Yet empathy, the ability to walk in someone else’s place and truly feel what they experience, gives children a way to understand the world differently. That’s where RedRover comes in. This organization has invested in building a program that teaches empathy to third and fourth graders.

The Restricted Adventures of Raja, written by Nicole Forsyth and illustrated by Bryan Huff

Empathy Goes to The Dogs… and Cats

Let’s suppose we’re part of a class. The teacher tells us that we are trying The RedRover Reading Program today. Everybody becomes involved and you find out that our best friend has an amazing human-animal bond. He never told anyone about his relationship with his pet before because… who talks about feelings? You also discovered that the girl who lives down the street throws sticks at dogs. She never thought about it before, but now as you describe your own experience with Heidi, your pet Doberman, she starts to see that maybe the dog has feelings after all.

As the children get involved, critical questions cause them to look more deeply into their own lives. They draw on their own emotions and personal experiences to bring life to the story. They see that how they treat animals has an impact on others… and the learning environment become rich. This unique discussion about feelings and their pets sets the stage for change.

That’s when the magic happens. Why would our youth talk about anything so personal? They wouldn’t unless being prompted by a teacher or parent. Kids talking about their cats, dogs, or other animals (and how they make them feel) just doesn’t come up in normal conversation. But everyone has a perspective on animals. Having a conversation about animal behavior and emotions lets children practice some self-awareness and emotional recognition. Kids and teachers love it.

An e-Book Today… that Supports Tomorrow

The folks at RedRover have found that teachers are the best resource for the RedRover Readers Technique. About 750 teachers have taken classes online or in person.

RedRover has also taken extra steps to reach out to the community and created a mini version of the RedRover Reading Program. An e-Book called The Restricted Adventures of Raja is available through both the Android and iTunes stores. RedRover has slated the second e-Book to come out by the end of the year. Both are available in English and Spanish.

Through the e-Book, parents can get involved in the story. Or, the graphic novel offers kids a great device for learning and experience it on their own. Critical questions stop kids to make them think, “What would I do in this situation?”

The analysis provides a key element for third and fourth graders. Their brains have developed enough so that cognitive thinking skills can understand, and show, empathy. This helps us build a better tomorrow.

And, building a better tomorrow is what RedRover’s all about. Think what it would be like to prevent abuse, neglect, and cruelty to animals. If our children can put themselves in the other person’s shoes for a split second, then they are really unlikely to do something physically wrong toward that person.

Rebecca Bridges takes time out her busy schedule to talk.

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. “Too bad. You just have to be better than everyone else,” he said. That piece of advice stuck. When talking with Rebecca, she comes prepared for everything.

She didn’t have any inkling that she would go to grad school. Then one day, as she browsed around the Web looking for something that her husband might like, she found a program that changed her life: Organization Development and Knowledge Management from George Mason University. It piqued her interest.

“The program description talked about organizational change and transformation, process consultation, and really meeting people where they are and taking them where they need to go,” expressed Rebecca. “I went to the information session and applied the next day. I was so excited because I had found my calling!”

As she went through the program, Rebecca learned a lot about herself. How she dealt with situations both good and bad. How she dealt with conflict. What kind of leadership style made her unique.

“I really enjoyed the courses that I took as part of the program,” Rebecca said. “I wanted to work with organizations and clients to help them achieve results that were even greater than they anticipated. At the end of my program, consulting seemed like a logical step. I started looking and I found FMP Consulting. It seemed like a good match.”

Did I Get the Job?

When Rebecca went to the interview with FMP, she paid close attention to what she wore. She also thought about their perceptions as she crossed the room. It seems as if her Dad’s voice whispered in her ear. “You just have to be better than everyone else.”

“We have to be more prepared than any other person interviewing. We have to show up with our technology and be prepared to answer any of their questions whether we want to or not,” says Rebecca. “It’s a balance because you don’t want to be too defensive, but you also want to show that you are competent and capable because there are questions that they are not supposed to ask you in the interview process.”

When a week-and-a-half went by after her second interview, Rebecca summed up her courage and called the Human Resources Manager. Her heart dropped when he said there were a couple more things they wanted to know.

“The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I thought, Oh no, this is it. They are looking for something to weed me out today,” said Rebecca.

He started asking me about my technology and how I work with applications such as Excel and PowerPoint. She had two ways to go. Rebecca thought about not answering the questions, but took a deep breath and answered them honestly. She needed to elevate the game because, although it might have seemed unfair or felt uncomfortable, it was important that she provide every assurance within reason that she would be a good fit.

“Whether you think it is fair or not, being blind makes it harder because you need to be more skilled than other people in certain areas. You have to demonstrate your competence and ensure to the hiring manager that you are capable of doing the job. Once you have the job, the other challenge is keeping it. There are a lot of things that are still not accessible to us,” commented Rebecca.

Her husband, Eric Bridges, has put accessibility squarely in his sights. Although relatively new to the Executive Director role, he has been working with the American Council of the Blind since 2007, and he had made some significant progress.

Rebecca thinks of her landing a job with FMP as skill and luck. As a consulting firm, they appeared more accessible to her than a Booz Allen Hamilton or Deloitte, who have thousands of employees. With less than 100 on staff, FMP seemed like they could make a difference in their client’s lives. In fact, Rebecca feels like their organization works really hard to do the things they tell their clients to do. The amazing thing? FMP was the only place she interviewed post grad school.

The Most Important Thing In Her Life? Family

When asked about her biggest achievement, Rebecca laughed and said it was her child. She remembered bringing the baby home, holding him in the rocking chair and thinking, “What in the hell am I going to do now.” She says that little Tyler has been the world to her and Eric since he’s entered their lives. Rebecca proudly says that they have full-time jobs, keep a clean house, and have a child who is fully sighted, fully functioning, and just plain awesome. And they’re both blind.

With respect to her work, Rebecca would like to be there for a long time. It’s important to be gainfully employed doing something you love to do. “No one likes to pay taxes,” Rebecca laughs. But it’s clear that she’d gladly pay them than be a burden on society. She is now looking at getting her PMP certification.

“At the end of it all, I want to look back and say that I had jobs doing what I enjoyed and I contributed to the well-being of individuals and organizations,” remarked Rebecca.

So… now I’m wondering. How many more people who are blind are out there looking for work and not finding what they want. Is it because they aren’t as prepared as Rebecca is at being better than her competitors? Or, was she just one of the lucky ones?

Imagine my surprise when only one CEO manned his company’s booth throughout the two-days presenting founders had to show off to venture capitalists, service providers, journalists (aka me), and others who may be interested in their companies. Kudos go to Gary Tyermann, CEO of Univa Corporation. You stood out. Your counterparts blended in with the crowd. Talk about missed opportunity.

You know want I found, Gary? I think you actually fit the bill regarding empathy. I’m going to say you also exhibited stick-to-itiveness and a sense for what’s really important… connecting with others when you get the chance. We’ll call that social awareness and relationship management, two pillars of emotional intelligence.

For those of you who think those who blended in with the crowd didn’t miss that big of an opportunity, think again. During lunch I sat with three sponsors and two venture capitalists. We all attended CapCon looking for something specific. We noticed your absence, and this gets directly in your way of getting business done.

It also dampened energy within the venue. Interacting with you, sensing the passion and excitement you have for your business draws us in and makes the event something special. You’re not just on stage when you’re in the round. You’re on stage the entire time you’re in the building.

The companies featured during the presentations had very interesting technologies, and many of them have demonstrated real traction in changing industries. So, the flat energy had nothing to do with the business opportunity. We’re there to meet you. Choosing to hide when you should be choosing to stand out sends a subliminal message that may be wholly inaccurate. Just wanted you raise awareness that we missed the

Halelly Azulay

Few would argue that job functions have changed rapidly in the past several years. New technologies (like social media) have disrupted the marketing discipline. The push to do more with less has caused companies to merge job functions. The list of changes are seemingly endless.

Whether you’re a new college graduate, in mid-career, or even planning to leave the workforce in the next 5-10 years, you probably need to brush up your skill set in order to keep pace with the demands of your employer or potential employer.

A lot of people expect their companies to provide the training they think they need. While employer-provided training is useful, it’s only part of the story. According to Halelly Azulay, author of Employee Development on A Shoestring and founder of TalentGrow LLC, only 10% of professional training happens in the workplace. Another 20% comes from relationships and feedback, and the remaining 70% is on-the-job experience.

The employee-employer relationship goes two ways. Instead of looking to one’s employer to provide training, employees also have a responsibility to expand and hone their skill sets. After all, if the job requirements change dramatically (and in some fields they have), you must learn what’s required for the job function or risk no longer being the best person for the job.

As a columnist for Modern DC Business, I’ve gone to a lot of networking events over the past three years—which means I’ve overheard a lot of conversations. You might be surprised by how many people who are either out of work or struggling in their jobs overlook their responsibility to keep pace with their profession. A number of marketers have blatantly claimed they have no interest in social media. With that attitude, it’s no wonder they can’t find employment.

So, what can you do, then?

Azulay shared some of the secrets to Employee Development on A Shoestring at the Positive Business DC Meetup last night, and it’s not what you might think. If you’re an employer or manager, her insight could help you foster a dynamic, engaged, relevant workforce without breaking the bank. If you’re a job seeker or currently employed, her insight can help you not only stay at the top of your game or get a job, it can help you climb the corporate ladder.

Originally, I had planned to provide some of the examples and exercises Azulay had Positive Business DC members work through last night. But, on second thought, if you’re interested, I urge you to check out her book. And, if you’re really intrigued, there’s a 1½ day workshop March 13-14. Based on what I saw last night, the workshop will be killer. And, for those of you who are counting, the workshop falls within the 10% noted above.

Originally published by Modern DC Business on Feb. 12, 2014.
Google

Halelly Azulay

“Doing more with less” has become a common phrase in the workplace and often has a negative connotation… but it doesn’t have to. Working within constraints nudges people to look for creative solutions, and thus is the focus of Positive Business DC’s February 11 Meetup featuring Halelly Azulay, author of Employee Development on A Shoestring.

While classroom and online training are popular and first-in-mind development methods, they can be costly and complex. In addition to possibly being out of reach for budgetary and cost-to-productivity reasons, classroom and online training may not be the only or the best way to address learning needs even when they are available.

Employee Development on A Shoestring explores other, non-training ways to develop employees on a tight budget. During the Meetup, Azulay will share the pros and cons of various non-training development methods, consider the requirements of three specific employee development ideas, and set a framework that enables attendees to develop a strategy for implementing employee development methods that result in motivated, engaged employees without breaking the bank. Attendees will learn how to:

1. Identify and assess various employee development methods that can be applied outside the classroom and on a tight budget.
2. Analyze three specific examples of non-training employee development methods.
3. Develop a strategy for incorporating new development methods for your employees.

 
The February 11 Meetup will run from 6:30 to 8:30 pm and will be held at the Shirlington Library located at 4200 Campbell Avenue in Arlington, VA. Registration is free. If you have specific questions you would like addressed during the Meetup, you can submit them on the Positive Business DC Meetup site.

In addition to authoring Employee Development on A Shoestring, Azulay is a consultant, facilitator, and speaker with over 20 years of professional experience in the fields of workplace learning and communication in corporate, government, regulatory, nonprofit and academic organizations. She is the president of TalentGrow LLC, a consulting company focused on developing leaders and teams to improve the human side of work. TalentGrow specializes in leadership, communication skills, team building, facilitation, coaching, and emotional intelligence.

Senia Maymin and Margaret Greenberg

For those of you who are thinking that there’s a typo in the title… it’s actually not a mistake. On Tuesday, Margaret Greenberg and Senia Maymin shared insights on how to get more in done 2014 without working more hours. The webinar, entitled Profit from The Positive, took some pages from their book (same title, small pun intended). Attendees gained three practical tools based on the science of Positive Psychology they could apply right away:

• •  Trick yourself into getting started
• •  FRE
• •  FLOW

Surprisingly, although Americans work 8 hours longer than their German counterparts each week, we are not more productive. Even with the technological advancements that have happened in the last 50 years, we have gained only a single hour of ‘extra’ time each day to do… well, whatever. It seems like we’re busy. And we are. But, our devices don’t necessarily make us more productive. So, if technology isn’t the answer to getting more done without working more hours, what is?

Of the three tools, FRE (frequent recognition and encouragement) most caught my attention. During the webinar, Greenberg tells a story about a company’s heavy-handed (and ineffective) approach to improving performance that a large segment of the working population will relate to. I won’t blow the suspense by telling you what happened. The FRE part of the webinar starts at 24:47.

As a long-time fan of Marcus Buckingham’s work, my ears perked up when it became clear Greenberg and colleague Dana Arakawa’s research corresponds with results published by The Gallup Organization. Specifically, I am referencing First, Break All the Rules, which became the backbone for 12: The Elements of Great Managing. Buckingham and Coffman’s research revealed that frequency of recognition or praise directly impacts employee engagement, productivity, and organizational performance.

During their research Greenberg and Arakawa found a 42% differential in productivity related solely to FRE.

I don’t know about you, but the ability to affect people’s performance to that extent really gets me excited. It’s not that you get more for the company (which you do). What you really gain is a culture where it’s okay to express gratitude and thus it’s ‘normal’ for colleagues and managers to appreciate one another. Increased productivity as comes a byproduct of a better company culture and workplace well-being.

Positive Business DC was honored to have Greenberg and Maymin conduct the Profit from The Positive webinar, which was our second online event. Their book, Profit from The Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business is available in hardcover and electronic versions. To learn more about Greenberg and Maymin’s work, please visit their website and follow them on Facebook.

After 90 seconds, the initial flood of chemicals has completely dissipated. Dwelling on the situation that caused your feelings in the first place keeps powerful, chemicals flowing and you literally stew in your own juices. It takes a little practice, but rather than stewing, you can hit the ‘reset’ button.

A Relentless Loop

Road Rage offers a prime example of getting stuck in an angry loop. Remember the last person who cut you off? What ran through your head? Did you take it personally, thinking that the other person had done something to you? How long did you hang onto the anger?

Let’s replay that scenario. Someone cuts you off. Maybe you were in their blind spot. Maybe they realized they were about to miss their exit and reacted without thinking or looking in the rear view mirror. Maybe they were distracted by a personal emergency. None of the likely reasons that caused the other driver to cut you off had intent to harm.

That’s the way it is in a lot of situations that trigger anger. We create a story and interpret intent behind the other person’s actions. Most often our stories are wrong. Dwelling on the story keeps the anger churning.

Hit The Reset Button

You can use a number of different techniques to stop the flood of chemicals that keep you stewing. It starts by recognizing you’re in the throes of an amygdala hijack. Clenched jaw. Racing heart. BP spike. When angry or afraid, we take short, panting breaths. To interrupt the amygdala hijack, take a few long, deep breaths from the diaphragm.

Next, acknowledge how you feel. Rather than saying to yourself, “I am angry,” phrase your self-talk as, “I feel anger.” Verbs are small, powerful words that create your reality. The nuance of language actually does make a difference.

Finally, rewrite the story you’re telling yourself. Unless you’re a mind reader, you cannot possibly know what’s going on in another person’s head. It’s pretty much guaranteed that the first story you’ve told yourself is off target.

Self-management Builds Leaders

We know from Daniel Goleman and Annie McKee‘s work that a large component of leadership is the ability to manage your own emotions. Part of communication is the biochemical influence we have on others within our sphere of influence. Communication isn’t constrained to word choice, tone of voice, and body language. The chemicals we release also play a significant role in the communication. Great leaders know how they impact others and have learned when to hit the reset button—an important element of emotional intelligence.

Kat Koppett

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 been offered by your partner is true and then build on it.

The misuse of this tool often stems from playing off the words alone. Subtext provides much more context so you wind up listening to the words and the meaning of everything else the person is trying to communicate. If your partner don’t share anything you immediately key into, then Koppett offers the following suggestion. “What I like about that idea is… ” I like that phrase. It can get you unstuck from pretty much any situation. I’m going to be taking that advice.

To hear how to use  the Yes/And and other exercises effectively, we invite you to listen to the webinar (Improv for the Business Stage 10-30-13 11.59 AM). You’ll get ideas that will help you go out on a limb and make your workplace more fun and productive.

It appears as if social science and neuroscience are coming to the same conclusions about human behavior… at least in some instances.

In a Ted Talk entitled Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are, Amy Cuddy speaks about how adjusting your posture for two minutes will change hormone levels, which will either make you more powerful or less powerful. It’s interesting, because the postures Cuddy highlights are clearly instinctive power or submissive moves. The hormones involved? Testosterone (the dominance hormone) and cortisol (the stress hormone).

As people interact with one another, those hormone levels translate to body language. This has serious consequences personally and professionally. As a leader, one of the most important skills I taught my direct reports was how to interpret body language during interviews. Of course, the skill applied to all interpersonal interactions, but it was really during the job interview where we debriefed about what we saw and how we interpreted subliminal clues.

The Effect of Moderating Body Language

What’s interesting about body language, though, is that we frequently forgot to monitor our own. To turn the tables, then, think about the messages that you send. How do you prepare for a job interview? Or interact with your boss on a regular basis? What posture, or status, do you take—peer, subordinate, or power pose?

Before an important meeting, I prepare by envisioning the optimal path the meeting will take and my behavior under perceived circumstances. (Note: ‘optimal path’ is a relative term here. Some of these discussions have been very challenging.) I am purposely trying to regulate body language and chemistry as a means of improving my own behavior, communication, and effecting positive outcomes.

Through the open loop system described by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, in Primal Leadership, we know that we subliminally communicate with the people around us through the biochemicals we emit. By training your brain to react to situations in a certain way, you regulate hormones, which in turn regulates your stress responses and interactions with other people.

For example, you can keep a room full of people on a constructive track when working through really tough, even contentious issues if you have trained your brain to resist certain negative stress reactions. The research indicates that thinking about an action fires the neurons in the same manner as performing the action itself. It follows that you can establish and deepen neuropathways that will produce the predominant thought patterns and behaviors you want to embed. At its core, this is mindfulness.

Primal Leadership also describes the role mirror neurons have in our ability to relate to (and lead) others. One interesting take away from Cuddy’s Ted Talk: When power comes into play, the mirroring neurons appear to go into hiding. When one person pulls a power posture, others assume submissive poses. These reactions would then translate to changes in testosterone and cortisol levels.

Posture, Cell Memory, and Hormones

By now, you may have figured out that chemistry is where social science and neuroscience dovetail rather nicely. According to Cuddy, adopting a power stance for as little as two minutes increases testosterone by 20% and decreases cortisol by 25%. A sustained submissive posture produces a 10% decrease in testosterone and a 15% increase in cortisol.

“When you think about power, people tended to think only about testosterone, because that was about dominance. But really, power is also about how you react to stress. So, do you want the high-power leader that’s dominant, high on testosterone, but really stress reactive? Probably not, right? You want the person who’s powerful and assertive and dominant, but not very stress reactive, the person who’s laid back.” —Amy Cuddy

If you’ve read Candace Pert’s work*, then you know that cells have memory. You also know that every cell in the human body has neuroreceptors. It follows, then, that whatever posture you choose to take in an effort to mimic or produce an emotion will naturally change your body chemistry and you will start to feel that emotion. Feelings. Thoughts. Physiology. They’re intertwined and together, they drive behavior and attitude.

As Cuddy puts it, “Fake it ’til you make it”… or really, become whoever it is you’re striving to become. These inner body relationships are something to think about before going to work tomorrow, walking into the next meeting with your boss, and even preparing for your next performance evaluation. Attentively changing your body language can make you a super star… and über promotable.

*Note: Pert was the first neuroscientist to discover neuroreceptors in the brain and wrote Molecules of Emotion.

Jane McGonigal demonstrates how to play Massively Multiplayer Thumb Wrestling

Yesterday, Donna and I journeyed to Richmond, VA to attend WomenEtc. by RichTech. We were originally inspired to make the trip to see Jane McGonigal, gaming guru and Ted Talk serial speaker extraordinaire. Jane’s life work has proven that gaming is not only has positive emotional and physiological benefits, she has demonstrated that gaming can also be used to improve the human condition. We’ll get to that part in another post.

Jane’s presentation was everything we imagined it would be… and more. In the beginning, Jane boldly proclaimed that she would be able to get all 500 attendees to experience the 10 positive emotions associated with gaming within 60 seconds. Believe it or not, she did.

So, what are those positive emotions, you might ask?

1. Creativity
2. Contentment
3. Awe and wonder
4. Excitement
5. Curiosity
6. Pride
7. Surprise
8. Love
9. Relief
10. Joy

Imagine, 500 people joining in a physical daisy-chain. The chain had hubs with up to 5 hands. Between giggles and shrieks, players across the entire room tried to prevail as people worked to pin opponents on the left and right sides of their bodies simultaneously. We had engaged in largest game of Massively Multiplayer Thumb Wrestling (MMTW) ever played in Virginia. And Jane was right. We’d experienced the full spectrum of positive emotions she’d promised. (It was so much fun, we’re going to play MMTW at the next Positive Business DC Meetup.)

To get a sense for how much fun we had, you can find a demonstration of MMTW at :47 on the video below.

Here’s another promise Jane makes. Play this game and add 10 extra years to your life. Please take a look.

When you think about it, these outcomes make sense. It all has to do with setting expectations. A “C’mon, you can do it!” kind of coach frames the experience by counting down to an arbitrary end point. Their focus: Put in just enough time to ‘gut it out to the end.’ Silent trainers come from a completely different perspective. There is no stated end point. Instead, these trainers focus on the discipline needed to do your personal best. Thus, each style produces very different results.

You may want to consider how to best frame the experience next time you’re looking to improve outcomes for the people you’re leading. Those who try to perform their personal best day after day build the strongest companies. And, they don’t get in the habit of watching the clock.

Image courtesy of © michaeljung – Fotolia.com

Please don’t label me a crackpot just yet. The science shows that people in leadership positions who demonstrate high degrees of empathy have a greater propensity to lead rather than manage. In the startup environment, leading with empathy qualifies as a critical success factor that influences the level of trust that can form across the team, which then affects quality and speed of decision-making, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and ultimately product quality and time to market.

The “Squishy” Side of Leadership

For those of you who think empathy is an emotion that’s too squishy to have much influence over business outcomes, think again. A few months ago we reported on Empathy in Business, an event sponsored by Arlington Economic Development’s Business Investment Group. Some of the area’s (and world’s) heaviest hitters gave personal insight about the role empathy plays in their business lives. This is what Ángel Cabrera, President of George Mason University, Carly Fiorina, CEO of Carly Fiorina Enterprises (and former CEO of HP), and Bill Drayton, CEO of Ashoka Innovators for the Public had to say on the subject:

“What if we didn’t try to be the best university in the world but the best university FOR the world?” — Ángel Cabrera

“We need to understand that the quality of our lives is directly related to the quality of other people’s lives.” — Carly Fiorina

“2/3 of people’s motivation is wanting to help. Why do we focus on the 1/3?” — Bill Drayton

For a quick recap, research shows people can experience and exhibit three kinds of empathy:

1. Cognitive
2. Emotional
3. Compassionate

Cognitive empathy involves the ability to sense how other people feel and what they might be thinking. This ability plays an integral role in effective leadership because it helps you understand motivation from other people’s perspectives. Great leaders rely on cognitive empathy to build high performing organizations. But… they need more.

To respond appropriately to crises, the person at an organization’s helm also needs to exhibit emotional empathy. Our brains are wired to respond to the emotions of others on a very personal level. Connecting emotionally draws people in and creates trust.

Compassionate empathy causes people to reach out and help those around them—an element of problem solving if you will.

Despite the degree of empathy you personally feel and demonstrate, all healthy people experience it. (To read the entire article, please click here.)

Empathy’s Gender Bias

Management Today reports that there does appear to be a gender bias when it comes to empathy. Research conducted in the UK indicates that female managers demonstrated greater degrees of empathy, and therefore, developed deeper levels of trust with others in the organization—including the men who reported to them. I’m not convinced that the results are based solely on biology. Rather, I suspect that there may be general tendencies for women to more freely express empathy while concurrently cultural norms inhibit most men from showing empathy as deeply as they feel it.

If this is really the case, then can we teach empathy to both genders and make it acceptable to show in the workplace? After all, we’ve been taught to leave our personal lives (aka emotions) at the door. The Canadians seem to think so. They’ve begun an experiment to deliberately deprogram our empathy-hostile cultural bias. So far, the results look quite interesting.

Experiment: Roots of Empathy

Roots of Empathy program

A public school in Toronto has launched a program to teach empathy to 8- and 9-year-olds. The program, called Roots of Empathy (ROE), brings a loving mother and baby into the classroom once a month. The kids observe the mother’s and baby’s behaviors and then discuss what they see. In addition, the school has developed a curriculum to round out the ROE program.

Teaching the dynamics of interpersonal relationships through observation will enable these kids to read between the lines when they interact with others throughout their lives. When you think about it, the teachers in Toronto are actually changing the way their students’ brains are wired. We all notice what’s going on in other people to one degree or another. Whether or not we pay attention is another thing. The emphasis and acceptance of empathy deliberately sets the critical building blocks for developing a heightened degree of emotional intelligence.

If you’re interested in the article, you can find it in a special edition of Time entitled The Science of You: The Factors that Shape Your Personality. The article has not made its way to an online version… yet.

What critical success factors will you look in the CEOs who present at Capital Connection 2013? Please comment below.

Originally published by Modern DC Business Magazine on May 29, 2013.

Courtesy of Natural Artistry Photography

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 October event and generously let us post them. (Personally, I think the camera is super-glued to his hand and he’d have withdrawal symptoms if removed.)

Scratching The Creative Itch for A Purpose

Doug Hensch, our guest speaker at the October Meetup, shared the 5-1/2 Secrets of Resilient Entrepreneurs. One of Andrew’s takeaways: The desire to find deeper fulfillment in work. After thinking about what that meant to him personally, he decided to give back to the community. Not being handy with a hammer or power tools, Andrew picked up the camera and offered professional quality images of local events. The idea was to provide an alternative to the photos people took with their Smartphones.

This one, seemingly small thing embedded the people from Natural Artistry into the community in a deeper, more meaningful level and business started to skyrocket. 

Big, Hairy, and Audacious

No, not Andrew… but the goals for Natural Artistry. At our second Meetup in January, Caroline Adams Miller shared insights about how setting unrealistic goal relates to happiness and the über success that comes from setting one’s sights really, really high. Andrew brought their marketing guru, Kimba that night. Now, barely more than two months later, the big hairy goal for 2014—becoming a photo agency—is already happening. Cindy Alderton, an exceptional photographer in her own right, has recently joined the team. Natural Artistry plans to continue bringing photographers that share their zest for “anti-business business photography” and quirky sense of humor into the agency. They’re also about to move into a studio with equipment that will enable Natural Artistry to take any shot one can dream up.

Research shows that people who seek fulfillment at work or set unrealistic goals vastly improve their levels of professional success.

So, what about this year’s goal? It’s still in the works. Andrew wants his photos to be published in a national magazine. He’s turned the studio’s business model upside down. Rather than waiting for orders to come in or offering the same services similar to other photographers or studios, Natural Artistry likes to propose ideas that will help clients grow their businesses. In their words, “It becomes a symbiotic relationship, really a partnership of sorts. We share the same business goals, personal beliefs, and values and build upon them by discovering common goals.”

Fulfillment + Goals = Growing, Vibrant Business

Courtesy of Natural Artistry Photography

Offering a service to the community proved to also be a good business practice because it provided unexpected exposure for Natural Artistry’s work. Andrew found the fulfillment he sought by providing community service. While community service may seem like a counterintuitive way to grow a business, positive returns are not an uncommon phenomenon when you do something constructive—and without strings—for others.

To begin, the studios’s goal was simple: Ensure that everyone in Frederick, MD see the Natural Artistry logo at least once a week, whether the shot was of a friend or familiar place. Shooting photos without charging for them gave the photographers full artistic license.

“Other photographers (and businesses) box themselves in. They look at what other people are doing and think that they need to do the same thing. They might be making money at it, but do they really get fulfillment from doing the same thing others are doing? Copying the work of someone else is not rewarding,” notes Andrew. “The people at Natural Artistry have a restless desire to grow. What we’re doing today is not what we’re going to be doing tomorrow. We’re a moving target, so any other photographer who tries to emulate and copy us is in for a shock.” Their attitude, combined with all of the local exposure, had captured the attention of ad agencies and local publications, positioning a small town photo studio into an agency that has the potential to work with national magazines.

If attending the Positive Business DC Meetup has helped you improve your level of well-being, we’d love to hear your story! Please seek Donna, Shannon, or me out at during the networking session at Canvas on April 24. Registration open soon.

If you can find the discipline and energy to listen, you may learn why things failed and then make better decisions. — Ángel Cabrera

It appears as if there are two camps when it comes to empathy as it relates to leadership: 1) those who think it’s a “squishy” emotion that makes a leader weak; or 2) those who think it’s a quality required to lead people effectively. For the record, each of the panelists fell into the strengths camp. Whichever perspective you have, there’s another squishy element to empathy in business—our ability to define it. And that’s a critical element to understanding how this particular quality fits in the business world.

Like many other common words, people define empathy through personal filters, which gives the term a vastly different interpretation depending upon experience. As a result, we wind up talking about different concepts even when discussing seemingly simple ideas.

Case and point: Jonathan Aberman wrote a piece earlier this week. His take: “[Empathy] is not a value; it is a tool, like reading, writing or computer literacy.” He goes on to talk about the relationship between empathy and morality and the role they play in economics and politics.

This is where it gets squishy.

As a long-time fan of Daniel Goleman, co-director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University and author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, I had a completely different take away from Thursday’s event. In my mind, empathy is not a tool. Empathy is an element of emotional intelligence.

Empathy’s Role in Emotional Intelligence

Research shows people can experience and exhibit three kinds of empathy:

1.  Cognitive
2.  Emotional
3.  Compassionate

Cognitive empathy involves the ability to sense how other people feel and what they might be thinking. This ability plays an integral role in effective leadership because it helps you understand motivation from other people’s perspectives. Great leaders rely on cognitive empathy to build high performing organizations. But… they need more

To respond appropriately to crises, the person at the helm of an organization also needs to exhibit emotional empathy. Our brains are wired to respond to the emotions of others on a very personal level. Connecting emotionally draws people in and creates trust.

Compassionate empathy causes people to reach out and help those around them—an element of problem solving if you will.

Despite the degree of empathy you personally feel and demonstrate, all healthy people experience it. So, the question is, how well do you incorporate empathy in your leadership style?

Empathy’s Role As A Strength

As noted above, one reason people feel uncomfortable with empathy as a leadership characteristic is because they think it signifies weakness. And yet, the Gallup Organization classifies empathy as one of 34 strengths. Much in line with Goleman’s findings, Gallup looks at empathy as a way to tap into the emotions of others.

Having empathy doesn’t mean you’re a pushover.

According to Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0, having empathy doesn’t mean you “. . . share their perspective. You do not necessarily feel pity for each person’s predicament—that would be sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand.”

Rath studies the role of human behavior in health, business, and economics. His research provides a foundation for understanding team and organizational dynamics. Understanding others lies at the heart of creating a safe environment for people to play to their strengths and perform at their best.

Corporate America is particularly ineffective in strengths-based leadership and hiring practices. That’s why Gallup consistently finds that approximately 70% of people disengage or actively disengage from their jobs. And we wonder why we’re not competitive in a global marketplace.

Simply having empathy is not enough. How you interact with people and deliver your message is as important as the quality itself.

Best Sound Bites

Thank you to Economic Development’s Business Investment Group, Ángel Cabrera, Bill Drayton, Carly Fiorina, Julie Rogers, and Jonathan Aberman for an enlightening evening. If you’re interested, you can find the Twitter stream from Thursday’s event at #EmpathyInBiz. In the interim, here are some of my favorite sound bites:

“What if we didn’t try to be the best university in the world but the best university FOR the world?”
— Ángel Cabrera

“We need to understand that the quality of our lives is directly related to the quality of other people’s lives.”
— Carly Fiorina

“2/3 of people’s motivation is wanting to help. Why do we focus on the 1/3?”
— Bill Drayton

“We don’t reward empathy in the games we create.”
— Julie Rogers

What ideas about empathy have changed your worldview? Please share below.

Note: Article concurrently published in Modern DC Business. Photo courtesy of Natural Artistry Photography.

Disengagement

•  80% of students ‘don’t see how school contributes to their learning and growth’
•  60% of students ‘don’t rank learning as a reason they go to school’

Lack of Fulfillment

•  80% of dropouts would stay in school if learning were project-based rather than drill and kill

Motivation

•  50% of dropouts leave school because they’re bored
•  50% of students spend ‘an hour or less on their schoolwork each week’

More than 1 million American kids drop out of high school every year… that’s a run rate of 25%. How can that be possible? And more importantly, what can we do about it?

The folks at The Future Project conducted an experiment to improve high school students’ levels of engagement last year, and the results are pretty interesting. The program experienced a retention rate of 86%, which exceeded principals’ expectations by 5x. If you’re interested in the program, check out their site to learn more. If you want to try something at home to pique your kids’ curiosity and raise their levels of engagement, you might want to download The Future Project Playbook. It has some interesting exercises that I’m thinking would be good for most everyone to try… regardless of age. The framework provides a step-by-step guide for tapping into your potential.

Photo Courtesy of Natural Artistry Photography.

The people who attended the January 31 Positive Business DC Meetup at Teqcorner understand why unrealistic goals produce far greater fulfillment than the goals we typically set. Caroline Adams Miller gave several very powerful examples of how unrealistic goals are not only attainable—they also set the stage for achieving remarkable things that change a person’s life in unexpected and ultra rewarding ways. Surprisingly, only 20% of people set challenging goals.

How does Caroline approach goal setting differently from other life coaches? For one thing, she holds a MAPP (Master’s in Applied Positive Psychology) from the University of Pennsylvania. Caroline was one of the first people to go through the program. In doing so, she conducted the foundational research on the intersection of goals and happiness. Caroline discovered that a lot of what we’ve previously been led to believe about goals are, in fact, urban legends. Her scientifically-based work changes the dynamics of personal goal setting in an extraordinary way.

For full disclosure, I’m still working on the exercises in Chapter 1 of Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Book. You know what? I’m already motivated to do things differently. For example, I have an opportunity to go to China in 2014 with a colleague and have no clue how to fund the trip. Last week this the trip was on the ‘wish list.’ Now, I’m not only going to make it happen, I’m planning to make it an integral part of where I’m taking my consulting practice. Of course, I still have to figure out how. I expect a difference in attitude will turn my desire to go on this trip from a wish into an experience of a lifetime that will transform the way people view scientific discovery.

We know from the active discussion after the Meetup (and on the site) that several other attendees felt inspired by the ideas Caroline shared. My favorite tidbit of the evening? All success in life is preceded by happiness. What’s yours?

Caroline… A heartfelt ‘thank you’ for coming out to to share your expertise with us and giving us a new perspective. Thank you also to Andrew Murdock for taking photos of the Positive Business DC Meetup. If you’d like to see the photos, please visit Natural Artistry Photography.

Stay tuned for our next Meetup. Our goal is 100 registrants or bust! We can make that goal with your help:-)

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 in the future. I believe the predominantly negative vibe rather accurately represents prevailing attitudes, which stunt healthy cultural development and frankly, our national economy.

I haven’t been able to shake the negative sensation the comments left me feeling all afternoon, so please indulge me as I share the comment I posted to the discussion group.

Your Thoughts, Please

I’d like to know what the Positive Business DC community thinks of responsibility, accountability, and handling mistakes in the workplace. What percentage of companies allow it to be ‘okay’ to make mistakes? Does the size of the mistake and risk involved matter to how ‘okay’ mistakes are? Is it ever acceptable to shift blame because you weren’t the one who actually made the mistake? Please read… and then comment.

One “Right” Answer Syndrome

The tone of the comments [in the HBR group on LinkedIn] tells a great deal about corporate culture and, I believe, give a good indication as to why we struggle to build innovative businesses on a large scale. A few people have noted the benefit of learning from mistakes and having a learning culture. The majority seem to think mistakes are inherently bad and turn to process, protocol, training, etc. Why are we so afraid to make mistakes? The basic flaw in thinking begins early when we are taught to look for one right answer.

Leaders are responsible for performance. That means, when something happens, a leader accepts responsibility and addresses the issues head on, appropriately, and with the person who made the mistake. And, being responsible for performance, it means leaders also have an obligation to develop the people on their teams… which means that these people will make mistakes. Errors should be expected as a matter of course.

If you’re not helping people develop their talents, try new things, and grow, then you have failed as a leader.

Individual performance will not be what it could because you have left a lot of untapped potential on the table. As a result, organizational performance will also be less than it could be because individuals and teams will be artificially constrained by what they [already] know [and do]. You cannot innovate, disrupt markets, or even thrive in saturated markets without the pooled intelligence and interest of an engaged team that relies on complementary talents to move your business forward in a smart way.

What The Research Says…

The neuroscientific research shows that people develop intuition by going through repeated cycles of success and failure. Do something well? Dopamine flows and you feel great! Make a mistake? Uh oh. The flow of dopamine cuts of and you feel bad. Only through these experiences do we develop a ‘gut feeling’ that helps us successfully make decisions in environments where you have only partial information–which is always.

Another interesting tidbit: Although humans like to think they make ‘rational’ decisions, the research shows that 70% of the decisions we make actually come from the emotional brain. When we use the rational brain to override the emotional brain, many times we make the wrong decisions.

A Very Revealing Interview Question

When interviewing, I ask a number of behavioral questions. One of my favorites is, “Tell me about a time when you tried something and failed. What happened?” If the candidate says they never fail, the I know this person does not fit my business philosophy. If s/he tells a whopper of a story (and can follow up with a way s/he resolved it), then I usually give one or two of my own. It leads to great discussion and helps me assess fit like few other questions can.

Finger-pointing—Always A No-no

A final thought: finger-pointing is not acceptable from anyone. Not management. Not employees. Finger-pointing builds a counterproductive culture where trust cannot exist. And that poisons everyone.

Build Trusting Relationships

I have two rules of thumb that have served very well over the past 20 years. 1) You can tell me anything without negative repercussion as long as it is the truth as you know it (and you didn’t break any laws, etc.); 2) If you think you’re going to miss a deadline, tell me as soon as you know.

Keep it simple. Build trusting relationships. And always, always watch your employees’ backs.

Please take your turn to speak up and be heard. Comment below.

I know a bunch of procrastinators that seem to live by Burr’s words. And yet, why would anyone want to delay leading a happy, fulfilling life? It turns out we don’t put off achieving happiness intentionally, but it is a by-product of the all too common ‘I’ll be happy when’  mindset. You know, when people think that they’ll achieve a greater level of satisfaction when they:

1. Get married
2. Find a boyfriend/girlfriend
3. Receive a much anticipated promotion
4. Lose weight…

The list goes on.

Also known as the arrival fallacy, this mindset actually produces much less satisfaction than expected because people have primed themselves for the achievement and it is already factored into their general state of happiness. When a person hits the longed-for target, they realize there’s something else they really want to achieve. And then the cycle begins again because they believe that achieving the next goal will make them happy. In this scenario, happiness becomes the illusive acorn Scrat chases in Ice Age.

As importantly, the I’ll be happy when mindset produces at least two additional by-products. You:

1. Seek happiness from without rather than within (a surefire way to fail at improving your well-being), and;
2. Forget to appreciate the wonderful things (big and little) that happen day-by-day

And now for an admission. Like most people, I have taken Burr’s quote out of context.

“Never do today what you can put off ’til tomorrow. Delay may give a clearer light as to what is best to be done.” —Aaron Burr, Jr.

Burr’s suggesting that we should not make decisions too hastily. And that’s another discussion about when (and when not to) use the rational brain vs. the emotional brain.

© Sergej Khackimullin – Fotolia.com

That successful entrepreneurs have to be gritty is not news. Tenacity and perseverance enable founders to accomplish goals that may take years to achieve. People who start businesses that endure surmount a host of challenges (like wondering how to generate enough cash to keep the doors open and also feed themselves) along the way.

Focus, discipline, and tenacity are also hallmarks of great leaders. Little demonstrates a leader’s grittiness more than the ability to effectively navigate a disaster. The movie, Apollo 13, demonstrates crisis management and gritty leadership at their best.

Leadership Lessons from Apollo 13

Remember the scenes where disaster after disaster happen? The life-threatening drama begins when Jack Swigert replaces Ken Mattingly as pilot a few days before Apollo 13’s scheduled lift off. Bringing Swigert on disrupts the team’s chemistry, cohesion, and levels of trust. Then, the oxygen tank explodes during cryostir and the ship loses power. Next, the CO² reaches toxic levels and the crew needs to improvise building an air scrubber. Finally, NASA realizes damage to either the ship’s heat shield or parachutes could cause failure upon re-entry. Each of these instances created a life-threatening situation.

Yet, through it all, Jim Lovell, the Flight Commander, and Gene Kranz, NASA’s Flight Director, adhered to some basic leadership principles that enabled the crew to survive. They:

Image Credit: NASA

• Acknowledged the gravity of the situation
• Acted deliberately with composure and urgency
• Assessed status quickly and systematically diagnosed root cause problems
• Expressed anger or frustration, but only as a punctuation mark to motivate others
• Defined goals and committed to them absolutely
• Eliminated chaos by requiring others to “stay cool”
• Demanded ingenuity and speed to develop contingency plans
• Reinforced teamwork by respecting everyone and blaming no one
• Recognized and encouraged people for their ongoing contributions
• Used humor to lighten the mood
• Expressed total faith in a successful outcome
• Communicated clearly and frequently
• Made command decisions when necessary

Gene Kranz’s character makes a number of powerful, moving pronouncements throughout the movie, including:

“I don’t care what anything was designed to do. I care about what it can do. So let’s get to work. Let’s lay it out.”

A clear vision during crisis is essential. When others doubted a successful outcome, Krantz claimed the Apollo 13 mission would be NASA’s finest hour. “We’ve never lost an American in space. We’re sure as hell not going to lose one on my watch. Failure is not an option!”

Overriding An Emotional Hijack

Kranz’s refusal to acknowledge the possibility of failure kept the team focused on its new primary mission: Keeping the astronauts alive and returning them to earth. His unwavering determination inspired the creativity and energy his team needed to spontaneously design new solutions.

While few executives deal with life and death situations, some circumstances can legitimately transition a company’s leader into crisis mode. The catch is that leaders who panic in the face of disaster lose the ability to lead. An emotional hijack prevents them from making rational decisions at the precise moment in time when only the rational brain can figure out how to survive.

It takes a high degree of self discipline to step back and take a moment to let the rational brain process new options when stress levels peak. A gritty leader figures out how to channel this excess energy in a positive direction.

Originally published 12/4/12 on PerformanceArchitect.com. © 2012. All rights reserved.