autonomous by, 2008). Furthermore, extrinsic motivation can actually weaken intrinsic motivation because it fosters the perception that the cause of the behavior is external to that individual (Brown & Ryan, 2004). The relative autonomy of goals is not only predictive of performance but well-being in general (Ryan etal, 2008).

Those with intrinsic goals, 2008). Perseverance and passion for long-term goals, coined grit by Angela Duckworth, is predictive of achieving one’s goals. Historically, intelligence had been the long-standing best-documented predictor of achievement, with the advantage of reliable and valid ways to measure IQ and related outcomes (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007). But grit outperforms IQ by a factor of two in predicting achievement (Seligman, 2011). By grit’s very definition, you can infer that, from start to finish, effort must be exerted. Grit is an intense pursuit that emphasizes effort in the face of challenge (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).  Interestingly, a state called “flow,” which is associated with effortlessness, is interrelated with grit and can accelerate and support goal achievement.

Flow is a state where an individual loses all track of time, and tasks feel effortless. During flow, all information coming into awareness is congruent with goals, ordering one’s consciousness. Experience is in harmony and the individual may think, “This is the real me.” The state of flow also provides a sense of discovery and a feeling of transporting us into a new reality (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

We actually become more complex after a flow experience (more differentiated and integrated), possibly as the result of deep concentration.  Differentiation is a process that moves an individual toward uniqueness, separating himself from others. Conversely, integration is a process moving the self to others with ideas and entities beyond the self. A complex self can combine these opposite tendencies. After flow, an individual is a more unique individual with more dimensions, therefore less predictable (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

Although tasks feel effortless while in the state of flow, the situation that cultivates flow is a result of effort, engagement, and commitment. Flow requires skill at a level that is a unique balance between anxiety and boredom. Flow is “earned” in that an individual must first acquire skill. When skill is at the right level of challenge – just beyond an individual’s grasp – the flow state can occur (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Gritty people are typically more likely to face challenges that seem too difficult at first (Duckworth etal, 2007). As challenges are conquered, skill level increases, focus increases, perseverance continues, as does the increased likelihood of more flow and movement toward goal attainment (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

One can easily see that both grit and flow are important in the path to achievement and well-being. They are “tools” that can be used interchangeably on the way, paving the road for well-being in the present (flow) until the ultimate finish line, as a result of perseverance.

In the workplace, to maximize productivity and enjoyment, I like to focus on engagement for teams. I have found that by increasing employee engagement, productivity level rises, and we are able to meet goals more easily. A good first step is to understand the strengths of each employee, which can quickly and easily be measured by administering the VIA Signature Strengths test. When individuals use their strengths, engagement increases (Seligman, 2011).

To increase flow for teams, a leader needs to set clear goals, increase the mechanisms for immediate and unambiguous feedback, give employees as much sense of control as is possible, and challenge each employee at the appropriate skill level (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Ideally, leaders need to incorporate the right situations for intrinsic motivation whenever possible. But when it’s not possible, autonomy can still be increased. Extrinsic motivation can be thought of as on a continuum of internalization, so when motivation cannot be purely intrinsic, extrinsic motivation can still be moved along this continuum to increase autonomy (Brown & Ryan, 2004).

A healthy feedback loop will best foster an understanding of ongoing employee engagement. If employees are frustrated, worried or anxious, the challenges might be too high. Conversely, if an employee is bored or overly relaxed, perhaps the proverbial bar is set too low  (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Finally, ideally, all of this should not only be understood by leadership of the company, but should be integrated, into the very culture of the company, including inclusion into defined company values.

References

Brown, K. W. & Ryan, R. M. (2004). Fostering healthy self-regulation from within and without: a self-determination theory perspective. In P. A. Linley (Ed.), Positive Psychology in Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of personality and social psychology, 92 (6), 1087-1101.

Ryan, R. M., Huta, V., & Deci, E. L. (2008). Living well: a self-determination theory perspective on eudaimonia. Journal of Happiness Studies (9), 139–170.

Seligman, M. E. (2011). Flourish: a visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York, NY: Free Press.

[1] Note: Eudaimonia and hedonia overlap and both play a role in well-being.

In this webinar, Author Cathy Salit will show us how leveraging our inborn ability to perform and pretend can help us grow in our work.

Whether you are navigating your way on a new team, expanding your leadership role, or just trying to get heard in a meeting, you’re facing the kind of workplace challenge we all run into sooner or later: you need a new performance. And the good news, Cathy Salit says, is that even though you might not have been onstage since you played a tree in third grade, you — and all humans — have an innate ability to perform, pretend, and improvise. Tapping into this ability is key to learning and growing in new, exciting and profound ways. In this engaging and entertaining presentation Salit, author, performer and CEO of Performance of a Lifetime, shares the revolutionary approach that has transformed the work of executives and teams from Fortune 500 companies all over the world with its unusual blending of theater, improvisation, and the new science of performative psychology.

Webinar: Performing your way to Growth with Cathy Salit from Donna Hemmert on Vimeo.

We often think of happiness as a state of mind, but our physical bodies have a large impact on our well-being that goes beyond our physical health. Our bodies can either help or hinder our performance and well-being, on the job or at home, in more ways than are readily obvious.

Our well-being is tied to our bodies in more ways than one. Our physical fitness can affect our moods, our energy levels, and our mental performance. Consider the following:

1. Research has shown that just 15 minutes of exercise a day can help increase energy levels. According to the American Council on Exercise, if a sedentary individual begins an exercise program it will enhance the blood flow carrying oxygen and nutrients to muscle tissue improving their ability to produce more energy [the chemical adenosine triphosphate].
2. Physical activity can help improve cognitive processes, such as planning and scheduling. This is due to our brain’s deployment of “miracle grow for the brain” [clinically referred to as BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor], which has been shown to improve the function of neurons and encourage new neurons to grow.
3. Exercise can help reduce stress. When we exercise, our brain activity causes a molecular by-product, and much like the breakdown and repair of our muscles when we lift weights, our brains have a subsequent repair mechanism that strengthens cells.
4. Exercise can help prevent depression. According to Henriette van Praag, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health, exercise is just as effective as medication at helping prevent depression.

What does this have to do with workplace culture? In the United States, employed adults spend about half of their waking hours at work. Research has shown there is more to the 3-5 workouts/week exercise equation than traditionally prescribed. While these workouts can help can build cardiovascular health, build muscle, and increase flexibility, this is not the whole equation. Recent studies tell us that sitting is the new smoking. Take note: too much sitting is something altogether different from too little exercise. Too much sitting can be very damaging to our health, quite possibly compromising our metabolic health.

Now consider the typical office environment where members of our team might stare transfixed for hours upon hours, propped in front of a screen. While any one of us might be a gym rat, a runner or a yoga guru, if we are sitting the rest of those non-gym hours, we might be suffering from what has been coined the active couch potato syndrome. We might be working hard at our exercise regime, only to potentially later compromise our health with extended sitting.  Many medical professionals are now warning that given the choice between merely interrupting sitting or doing the traditional idea of a workout, the interruption of inactivity may be more important for achieving health benefits. Merely standing up will activate big muscles in our bodies and trigger a series of physiological reactions. And we can trigger even bigger effects by moving.

It’s time to make a culture shift in workplaces to one of increased movement. Leaders can take an active role in finding ways to bring movement into your workplace. Individuals can look for opportunities to incorporate more movement into their everyday work routines. And perhaps you can influence a few coworkers along the way to join you since habits can be contagious in the workplace. Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler’s research has shown that behaviors [such as quitting smoking or exercising] can pass through our networks of people as if they are contagious viruses, affecting our health and habits.

Not sure how to start? Here are a few suggestions for increasing a culture of movement in the workplace:

So, at a minimum, stand up! And if you can, get your coworkers to stand up with you. Just stand up two to three times per hour. And if you can, add some movement. You might just find that while you reduce the risk for the metabolic diseases associated with inactivity [such as heart disease and diabetes], you  may find you and your coworkers feel a little smarter, moods a bit lighter, and a few more light bulb moments!

References
Christakis, N. A., & Fowler, J. H. (2007). The spread of obesity in a social network-Reply. New England Journal of Medicine, 357(18), 1867-1868.

Ratey, J.J & Manning, R. (2014). Go Wild: Free Your Body and Mind from the Afflictions of Civilization. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Ratey, J. J. & Loehr, J.E. (2011). The positive impact of physical activity on cognition during adulthood: a review of underlying mechanisms, evidence and recommendations, Reviews in the Neurosciences, 22(2), 171–185

van Praag, H. (2009). Exercise and the brain: something to chew on. Trends in neurosciences, 32(5), 283-290.

We play a role in our own stress and angst, sometimes causing it where none really needs to exist. We bring our histories, good and bad, to our daily interactions and this affects our perceptions. Albert Ellis (1962), the father of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), identified that much of the stress experienced in life comes not from the stressful events in our lives, but from our interpretation of the event. This makes sense – if the activating event were causal, then everyone’s responses would be the same.

Enter the ABC Model Exercise, which is described in greater detail in ”The Resilience Factor” by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatté. This exercise can be trained within an organization to increase skills to unearth underlying beliefs that affect our interpretations. If we can become aware of and begin to control our internalized communication, we can significantly alter how we are impacted by stressful events.

The ABC Model can be taught and utilized in our organizations. By modeling new behavior or, even better, training our teams to stop and consider their underlying beliefs (also known as “the stories we tell ourselves”), we can increase resilience and reduce the related fallout.

The ABC Model

Below is an example of the ABC Model exercise, which can increase our skill to detect thoughts in the midst of adversity and can help us understand its emotional impact. ABC stands for the following:

A:   Adversity or activating event

B:   Beliefs – the thoughts that run through our minds (consciously or unconsciously) when we face an adversity or an activating event

C:   Consequence – the result of the belief, which can be behavioral or emotional, or both
A-to-C Connections

Sometimes, when faced with adversity, we jump right from the adversity to the consequence, called an A-to-C Connection.  Here is an example, moving from A to C:

We are having a weekly staff meeting and an employee arrives ten minutes late (adversity), right in the midst of sharing an important development. I become angry and make a sarcastic remark to the employee in front of the entire team (consequence).

Dissecting the Steps

A: An employee is ten minutes late to a staff meeting

C: “I am mad” and the whole team knows it because of my sarcastic comment.

In this example, I have decided that anger is a result of the tardiness. That is an A->C connection. But, if we dig deeper, we will see the underlying belief:

B: “This employee is disrespecting me.” We can see what really had transpired was A->B->C.

Consider the above example again, but now consider the intervening the belief:

We are having our weekly stuff meeting and an employee arrives ten minutes late (adversity). I think, “This employee is disrespecting me” (belief). I become angry and make a sarcastic remark to the employee in front of the entire team (consequence).

Once we understand this underlying belief, we can potentially use this information to debunk the belief. This can be done with FAT Thinking.

FAT Thinking

FAT thinking is (F)lexible, (A)ccurate and (T)horough thinking. In moments of challenge, we can consider other options (be more flexible in our thinking), challenge the veracity of our own thoughts (be more accurate in our thinking) and consider additional information (be more thorough in our thinking). In the example above, we could ask ourselves the following:

In this case, I might ask, “Does the employee really disrespect me?”

1. Flexible: Is there another way to look at this situation? Perhaps his last meeting ran late. Maybe an important call from a client came up.
2. Accurate: Am I sure this is true? Given other possibilities, perhaps I should ask him what happened after our meeting before jumping to conclusions.
3. Thorough: Is there more information I can consider? Upon further contemplation, I might recall that we have visiting clients or recall that the employee’s wife recently had a baby.

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 I am sure you are already grasping, they tend to be happier [on average] than their counterparts.

Why are they happier?

One reason these citizens extraordinaire might be happier than you?  It’s all in how they approach their work.  You see, according to Amy Wrzesniewski, a researcher at Yale University, how you view your work makes a big difference.  Follow along, because this is interesting… According to Wrzesniewski, you can have one of three orientations: job, career or calling.

If you have a job orientation, then your work is a means to an end.  You do what you must, but you have your sights on the weekend.  You might be a clock-watcher.  Your leisure time is more important than work.
If you have a career orientation, then you approach your work with an achievement mindset, looking for the next promotion and approaching your work as a career.

But, what about a calling orientation?  You fall in this bucket if you think your work is integral to your identity; you go above and beyond just because you want to do it right, and because it intrinsically matters to you.

In Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, Deiner and Biswath-Diener summarized the characteristics of each orientation in this table below.  Most people can quickly read through this list and see where they fall in their current job.

What’s the practical application? Of course, if having a calling mindset makes you happier and more likely to be a good organizational citizen, then the benefits are obvious.  But there is more, because happy employees take fewer sick days, are more punctual, more creative, stronger interpersonally, more effective decision makers, and they change jobs less frequently.  The benefits are definitely a two-way street.

Let’s say you are onboard, and asking how you might be happier at work.  To up the odds, use your strengths.  People who use their strengths at work are happier. There are many studies to support this, but in the spirit of illustration, a study of 214 university students by Govindji and Linley in 2007 showed just that – people who used their strengths more reported higher levels of subjective well-being [i.e., happiness] and psychological well-being [i.e., fulfillment].

So, start by understanding what your Signature Strengths are. You can take a free test here. Once you know what your Signature Strengths are, you can let this information help you make better informed career choices, and start using your strengths right away in your life and work. This may be exactly where good organizational citizenship steps in – it might be that in order to use your Signature Strengths, you will be doing things that go beyond your job description.  It may require you to join a committee, or help out in a new way.

The steps to integrate your strengths are pretty basic:

1. Know your top 3-7 strengths
2. Think of ways you can use those in your current job
3. Try to do this as often as possible

In fact, the more new ways you use your strengths, the better. Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson found that people who used their strengths in a new and different way every day reported higher levels of happiness and lower levels of depression, and it stuck over time. What’s not to like about that?

This blog was originally published on Delivering Happiness.

Quick Recap:

We had a very interesting webinar with Michelle McQuaid today, where she shared results from her survey of over 1000 companies and their views on strengths in the workplace. She shared statistics such as in 2015, 5 out of 10 people are building on their strengths. She also how shared how effective managers help their employees make changes as well as the benefits these companies are reaping.

Who is Michelle McQuaid?

Michelle McQuaid

Michelle McQuaid is a best-selling author, workplace wellbeing teacher and playful change activator. With more than a decade of senior leadership experience in large organizations around the world, she’s passionate about translating cutting-edge research from positive psychology and neuroscience, into practical strategies for health, happiness, and business success. An honorary fellow at Melbourne University’s Graduate School of Education, she blogs for Psychology Today, Huffington Post and Live Happy and her work has been featured in Forbes, the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Boss Magazine, The Age and more. She holds a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently completing her PhD in Appreciative Inquiry under the supervision of David Cooperrider. Michelle lives to help people discover their strengths, move beyond their fears, and finally discover what it truly takes to flourish with confidence.

Barry Schwarz explores this shortcoming as well as gives us evidence-based advice on how we can make wiser decisions in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. He lays out a compelling case for becoming a Satisfier (one who makes a decision when their criteria is met) over a Maximizers (one who must make the best choice).  With the overload of options we have in modern times, we can end up more spending an enormous amount of time researching options and making the subsequent choices. Schwartz makes a compelling argument on why Satisficers tend to be happier than Maximizers. Maximizers must spend loads of time and energy to reach a decision, and in the end, they are often anxious about those choices and much more likely to ruminate. As a Satisfier, you can still have high standards, but you make the choice when your criteria is met.

Most of us in business have heard the advice by Schwarz and many that we should ignore sunk costs, which are historical and no longer have any bearing on the go-forward situation. In the case of opportunity costs, alternatives are still relevant, but Schwarz advises they should be considered because it’s very difficult to adequately weigh whether our front-running choice is indeed good without knowing the alternatives. He cautions we should limit the set of possibilities considered among opportunity costs to reduce negative psychological impact. Examples of other advisable strategies from The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less include 1) choosing when to choose (narrow down choices by constraining when we choose, 2) deciding not to choose at all (when the decision is not important), 3) increasing the frequency of making a choice when you find an option that is good enough (“satisficing”), and 4) having second-order decisions (preset choices in certain situations).

I really enjoyed The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.  So, if you are looking for your next read, you may wan to consider it.  It’s already saving me some valuable time.  And be sure check out Barry Schwartz’ TED talk here.

No worries!  We have you covered.  Check out our recording below.

Mark give some very specific and usable advice including
- Why it might be difficult for you to set a boundary
- What you need to tell yourself that can help you set a boundary
- The essential steps to being successful in setting them

Mark Sachs, an executive coach for over 15 years, works with many leaders in the DC area. Past clients include NASA, National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and dozens of others. He has presented similar boundaries workshops in many organizations, where he gives real-life examples of boundary setting.

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 study on the effect of emotion on the human genome found that high levels of positive emotion affects us at the immune cellular level, reducing inflammation and correlating with a strong expression of antiviral and antibody genes. In turn, good health means reduced absenteeism for the workforce.

Positive emotion is also linked to more innovation, better problem solving, and to a more connected workforce. According to Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory, positive emotion leads to greater creativity, openness, and better problem solving.  Our thinking becomes more holistic and we build new skills.

Negative emotion also plays an important role in well-being.  Negativity constrains our experience of the world ­– narrowing attention and increasing analytical thinking.  In emergencies, for example, we need to bring a narrower focus to the table. In fact, optimistic thinking is sometimes associated with underestimation of risks.

Achieving Balance: Fredrickson popularized the positivity ratio—the ratio of positive emotions to negative emotions as measured over time. To flourish, Fredrickson recommends a positivity ratio of about 3 to 1***.  The positivity ratio plots as a U curve showing that a higher positivity ratio is healthy and productive up to a certain point and then declines. In the workplace, I have witnessed this when excessive fun and games leads to decreased productivity.  Sometimes, more often in tight knit groups, Groupthink occurs and members “go along with the group” to avoid disrupting group harmony, leading to inferior decision making. The key is a high positivity ratio without extremes, with 11:1 being the upperbound positivity ratio for flourishing.

Emotions (both positive and negative) are contagious. According to Sigal Barsade, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, we can catch moods.  It only takes one of five employees to affect or “infect” the group. So, it is important to understand where excessive negative and positive emotions are originating in the company.

Ultimately, emotions have many implications for well-being in the workforce and should be examined. Considering human emotions in workplace and reflecting on the implications in policies and programs will improve well-being in the workplace.

***Most studies have shown the Positivity Ratio for flourishing to be between 3:1 to 4:1 including studies by Marcel Posada, John Gottman, and Robert Schwartz. Fredrickson has also acknowledged that the nonlinear dynamic model developed by Losada has been questioned, but evidence in recent years fortifies the Positivity Ratio Theory.

References

Barsade, S. G. (2001, August). Organizational Behavior, “The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion In Groups”. Yale School of Management. New Haven, CT.
Crum, A. (2014, 09 04). Mindset Matters: Toward a Positive Health Psychology. MAPP 10 Class at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Fredrickson, B. (2014, 09 06). Positive Emotions: Tiny Engines of Positive Psychology. (B. Fredrickson, Performer) MAPP 10 Class at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House.
Greenberg, M., & Maymin, S. (2013). Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Peterson, C. (2006). A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Seligman, M. E. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. New York, NY: Free Press, a Division of Simon and Schuster.
Seligman, M. E. (1990). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. New York, NY: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House.

Where does your state rate?  Dark blue – you are doing good….white? Well, not so much.

Mere-Exposure Effect

Part 7 of our “Cognitive Bias and Leadership” Series – See more here.

On our January 16, 2013 blog, I 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 judgments that are faulty.  So much of positive leadership is about good decision making so we really wanted to expand on different biases.

In the 7th of our series, I am going to talk about the Mere-Exposure Effect – the tendency to prefer things because we are familiar with them.  What this means is that if you have been exposed to something prior, you will tend to favor it over something to which you have never been exposed…this could be a person, a product, a place, an event – you name it.  In fact, if you have ever been to a concert, I am sure you saw this phenomenon in action.  I just went to a Sara Barielles concert last night and she sang and played many great songs.  As I listened to a particular song for the very first time, I acknowledged that it would likely become a favorite, but it didn’t really increase my enthusiasm in that moment.  But as soon as the hits were played, the place came alive, and so did I.  That is the Mere-Exposure Effect in action.

Interestingly, people don’t even have to remember the exposure for the Mere-Exposure effect to be operational.  In one study, amnesia patients were exposed to photos of faces with fictional bios.  Days later, when asked, the patients showed a preference for those faces to which they had previously been exposed, even though they could not consciously recall the details.

Of course the Mere-Exposure effect does not actually apply to negative reactions when exposed to something.  Your brain, the second time around, would most certainly cause you to have a negative view.  But barring negativity, your cognitive systems assume a reasonable amount of safety and whatever it is to which you were exposed, you will likely like it better time 2 around.

So what about the Mere-Exposure Effect and Business?

Networking:

Well, the Mere-Exposure Effect can help in your networking for one. And I am not talking about the computer or Internet kind…I am referring to getting out there and meeting new business contacts.  If you are an introvert, or just not in the mood for talking, actually just being present and accounted for will lay the groundwork for the next time around.  If you can manage to get a business card and do a follow-up email, the next time you see that same contact, they will likely warm up to you more quickly.  And repeating the same networking events will likely lead to greater effect since you will be seen by the same business circle.

Social Media:

I have seen this work in my own social circles.  When people comment, “Like” or “Follow” my content, I take notice.  And I start to feel the relationship unfold. I can’t tell you how many people I have done real business with and they only place I have known them is online.

Marketing:

Well, obviously Advertisers have been leveraging this for many decades and with the advent of the Internet and 2-way online relationships, the concept of the drip campaign has soared.  Drip campaigns go beyond just straight repetition and frequency and build on the relationship aspects as well.  Additionally, since we now know more about our customers and our interactions online, we can tailor our touch points to further build trust by providing the right information at the right time.

Negotiation:

If you are trying to build a strategic relationship, consider negotiating over several meetings instead of 1 or 2. This will allow the relationship to more quickly blossom.

What do you think?  Are there ways Mere-Exposure plays in your company or team?  We’d love to hear from you.

Martin Best

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 their own understanding, to go public.

Emerson later warned that society and corporations conspire against maturity, because they make us comfortable with language that conceals truth. Leaders must still fight this conspiracy.

Then, Empathy: Empathy releases our power to be authentic. We deepen our awareness that we are born into relationship with everything and everyone. We cannot be fully human if we live without human relationship.

In 1953, Buber showed that leaders must make real choices about their physical, mental and emotional attitudes, so as to let their relationship with people and the world come alive.

When we let Authenticity and Empathy fuel our imagination, we become Creative. Like great stories of old, the enriched strategic narratives we create can connect people to their own purpose and passion and release innovation.

Creativity comes from imagination and lives in language, speech, and persona. These embodied powers engage others, and elevate goals into purposes.

These powers are our birthright, and leaders in this creative age can use them to reshape the world.

In Time’s recent article, they called WinCo ‘Walmart’s Worst Nightmare’ – their prices are lower than Walmart’s, yet they have better pay, and benefits.  Way to #workwell, WinCo!

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 say “wait a minute Shannon, that goes against all of that principles.” So even I have to keep applying the principles. I also think what I’ve discovered is that I used to think that I had to do the heavy lifting in facilitating something like this. I had to do all the work, I had to do all the prep and what you realize with this process is that there is the collective wisdom of the people in the room and if you are open to accepting and working with what people in the room have to say the process really, in some ways leads itself, the real work is leading up to and designing the guide, what questions are you going to ask, that takes a lot work, but once you are in the day it really starts to sing and I stopped worrying about being the expert in the room and suddenly everyone in the room was the expert and then the process went much better.

Kathryn: How interesting. So let me ask you a different aspect of that question. How has being involved in AI affected the way you live your life and out of that what could our listeners take away from this whole process and the principles that are involved in AI, what could they take away that would help them increase the tonnage of happiness in the world.

Shannon: Well one of the things I’ve taken away is I usually end an AI with the question, “What’s the smallest change you can make that would have the biggest impact?” And I think since its still January and people may have New Year’s resolutions on their mind I think that’s a great way to think about any goals that you’re setting, maybe even if it’s your goals for the day or could be your goals for the year is what’s the smallest thing you could do would have the biggest impact? Because we tend to think to implement whole system change and it takes so much work and our lives are so busy and for me I’ve revamped my New Year’s resolutions and instead of having a list of 20 things that I want to do, I have those 20 things, but I focus what are the top three things. The three things that can have the biggest impact and one of them is sleep. I realized that would have the biggest impact. Half an hour would have the biggest impact. The other thing is done is I have two children and my three-year-old at night instead of just having a story and going to bed or singing a song, I try to ask her what’s the best thing about your day, what was the best thing that happened? To orient her to what’s working and she doesn’t have the concept of time yet, so she’ll remember something from Christmas or New Years, but it gets her thinking about what was working during the day and hopefully will work as far as it, when she comes up with challenges at school, people who are challenging, well what are their strengths, what are they good at, how could you use your own strengths to work through the situation. So I’m trying to integrate it with my children as well.

Kathryn: Okay integrating it with your children who are small as seven years old that’s terrific. So are there any other ideas most of us are not going to be going to AI summits, but we go through our lives, we interact with our families, we interact with our team-workers, what are some of the small ways that some of these principles could show up in daily life.

Shannon: Well if you’re at work, one thing I also say is usually people have a lot of meetings whether it’s two persons meeting or group meetings and one thing I like to do is start and end the meeting with something that’s working. So opening with a question of “what was working this week, what went well this week”, to orient people towards things that are already going well as opposed to start, “alright what happened, what do we have to fix,” which tends to be the case. And the same thing with family members because I find that family members we tend to get into this rut of “well this person died, and Aunt Mary you know, she just had surgery,” so trying to have family interactions start off with how can you give positive feedback even, sort of like positive gossip, how do you start that, how do you have a holiday where you’re focusing on the strengths? I’ve had my family taken the strengths survey, try to do a strengths tree, so trying to integrate some of those little principles, positivity principle and what kinds of questions you asked. I think the principle of asking an unconditionally positive question is a great one because if you phrase it in a way that there’s no way to answer it in a negative way, if you say “how was your day”, you would be like, “well let me tell you about the…” If you ask “what was the best part of your day” then you’re forced to answer in a positive way.

Kathryn:  Ok and you have tried that out with your family small and large?

Shannon: I have.

Kathryn: And then what happened?

Shannon: It reoriented them and then my husband started to use it on me, so I would come home and say “can you believe what happened to me” and he would say “what was the best part of your day”, alright, touché’.

Kathryn: And then what happens when he asks that?

Shannon: And then what happens, when I get over the “ugh, he’s using my own principle to against me”, then I think OK what was the best part of my day and it is totally shifts my energy, shifts my mood and I spend less time ruminating on what didn’t go well.

Kathryn: Ok alright that sounds like definitely something to take home. So what’s next for you, what is your dream right now?

Shannon: Well I have some small steps and some dreams too. A small step is I’m giving a talk on Appreciative Inquiry to project managers so hopefully helping them figure out these similar things, how can they integrate this work into their lives. I love the Peter Drucker quote, who is the management guru, “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths that makes our systems’ weaknesses irrelevant” so my goal is how can I help people create an alignment of strengths that makes their weaknesses irrelevant and my big dream is doing larger AI summits, so doing AI summits on veteran hiring since we’re in DC. It would be fantastic to do one for the entire city of DC, considering some of the challenges our city has gone through recently. It would be great to bring everybody together and figure out what are our strengths and how can we leverage those.

Kathryn: I’ve got a possibility for you, why don’t you take on Congress? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could discover and dream and come up with a way for Congress to really work for us? So there you are in DC, maybe that’s in the back of your mind. So we’re just about to the end of our time. I would like to end with a question, what’s the most important thing that you would like for listeners to take away from today’s call? You know what I just realized I forgot a question that I really wanted to ask which is, Shannon what suggestions do you have for AI practitioners so you can leave the other question, leave it on the burner, but first let us know what you’d like to say to AI practitioners.

Shannon: Well practitioners or facilitators, trainers, coaches, one thing I would say is that the times where I have seen it work the best is when you get all of the stakeholders in the room and that means everyone who was even peripherally involved within an organization. So I did one for a school and said “we’d love to do an AI, but we don’t want to have the students there.” And I thought how is that going to work, the students are an integral part of the school and they refused. So I tried to do pre-summit interviews to get their voices in the room and in the end it was successful, but it wasn’t as successful as it could’ve been if we’d had everyone in the room. So I think that’s one thing I would say and the second is push for the most amount of time that you can, some say they can give you a day, we can only give you six hours, well only five hours and then at the end they were not happy that they didn’t quite get as many results as they wanted, but they kept cutting the time. So that’s the second thing. The final thing is follow-through. It’s really about following up on all of the groups and asking the stakeholders to jump in and to engage because you can have a great day where everyone is leaves and they are happy, but if you don’t follow up on what they need to do and what they are committed to it’s part of those action items done. So those are my few suggestions.

Kathryn: So something before, something during and then something after, but definitely the something after to make sure that the delivery actually happens. Alright thank you, so now I’m back to my last question, what would you most likely listeners to take away from this discussion?

Shannon: I think my suggestion would be to ask yourself what is the smallest change you could make that would have the biggest impact, so that’s your homework. And if you are at a loss, think of one question a day that you could frame as an unconditionally positive question. So either a question to ask yourself or a question to ask someone else in your life and just notice what the response is. So just one question a day that’s my take away. I think once you see the impact of that one question it will spur you on to do it more and more.

Kathryn: Thank you so much Shannon and thank you for bringing us all these ideas for World Happiness Day.

Shannon: Thanks so much.

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 “you what is a high point moments you have involved in this organization? So what’s a high point moment living in Cincinnati in one of those cities?” Then a continuity question, “what’s something you want to keep?” So this city is going to change, what’s one thing special you want to keep? And then usually it’s a vision of the future question of “if anything was possible, what would you want to create?” And you have people talking and because they’re engaging with each other they are energized, they are enlivened, they are already feeling valued, they are discovering the strengths of each other and you’re also required to report back to the table for the person you’re interviewing, so you have a job to do.

Kathryn: So you’re listening?

Shannon: Right, so then the table discusses what are the commonalities, what are the root causes success and they flipchart and someone is leading, someone is keeping time, someone is going to report out and you have the whole table talking. So you go from 2, to a table of eight, to each table, if there’s time, reporting back to the whole. And you realize when the whole room reports back that there is lots of variety in strengths and high-point moments and then there’s a lot of diversity as well and it really energizes the whole room and it’s a process that builds, so that’s the first part of how it works.

Kathryn: That’s the discovery step. Okay great.

Shannon: And then you get into a playful mode of dreaming of the future, so based on what these strengths are, Cincinnati has 52 neighborhoods and that’s one of their strengths, their strong character of their neighborhoods. And then it’s what is your vision of the future but not just let’s write it down, let’s flip chart it out, it’s let’s create a play, let’s do something performative. So people would get to tap their creativity and you can think “really? this is frightening”,  what are people actually going to do when you sit them down at a table, there’s balloons, silly putty, there’s flexible straws and what’s fascinating is that people really get into it, they get excited to get to play and so much positive emotions generated and then they get to perform it in front of a room and they get raucous applause. And their voices are heard and it’s much more memorable when you see someone singing opera about how Cincinnati has come together and united, so it’s is a really playful way to get out your vision of the future.

Kathryn: So I’m just going to risk a little question here, do you remember anything at all from the performance that you were involved in?

Shannon: I remember taking on an Irish accent and we wanted to convey a strength-based city and one of those strengths was the diversity of the city and so I was the Irish character, I am not sure where that came from.

Kathryn:  Okay alright, I can imagine you doing that. So that’s the dreaming part.

Shannon: Right. Then you get into the second two parts of it, and that’s design and delivery and I love the way that David explains this because he talks about this he calls the first two Ds the ecstasy and then next two are the laundry, ecstasy and the laundry.

Kathryn: Right, right after the ecstasy then the laundry I think that’s a book by John Kornfeld. That’s a great takeoff on that. Great so tell us about the first bit of the laundry.

Shannon:  The design is, he talks about rapid prototyping so organizations like Ideo that have created so many new products they instead of having a long process, they say, “let’s do it really quickly, let’s create a prototype of something physical and what would it look like”. And at this point you’re voting with your feet and you are voting on a topic area you are really interested in and people are getting to choose where they want to go. And each group, each topic group, gets to vote on within that what’s the one top idea, they brainstorm what ideas they can create first as far as what their vision is and then they pick one, and then they try to design a prototype that they are going to report out to the room about. So it’s another way of getting your voice in the room and actually creating something in the space.

Kathryn: So do you remember any of the designs, any of the rapid prototypes that came out of Cincinnati or Cleveland?

Shannon: I remember the Strengths Based City Initiative because the VIA survey that I mentioned before they’re actually housed in Cincinnati, they’re from Cincinnati Institute. The Strengths Based Cities Initiative created a whole vision, a map of the 52 neighborhoods in Cincinnati and created street signs like Strengths Way, all sorts of different ideas of how they could apply the strengths so they used some of the tools from the table in the dream portion to create that visual and it was a much more powerful way to convey something when they got up and reported back to the room than if they were just talking as a recorder.

Kathryn: Right okay so now we’ve gotten through the design part, how about the delivery part, the last, putting the laundry on the lines to dry.

Shannon: Exactly. Well that’s the challenging part, that’s where the rubber meets the road. This is where the practical people in the room really take off, they like the fact that you’re writing down who are the names of everybody in the group, what’s their email addresses, who’s going to take on which initiative,  what are you going to do in the next one month, three months, six months, one year in order to make these things happen. And what’s fascinating is that when I run an AI summit usually people think that someone else is going to do the work. The last moment of a two-day summit and everyone said well the board of this organizations, I am sure the board is going to do it, and I said “no, that’s the point of AI’s, you are going to take it on, you are part of this process and you have ownership.” So people do have ownership and you find the people who are really willing to engage and because the process has been engaging from the beginning, you have people who really step up and who say, “you know what, I’m going to organize a mini summit and we’re going to do it three months from now and I’m going to find a space, I will get some food donated” and it becomes really engaging process because people really step up to the plate and make things happen.

Kathryn:  Let me ask you, that’s the 4Ds now let’s just do a quick review. So there was dream, oh sorry, I skipped Discover, how terrible that would be, so there’s Discover where people learn about themselves and think about their strengths, there’s Dream where they lift the top off and just come up with anything, there is Design which is where they start prototyping and then Deliver which is where things start to happen. Ok alright what a great way of remembering and I can remember the 4Ds. 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.

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 Appreciative Inquiry, those are very powerful words, what do they mean when you put them together?

Appreciative Inquiry

Shannon: That’s a very good question; appreciative is usually we think of it as looking at something that’s good and that we would like to look at, something we appreciate. Appreciative also means to appreciate, to raise in the value so when we look at what is working, what’s good, we also elevated, we raise it in value and inquiry means to ask questions. So together it is how are you constructing unconditionally positive questions and what does that lead you to discover. So it’s a process, it’s a change management process discovered by or created a theory founded by David Cooperrider from Case Western Reserve in the early 1980s and he was working with organizations and you know the traditional way of working with organization is to do a SWAT analysis. You know it’s a very defined way of what’s the problem, what’s the root cause analysis, let’s brainstorm some solutions and you know develop a treatment plan. And he really flipped that on its head and said you know if you keep looking what the problems are in the organization, you become an expert in the problems. What if we looked at what’s working in an organization, what strengths does an organization have and how can we leverage those strengths to create a vision of the future because there’s some principles that AI follows that show that we really, we really follow what vision of the future we create and one of those is that we live in a world that our questions create. So every action is preceded by a question. So if you are questioning your life is you know “what’s wrong with me?”, well you are going to find things that are wrong with you. If the question is “what’s right with me? What’s working?”, that’s what you’re going find and that’s what you can leverage.

Another principle of AI is that is the poetic principle that what we focus on grows so wherever you put your attention that’s what’s going to grow. So that’s why Appreciative Inquiry wants to focus on what’s working. And the third is this the Simultaneity Principle, so change begins the moment you ask the question. So the moment you ask the question “what’s wrong with me?” usually our energy drops and we get very serious and you know our vision contracts, but if the first question is “what’s working in this organization I would leverage it?”, change begins the moment you ask that question too.

The fourth principle is the Anticipatory Principle and that is it positive images actually pulls us forward, it’s like heliotropic effect in plants, plants grow towards the light and we’re similar. We like to grow towards what’s with possible, what inspires us. And the final principle is the Positive Principle, that positive emotions lead us to positive actions.  There is a lot of research from Barbara Fredrickson, out of UNC Chapel Hill that the Broadmanville Theory that when you engender positive emotions, it leads people to see more, people are more creative, they are more collaborative, they are less racially biased, it leads to better health, all sort of things.

So Appreciative Inquiry takes all of these processes and in psychology which tends to look at just the individual person because that’s easier to test, AI looks at an organization as a whole and how you can leverage that, so I think that is one of the major distinctions is that it just doesn’t focus on an individual, it focuses on an organization or people as a whole.

Kathryn: Wow, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it explained quite so clearly, so thank you Shannon. Alright so how did you get started with appreciative inquiry?

Shannon: Well I was a student of David Cooperrider’s in the MAPP program of University of Pennsylvania and…

Kathryn: And what does MAPP stand for?

Shannon:  MAPP stands for the Master of Applied Positive Psychology, so it’s a terminal master degree at the University of Pennsylvania. There is only one master program of its kind in the United States and that was founded by Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Cooperrider was a guest lecturer and probably one of the most inspiring lecturers we had and he started taking us through what’s known as the “Four D” process. So it’s discovering the strength of an organization, dreaming of the future, designing the future, so based on what you want to create and what you want to have happen and then delivering what the future is. He took us through the process, he just didn’t lecture, he gave us an experiential view of it. And I think from that moment everyone in the room wanted to try it out themselves.

Kathryn: So can you tell us about a time when you tried it out, what happened and what was it like?

Shannon: Sure, well I did a sort of a smaller version of summit, sort of two of the four D’s with Westin Hotels, and my co-facilitator Jeremy McCarthy and I coupled it with the VIA strengths survey is a character strength survey that you can find on Viame.org, and so what we did is because AI focuses on strengths, we decided to give people a little grounding in that, just to help reorient them from the negativity bias and to help them get the specific strength to talk about. So we had them take the survey, we started off the day with a little mini-lecture about strengths and this specific survey and then we launched into the discover portion of it. We had people interview each other and what’s interesting is that I wasn’t quite sure what we would get out of it, we had a limited period amount of time and the manager of the hotel said “you know we just wanted to have, you know what we would really love you know the numbers that customers wants number to go up” and I thought I’m not sure that just doing discover and dream is really going to help you there but you know we’ll try.

Kathryn: Might as well.

Shannon: And what was fascinating is that all throughout the day, he was so amazed that people who were temporary workers were standing up and speaking or taking the microphone, were engaging and at the end of the day one of the most powerful piece of feedback was someone wrote “I didn’t know how much longer I would be working here but I’m so inspired by this vision of Westin’s future, that I’m going to stay”. And that was a really powerful moment because it made me realize that when you really engage all the stakeholders and you make everyone’s voices important, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.

Kathryn: So that was a small group, I’ve heard that AI can be used with small groups, you know maybe family size groups and big groups like you know entire organizations at once. What do you know; I mean what can you tell us about how AI works with different size groups?

Shannon: Well I have been involved with small and medium size group, I have also been a part of summits for the entire city of Cleveland and the entire city Cincinnati so for those summit they were between 5 and 800 people in one room for about three days. And you would think that it would be complete chaos just trying to have people self-organize those groups and what’s interesting is that the process is so well structured and loose at various times that it allows for that flexibility and actually having more people means that you get more ideas and more creativity in the room. So I’ve actually seen a whole city summit of Cincinnati engage people more than a group of say 20 and didn’t have all the stakeholders involved because it was too insular.

So I would say that organizations tend to be scared to have too many people. I think we need to have just the right number of people. I would say have all the stakeholders if you can in a room because that’s where you going to get the most creativity, the most generative ideas and collaboration.

On our January 16, 2013 blog, I 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 judgments that are faulty.  We have been exploring how these biases affect the ability to lead and make good decisions.

In the 6th in our series, I wanted to talk about Bandwidth Bias.  This is the tendency to go with the crowd.  It can also be called “groupthink” and when it turns negative, it can be a “mob mentality.”   And this can happen in groups large and small.  It can happen in your family, in your department or team at work, or across an entire culture.

Why does this happen?

We like to conform.  We like to fit in.  Consider the famous experiments by Solomon Asch, psychologist from the 1950s, who conducted experiments where participants were part of vision exercise where they had to gauge line lengths and compare them.   Participants made these assessments in a group with others.  Although these “others” were assumed to be participants, they were not.  They were in on the experiment and would knowingly give incorrect answers.  The result was the tendency for participants to provide incorrect answers as a result of being influenced by the intentional wrong answers of the group. In fact, 75% went along with the group at least one time with answers that were clearly not right.

What else did Asch learn from his experiment?

1. The number of people present had an effect.  The larger the number of people, the more people felt the need to conform.
2. If even one other person gives the actual correct answer, the need to conform is lessened.  Think social support.
3. People cite not wanting to risk ridicule as a reason for conforming or that they doubted their own judgment

How does this impact business?

Teams can jump on the bandwagon to support team members even when they see a flaw.  Or sometimes, it can cause a sudden release of similar products that are not well received in the market.   It can cause the recruiting of candidates that are not as strong simply because their alma mater has prestige.  Or it can cause your company to pass on the perfect candidate because they fear their extended unemployment is more meaningful than it is.

What does this mean for leadership? -

1. Create a culture where employees can dissent
2. Assign someone to be the devil’s advocate – not to be belligerent and petty, but to find logical arguments and unseen consequences
3. Hire people in your organization that do not think like you do
4. In a brainstorm or discussion, stop and ask, what can go wrong here?  What contingency should we prepare for?  What are other alternatives?  Ask these questions even when you all agree you have the perfect answer.  The goals are to get you and your team thinking critically.  

Have other suggestions on how we can lead to avoid this or other cognitive biases?  Comment below. We’d love to hear your ideas.