While there can be many answers to this question, I suggest that perspective-taking is an important one of them. Perspective-taking has been defined as the “active cognitive process of imagining the world from another’s vantage point or imagining oneself in another’s shoes to understand their visual viewpoint, thoughts, motivations, intentions, and/or emotions” (Ku, Wang, & Galinsky, 2015, p. 94). Even though perspective-taking (which is a cognitive process) has been argued to be different from empathy (which is understood to have an emotional component,) this distinction does not seem to be universally agreed upon. For instance, Coleman (2007) writes about three different types of empathy – emotional, cognitive, and compassionate, and refers to cognitive empathy as perspective-taking. To clarify my usage in this post, I will consider perspective-taking to be different from empathy, and will use the term to refer to one’s ability to actively engage in the process of understanding someone else’s point of view.

If we consider the context of the US elections, perspective-taking would entail actively seeking out someone with a different political view than one’s own and listening to what they have to say with an open mind and a genuine desire to understand. Interestingly, to really put oneself in someone else’s shoes, one needs to first take off one’s own shoes: It is only by suspending our own judgments and preconceived notions that we can truly take another’s perspective. By demonstrating this skill themselves, leaders can encourage their teams to do the same. This isn’t easy, of course, and given the delicacy of the situation, requires skill.
However, perspective-taking of this sort can be an important step towards a greater understanding of the situation and of the other person, which is crucial for an institution that wants its people to connect and cooperate with one another. In fact, research on perspective-taking indicates that it leads to enhanced interpersonal and intergroup relations.

Perspective-taking has been shown to increase positive connections, enhance coordination, and increase generosity and helping behavior in interpersonal relationships (Ku et al., 2015). Perspective-taking has also been shown to improve intergroup relations by reducing prejudice, stereotyping, and discriminatory views (Ku et al., 2015). Difficult times in an organization can be filled with negativity and a lack of connection among people, and leaders can employ perspective-taking as a tool to infuse more positivity in such situations. Furthermore, perspective-taking can be a critical skill for organizations that value diversity: it can enable leaders to leverage the benefits of diversity while reducing the challenges that arise when people with diverse ethnicities, views, and opinions come together.

It is important to note that perspective-taking is not an unmitigated good and can even have a negative impact. For instance, perspective-taking seems to have different effects in cooperative vs. competitive contexts: it reduces egocentrism and increases moral behavior in cooperative contexts and increases egocentric and self-serving behavior in competitive contexts (Ku et al., 2015). Similarly, if members of a group deeply identify with their group, attempts at understanding another group’s perspective result in an increase in negative judgments about the other group, perhaps because the context appears to be one of competition (Ku et al., 2015). It is important, then, for leaders to be aware of the nuances of perspective-taking so that they can use this tool effectively to foster greater understanding and cooperation in their organizations, while preventing its detrimental effects.

In essence, there are pros and cons to perspective-taking and while the pros seem to outweigh the cons, an effective use of this tool to manage conflicting teams and individuals requires leaders to have a nuanced understanding of how and when to lead from someone else’s shoes.

References

Ku, G., Wang, C. S., & Galinsky, A. D. (2015). The promise and perversity of perspective-taking in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 35, 79-102. doi:10.1016/j.riob.2015.07.003

Goleman, D. (2007, June 12). Three Kinds of Empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, Compassionate. Retrieved December 12, 2016, from http://www.danielgoleman.info/three-kinds-of-empathy-cognitive-emotional-compassionate/

Yashi Srivastava can be reached at: http://yashisrivastava.net

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.

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?

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.

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.

As a corporate communications trainer I work with many people on a short term basis.  Over a two day session I can see an enormous impact on their personal and professional growth.  Invariably I am always asked, “Does this training really work?”  Aside from the pile of positive evaluations I have received I do not have a scientific answer for them.  Implementing well-being measures can bring scientific rigor to my field and can fine tune the work we do to serve the client in the most effective way possible.

I. Corporate Training

The company we work with has a policy requiring their high performing women, after a selection process, to take part in our training.  It is this training program that I will be evaluating.  We work with high performing women in cohorts of 20-25 at a time.  They are involved in programs that meet approximately three times over the course of the year.  In the interim my company provides individual executive coaching, 360 feedback and on the job assignments.  During our training sessions we help them focus on how to be strategic in their careers, how to become known internally, how to develop business, how to promote their accomplishments, give them interaction with successful role models and how to incorporate the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of executive presence.  We specifically focus on the specific technical skills theater professionals use to project presence.  We look at voice, physicality, word choice, non-verbal communication and energy.  We also focus on how to combat performance anxiety when giving a presentation.

II. Goals of Well-Being Measures in Training

Because of the number of trainers and the different content of our training, we divide the training sessions that occur in multiple offices all over the country.  But since we only see them one or two times in a year, how do we know the training has had a lasting impact?  The primary goal with incorporating well-being measures would be to determine the impact of these training programs on the participants and what specific elements were the most effective.  Our secondary goal is to discover if adding these skills to their ‘professional tool belt’ added to their level of subjective well-being at work by testing job satisfaction, productivity, resilience and positivity.

Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., Schimmack, U., & Helliwell, J. (in press) mention a meta analysis of sixteen studies (as cited in Petty et al., 1984) that examined the association between job satisfaction and job productivity.  In this study they found that the correlation between these two variables was .31. Other studies mentioned had a similar numerical correlation.  Diener again clarifies that a simple correlation does not tell us about the “direction of causality” (in press).  The majority of the studies reviewed by Diener, et al. reveal that job performance affects satisfaction.  If this is the case, then there is a stronger need for the training programs we do.  The better these women perform (i.e. the more efficient they are with managing teams, the more clients they are able to serve, and the more work they sell) the more satisfied they will be which can lead to higher profits for the company (as cited in Harter, Schmidt, & Keyes, 2003).

Diener, et al. (in press) clarify that if there is a causal effect of job satisfaction on performance, it is likely to be confounded with other variables such as the relation between pay and performance and the self-esteem of the employee.  From anecdotal comments I believe that the pay and performance correlation is at a high enough level to be satisfactory for the women, but I would need to evaluate this.  We would also need to include self-esteem measures before and after our training programs to verify the satisfaction to performance connection.  Here I would draw on Dianne Tice’s estimable work in this area (Tice, D., Gailliot, M., 2006).

In addition to retention of skill building and increased job satisfaction, I would like to evaluate resilience after our programs.  These women work incredibly long hours and I believe resilience is the one factor that keeps women at the firm versus stepping off of the work treadmill for jobs that have fewer hours.  This is something that I would like to evaluate.  While we can add facilitating disputation and the ABCDE method to our programs in the future (Reivich, 2003), I would like to evaluate the base level of resilience these women have and if it increases after our programs that are not addressing resilience directly.  In union with this, I would also like to evaluate positivity.  Based on Barbara Fredrickson’s work, I see that positivity also leads to higher functioning teams and to more profitable teams (2009).  If we can test for baseline positivity and compare to the results we find in successful teams, perhaps we can also add a training session on positivity to our programs.

III. Measurements

Currently we have subjective written evaluations after every two day session.  The questions included are:  What worked well in Section A, B, C?  What did not work so well in Sections A, B, C?  What would you improve for next time?  And our one quantitative measure:  Rank the effectiveness of this program on a scale of 1 to 10.  Our goals are not only to analyze the impact of the programs on a subjective level but on an objective level as well.  In addition to the questions we currently ask about the qualitative impact of the programs, we wish to add their level of positivity, their resilience, their level of job satisfaction after these programs (controlling for self-esteem) and to analyze the objective results of well-being measures.

Their resulting job performance can be objectively analyzed in a number of ways.  We currently do measures across the firm to discover the retention and promotion percentage for the women who have gone through our programs.  Job retention, in this instance, is measured by the number of women who stay at the firm from the previous year.  These numbers have grown with each year of the program, which is impressive, but we still need more rigor in order to determine the reliability of our programs.  I would like to add a quantitative measure evaluating profitability for our high level women that records how much business they sell after our programs.

In order to obtain the subjective and objective measures, I propose that we create a scale that covers the subjective measure and is specific to the training and the firm.  I will draw on Diener, et al’s The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) as a model and adjusting to use with more narrow questions (1985).  We will have to get a baseline before the beginning of the year-long program and follow up with one at the end when we look at the objective measures of success.  In addition, we will design a scale tailored to each specific program to determine the effectiveness of each element of the training session.  And finally, we can obtain self report and 360 feedback at the end of our year long program to assess which training elements were retained over the course of the year.  After obtaining the information about job satisfaction, productivity, resilience and positivity we could then use that information to decide which programs to retain the following year.  If there was one element that particularly resonated with the women we might be able to add on the job assignments or personal coaching around the issue.  In addition, we would have further follow up on the most salient elements to see how we could tailor those programs to the women’s needs.

IV. Objections 

The number of measures proposed above is ambitious.  It will take patience on the part of the participants and a certain amount of our precious training time to have the participants fill out these evaluations.  Email after the session is an option, though with busy schedules it is more effective to capture their information at the training session.  It is also difficult to decipher which exercises or sessions were the most effective for which people.  It would be impractical to give a survey before and after each two hour session.  While resilience and positivity can add to the effectiveness of these professionals alone and in teams, our programming does not specifically address these issues.  An evaluation of these elements might be the basis for designing future programs for the women.  And finally, the objective measures might leave out productivity that cannot be measured in goods and services sold.  The work these women do in mentoring each other and leading teams may or may not lead to an increase in the company’s receivables at the end of the year, but it does add to employee retention which is a major goal of our programs.

V. Conclusion 

Well-being measures can be an effective tool for highlighting what is effective in corporate communications training programs.  To determine what specific sessions impacted our participants in the realms of job satisfaction, job productivity, positivity, resilience, retention and promotion would be a boon not only to our company but to the field of training and development.  Too frequently we have been accused of lacking rigor in our research and our outcomes have been questioned.  In order to combat these accusations and remain effective for our clients we will have to employ both qualitative and quantitative measurements of well-being assessments.

References

Diener, E., Emmons, R., Larson, R. & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale, Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71-75.

Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., Schimmack, U., & Helliwell, J. (in press).  Well-Being and Policy, Chapter 4:  Contributions of Well-Being Measures; Chapter 10:  Work, the Economy, and Well-Being: Policy Examples.

Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking research reveals how to embrace the hidden strength of positive emotions, overcome negativity, and thrive. New York: Random House.

Reivich, K., Shatte, A.  (2003). The Resilience Factor: 7 keys to finding your inner strength and overcoming life’s hurdles. New York: Broadway Press.

Tice, DM. (2006). How Self-Esteem Relates to the Ills and Triumphs of Society. In Self-esteem   issues and answers: A sourcebook of current perspectives.  (pp. 412-).New York, NY, US: Psychology Press.

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.

RTKL won the competition

This is unlikely a surprise – we feel better when we are in better environments.  And this absolutely applies to our workspaces.  Well, Marcia Moran and I got to see some interesting samples of great workspaces on Monday night when we went to a fun event sponsored by DesignLab.  Their idea was to hold a contest for architects and have them give people a “glimpse into the future of office space.”  Vornado, the landlord, gave six different firms suites on a single floor in Crystal City.  Then, they invited the community in to tour the space and vote on their favorite suite.

Each impressive space was built out and designed by the following firms: RTKL, FOX, OTJ, Perkins & Will, Smith Group, and VOA.  Right away we saw a of “infographic style” drawing on a white board that really captured much of why good space matters when thinking about Positive Business – happier employees translates to a positive impact on morale, culture and even the bottom line.  Here are a few of the nuggets:

It didn’t surprise us.  Anyway, as we toured, we were legitimately impressed with all six of the suites – beautiful, functional, and all very different from one another.  Some commonalities was pleasant lighting, bright and striking colors, lots of community space, use of technology throughout, geared to the comfort of workers, flexibly (many spaces easily converted), sleek lines, and the openness of the suites.  But, yet, each had their own distinct personality – and none of it was commonplace space.

So, are you curious who won?  So were we and the winner was announced today – RTKL. Congratulations, RTKL!

By the way, all these suites are now for lease, so you if you are looking for cool space in the Washington DC area, you can reach out here.  And, if you are just curious to get a glimpse of what the future looks like, check out the suites for yourself, here and enjoy the photos below.

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.

On our January 16, 2013 blog, we 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 faulty judgments. So much of positive leadership hinges on good decision making, which, of course, affects company culture and workplace happiness. So, let’s expand the discussion.

In the fourth of our series, I am going to talk about the Anchoring Bias. This bias is the tendency to favor a piece of information and “anchor on” or favor that information when making decisions, even though it may have no logical relevance to the decision at hand. With the Anchoring Bias, the information becomes our reference point to evaluate and make decisions. And, as you might guess, this can lead us astray.

One illustrative example is a series of studies that were done in the Real Estate industry. In these studies, before touring a home, appraisal agents were broken into four groups. Each group of agents were given information about the home including a standard MLS listing sheet and comparable prices of houses in the area. The twist is that each of the four groups saw a completely different listing price. After touring the home, they were asked to write the appraisal and then list the factors that went into their pricing. As you might have guessed, the listing price they saw prior to the tour significantly affected the appraisal price…the higher the listing price, the higher the average appraisal price. And these agents weren’t even generally aware of this effect. When asked to list the factors that were important to them in pricing the property, only 8% said that listing price was a top-three consideration.

So what is a leader to do to minimize the Anchoring Bias?

1. Remember experience is important.  But don’t overestimate historical information as a predictor to a successful outcome. Stop to ask yourself if history is relevant from time to time.
2. Watch out for the classic “business-as-usual attitude” during changing conditions.
3. Stop every once in a while, employ a blank slate, and really look at a problem.
4. Check for anchoring in your budgetary processes. For instance, in new markets, clean slate thinking could help.
5. Expand the team to people who can bring fresh eyes to assess and share their opinions to gain better perspective. This is good for teambuilding as well.

We hope that was helpful.  What did we miss?  We’d love to hear some of your tips to avoid anchoring.

Dr. Kim Cameron is the William Russell Professor of Management & Organizations at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and the co-founder of a field called Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS).  POS was separate in its origins from Positive Psychology (and pre-dates positive psychology).  I had the honor of having him as my advisor for my MAPP capstone at the University of Pennsylvania.  Louisa Jewell and I couldn’t ask for a fairer or tougher advisor.  I decided to interview him to see what he’s been working on.

What subjects are businesses are most attracted to?

Bottom line is the driver, of course.  All business executives say “If I don’t achieve profit, return to share, then I’m not doing my job and I will not last and nor will the organization.”  Their interest is:  ‘Is there any pay off for implementing these practices – from psychology and organization research?  If I adopt a positive approach, does it matter?’ What is ironic is that if you express gratitude only in order to get a payoff, then it is a manipulation; it is not true gratitude.  Gratitude has inherent goodness. On the other hand, we have found that gratitude really does add value to the bottom line in organizations; there is a tangible benefit, even though we don’t need a payback.

You’ve been studying this for a long time.  Tell me about what you’ve discovered over the last 10 years?

There is a lot of compelling evidence – across industries, continents, sectors—that positive and virtuous practices pay off.  Organizations make more money, are more productive, achieve higher quality, produce higher customer satisfaction, and create higher employee engagement.  Moreover, evidence suggests that these relationships are causal—when virtuous practices improve, organizational outcomes improve as well.

How do you bridge the gap to goodness?

Most people I’ve met believe and understand that kindness is better than abuse and helpfulness is better than selfishness.  It is not surprising to people when you identify them.  The middle part of that argument is that putting kind people together doesn’t make for positive or high performing organizations because dynamics of organizations are so complex.  That is where Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is important in addition to the positive psychology literature.  Just applying findings from positive psychology is insufficient because organizational dynamics are different.  On the other hand, a great deal of evidence exists that findings from positive psychology have applicability in positive organizations.

How do you institutionalize forgiveness?

We conducted a study ten years ago about an organization that downsized.  A lot of harm was produced, abuse escalated, family life plummeted, and morale markedly declined.  The question was: how does an organization design itself to manage forgiveness after a major trauma like this?  We found that when you institutionalize forgiveness, it does not mean to forget, to minimize, or to deny being upset or angry.  It means to look forward with an optimistic outlook and to adopt a positive attitude.  It means forgiving the harm and moving forward instead of holding onto a grudge.  We discovered that organizations that institutionalize forgiveness flourished after downsizing.  80% of companies maintained low scores of measures of forgiveness and, consequently, did not flourish after downsizing.

What do you do to help organizations implement these practices?

There are at least 20 tools, techniques, and interventions that create positively deviant outcomes.  One common tool is the use of positive energy networks.  For example, we have investigated the positive energy of leaders in various business units.  We have discovered  that if you are at the center or hub of a positive energy network, your performance is four times higher than if you are at the center of an influence network or an information network.  This is just one tool that is available.  There are many other tools and techniques that assess, foster and enhance positive outcomes.

I know you’ve written about this in your upcoming book:  Practicing Positive Leadership:  Tools and Techniques That Create Extraordinary Results.  What about research?  Companies can be hesitant to pay for that.

Business is hesitant to pay for research unless we can show a clear and compelling bottom line impact.  Doing a serious controlled experiment in an organization is difficult.  That’s why we use longitudinal methods.  We measure changes in organizations’ scores on positive practices—or the extent to which they have institutionalized certain practices—and then assess certain outcomes a year or two later.  If outcomes change, we can presume a causal direction.  Compelling evidence has been produced that positive practices produce positive outcomes.*

What do you think about hiring for well-being?

It’s similar to the prescription I often make, that people should be hiring for positive energy as well as individual well-being.

How do you assess positive energy?

There are attributes of positive energizers not typical of de-energizers.   Energizers are trustworthy, they pay attention, they build and foster confidence in others, they are unselfish, and they can solve problems.  Others who are not positive energizers are:  selfish, self-aggrandizing, not mindful, and only see obstacles.  However, those selection processes are never 100%.

What do you think the future of POS in business?

We are in the very early stages of expanding and broadening POS.  It is separate in its origins from positive psychology.  We have found lots of synergies since and we are trying to expand Positive Business.

What would expanding Positive Business look like?

This means that positive behaviors (well-being and happiness) will be taken seriously:  positive finance, positive accounting, positive marketing, and positive law.  How would that differ in an organization than the standard production line?  Well, we are beginning to find some people who have written books or have adopted a different approach norm.  Could you produce a difference if you changed the whole nature of the enterprise?  These are steps in the future to expand to other domains of scholarship but the principles are universal.  We need evidence for that.  And we’re finding people who are excited about positive/virtuous practices.

Thank you so much for your time.  I look forward to reading your upcoming book, Practicing Positive Leadership: Tools and Techniques That Create Extraordinary Results. It’s available for pre-order for those who want it as soon as it comes out on September 2.

Cameron, K. (2013). Practicing Positive Leadership: Tools and Techniques That Create Extraordinary Results. San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler.

Cameron, K. (2008). Positive leadership: Strategies for extraordinary performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler.

Cameron, K. & Spreitzer, G. (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship. Oxford University Press.

Cameron, K. (no date). Leadership Through Organizational Forgiveness. Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship.

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.

Irrational Decisions… Us?

Specifically, classical economic theory says that people look at a set of data (large or small) and make rational decisions. And yet, the Gallup research shows that approximately 70% of economic decision making boils down to emotions. That means only about 30% of the decisions we make line up with the classic economic model.

Neruoscientific evidence supports Gallup’s findings. According to How We Decide,the rational brain maxes out at about 7 pieces of data. As a result, using the rational brain when making complex decisions generally points us in the wrong direction. Here’s why:

Gut Feelings = Knowledge

Humans develop intuition through experience. The cycle of trial and error, trial and success moderates the flow of dopamine, which creates the ‘gut knowledge’ we cannot explain yet know to be right. The people who ignore their gut instincts and rely on the data typically rationalize themselves into poor decisions when faced with complex, multifactorial questions.

“. . . the danger of too much information: it can actually interfere with understanding . . . We are constantly exceeding the capacity of our prefrontal cortexes, feeding them more facts and figures than they can handle . . . When the prefrontal cortex is overwhelmed, a person can no longer make sense of the situation.”
—How We Decide

In other words: Information overload clogs up a person’s decision making ability. Some might call the symptom analysis paralysis. Now let’s think about how that translates to the customer experience—and ultimately whether or not people buy from you or someone else.

Primal Engagement

If all your company talks about is a long list of product features that ‘differentiates’ it from the pack, you’re forcing customers to engage their rational brains during the buying process. Chances are, they’ll walk away. If not now, then most certainly in the future.

We already know that customers base 70% of buying decisions on emotion. A list of features and benefits opens the doors for savvy competitors to engage prospects at a primal level. Car manufacturers know this. What they sell is the convenience of having personal transportation. What people buy is reliability. Or prestige. Or freedom.

You get the drift.

We Make Winning Harder Than It Has To Be

So, what does that mean to your business? Employees want to be part of a winning team. Customers want to own something that gives them status or meets some other primal need. The best way to figure out what will elicit positive employee and customer emotions throughout your company’s lifecycle begins with corporate self-awareness.

Answering the question about your company’s reason for being and using it as the cornerstone for developing corporate self-awareness can increase performance-based business outcomes by 240%.

That is not a typo.

And, it bears repeating. According to Gallup, companies can gain a 240% in performance-based business outcomes if they engage employees and customers. I believe that establishing corporate self-awareness is the cornerstone to engagement for both employees and customers

Deliberately Foster Corporate Emotional Intelligence (CEQ™)

Just as people exhibit emotional intelligence (EQ) in the form of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, we can attribute the same labels to organizational behavior and the underlying systems that enable those behaviors.

Your company’s purpose for being becomes one of the pillars of self-awareness, which enables you to communicate clearly to employees and customers in a very exciting way. Skip this step and you’ll just be another company with a long list of features and benefits to wade through as people try to figure out where to spend their money.

And who doesn’t want to be part of a big win? Learn the secrets of corporate emotional intelligence (CEQ™), starting with organizational self-awareness.

The Global Impact of A Flawed Model

A concluding thought: If our collective worldview is based on a flawed perspective of economics, then we cannot hope to foster economic recovery without changing the accepted model. For more on applied behavioral economics, check out what the Gallup Organization has learned during the past 30 years.
© 2012. All rights reserved.

The discomfort spurred Shaydac to make a movie about his journey to reconcile core values with personal actions. Ultimately, I AM seeks to answer two fundamental questions:

1. What’s wrong with our world?
2. What can we do about it?

The movie just may have answered one of the burning questions I’ve been pondering for some time now: Why do American business leaders continue to fail to build healthy workplaces? After all, research has long demonstrated that a strengths-based methodology taught by organizations like The Marcus Buckingham Company can create engaging work environments that enable people to dig deep into their potential and find fulfillment on the job.

And yet the vast majority of Americans hate their jobs. Only about 10% of employees achieve a state of deep satisfaction at work. I’ve consistently viewed this phenomena—the seeming inability to kick the authoritarian management style to the curb—as a failure in leadership. Elements within I AM enabled me see that the failure point may, in fact, be more deeply rooted in culture.

Among other things, the movie posits that a culture which values an economic system based on competition for the sake of consumption is inherently flawed. Taken back to its root, then, the way we structure our businesses and encourage people to climb the corporate ladder is also flawed.

Inherently I think we sense this fundamentally false value. Otherwise we would not refer to working in a “dog-eat-dog world.” Or entering the “rat race.” If the majority of our businesses adhered to a healthy model we wouldn’t take such glee in reading Dilbert or watching The Office.

There appears to be no question that we’ve built our economic future on a model that cannot support sustained growth because of its inherent flaws. So it’s time to acknowledge that management as we know it is broken. For now. The good news: We have begun to find ways to formally transition from the old management model to one grounded in the science of positivity and well-being.

While the well-being in the workplace movement is still early stage, there are signs it’s gaining momentum. For example, Positivity and Positive Business DC both launched recently. These, and organizations like them, seek to teach businesses how to create healthy, rewarding environments. (Heightened profitability becomes a byproduct of engaged employees.)

I AM is worth seeing. It covers a range of topics far beyond the scope of this post.

Thank you for Tom Shadyac for challenging people to question basic assumptions about the world around them. Thank you also for taking the time to chat with the audience after Friday night’s viewing. The way you interacted with the audience, especially the kids, inspired us as much as the movie itself.

Finally, thank you to Brad Russell for founding the Washington West Film Festival. You had a terrific turnout for an event just now entering its second year. (It’s important to note that all of this year’s proceeds will go to Hurricane relief.) We can’t wait to see what you cook up for next year!

© 2012. All rights reserved.

Much of our unhappiness stems from the Because I Said So approach, the default setting for a significant number of “leaders.” These managers use their authority to gain compliance rather than treating employees in a manner they’d prefer. Chances are this approach didn’t work for your parents when you were two. Because I Said So doesn’t work any better for employers when you are 42. Unfortunately, the tendency to want to take control starts much earlier than you’d think.

Submit… or Else

According to John Medina, author of Brain Rules, boys establish a pecking order very in early in life. Boys with high status have learned to give orders by the time they enter grade school. Lower status boys obey or get bullied for their insubordination. A rigid hierarchy quickly forms in male groups. Verbal negotiation occurs only as boys with higher status vie for the independence that comes with dominance.

“The beatings will continue
until morale improves.”

Girls also tend to develop hierarchies in grade school, although they do it in a completely different manner. Girls will shun those who try to give orders. They favor collaboration and status comes from inclusion in the right cliques.

We have dragged these styles into the office so perhaps it’s not so surprising that the desire to command still prevails in male dominated corporate America. Only 15 women hold the CEO title in the Fortune 500. It would be interesting to know if these women choose to control or collaborate.

A controlling management style is damaging because it:

• Relies on fear and compliance, which demotivate employees and produces marginal results
• Limits potential to the manager’s strengths and amplifies weaknesses
• Contradicts the economic and social realities of the information age

The authoritarian style may have felt comfortable in the factories of the industrial era. It was, after all, a new way of working and people often came from homes where Dad ruled the roost. But times have changed. We have a diverse, multi-generational workforce that includes women and a vast array of ethnicities. Today’s workforce seeks autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Follow the Leader

Back to the research. Marcus Buckingham has dedicated his career to uncovering the secrets of productive workplaces. His well documented research on strengths-based leadership, when applied, works brilliantly. So why, then, has this methodology not gained a stronger foothold?

Reading a book or learning theory gives most people the right vocabulary. Application is another thing. We learn more from modeling than from reading. I think that’s why some managers use terminology like ‘empowerment’ while ignoring the talents and contributions of their staff. If you want to change your culture, then change the way you lead your people. You can start by getting a mentor that uses the approach you’d like to adopt. Of course, you can also model by rejecting the behaviors of people for whom you don’t like to work.

The links between giving orders, gaining and maintaining status, and ego develop very early in a male leader’s life. But the desire to control is not limited to boys. I’ve also known a lot of bossy women. We’ll take a look at the personality types that like power and control over the next few weeks. Until then, we’ll weave a tale of micromanagement.

Originally published by PerformanceArchitect.com on June 4, 2012. All rights reserved.

Lively discussion at Positive Business DC’s October 2102 Meetup.

A recent article by Forbes about the behavioral differences between introverts and extroverts states, “. . . brainstorming results in lower quality ideas and the more vocally assertive extroverts are the most likely be heard.” Forbes based its article on Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Although other sources have made similar claims, it appears as if  brainstorming has gotten a bum rap.

“Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.”
—Keith Sawyer, Psychologist, Washington University

Rather than blaming a tool or process for shortcomings, we need to look at how the tool is being applied… and testing methodologies that underlie the research.

Is Brainstorming Really Counterproductive?

Yale conducted the first empirical test on brainstorming in 1958. A group of 48 male undergrads were split into 12 groups and given a set of puzzles and instructions for how to brainstorm. The control [group] consisted of 48 students (each of whom worked independently to solve the same set of puzzles). The students who worked alone generated twice as many ideas as the brainstorming groups. ‘Experts’ deemed the ideas generated by individuals to be more creative and feasible that those developed by the groups. As the Forbes article demonstrates, these outcomes have stuck.

The Yale study overlooked some basic group dynamics. Teams that include both men and women outperform teams comprised solely of men. In addition, the terms ‘group’ and ‘team’ are not synonymous. Researchers simply cannot put a bunch of people who don’t know each other in a room and expect them to work together effectively. A safe environment and trusting relationships underlie effective teamwork. As a result, studies like the one from Yale fall short of predicting real-world results.

Cultural Freedom to Disagree

The Yale study also learned that the groups instructed to debate during the brainstorming session increased the number of ideas by 25%, although most of the extra ideas came after the group disbanded. That makes sense because people build off the creativity of others.

Tips for Effective Brainstorming

For leaders, the trick to getting the most out of brainstorming and other activities used to stimulate creative problem solving starts by establishing a safe, respectful culture that:

1. Cultivates and values diversity
2. Ignores the weight usually attributed to title
3. Encourages each person to speak up
4. Refrains from ridicule and personal attacks
5. Accepts input without judgement or punishment
6. Provides constructive feedback on a daily basis
7. Works passionately toward common vision and goals
8. Purposely facilitates strong relationships and communication
9. Lets its hair down

Evidence shows that people share emotions. Even though people often view disagreement as a negative, the ability to laugh at ourselves and have fun at work helps keep things on a positive track. You can creatively solve sticky issues without destroying relationships or morale.

Establish Equal Footing

Leaders get the best results by using visual and behavioral clues that put them on equal footing with other members of the team. Select a chair along the side of the table. Come prepared with questions instead of answers. Invite participation from everyone in the room. Speak last to avoid coloring others’ opinions.

Except in times of crisis leading through a collaborative, democratic process does not make a leader look weak—as long as s/he can make decisions in a timely manner. The ability for people in all positions and experience levels to have a voice and participate in problem solving builds vibrant companies.

Originally published by PerformanceArchitect.com on October 4, 2012. All rights reserved.

Positive psychology is about making the lives of people more productive and fulfilling by identifying and nurturing their highest talents—not about treating mental illness like traditional psychology.  It’s a new branch of study that was championed by Martin Seligman, who is often referred to as the father of positive psychology.

So, why should we business leaders be interested?  Because we can add to the bottom line while creating a company with a culture that is more enjoyable for all, including management.  A study conducted by Alex Edmans of the Wharton School of Business has shown that corporations listed in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For in America” have equity returns that are 3.5% per year higher than others.  Put simply, employee satisfaction directly correlates with returns to shareholders. Likewise, as a result of decades of clinical trials, we now know that feeling happy reduces workplace errors, increases productivity, and reduces employee turnover and absenteeism—all of which positively impact the bottom line.

“Our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive, ” says Shawn Archor in his book, The Happiness Advantage: the Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.  Biologically, when we release dopamine and serotonin, the learning centers in the brain perform well, better organize new information, retain new information in the brain longer, and retrieve it faster.

Barbara L. Fredrickson, professor of psychology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discovered that humans are most creative when our minds are flooded with a stay-and-create chemical—quite possibly dopamine—the opposite of the well-known “fight or flight” response. The “stay-and-create” chemical makes us more receptive to new ideas, more likely to explore, more flexible, and more likely to deepen relationships. This, as one might imagine, results in greater teamwork and mutual respect.  Fredrickson’s theory is that “fight or flight” historically helped us avoid being eaten alive, but that civilizations were created via a more enlightened “broaden-and-build” state of mind.

5 Elements of Well-being

According to Seligman, the goal of positive psychology is well being. Well-being is described as having the following five main elements.

1. Positive emotion.  This one is self explanatory—It’s simply feeling good.
2. Engagement. Also called “flow.”  Flow is when you feel one with your work.   It is also called “being in the zone,” and is characterized by losing all track of time. Those who achieve flow will say they have a strong purpose and a love for what they do.  Getting into the flow is best served by using our “Signature Strengths,” explained below.
3. Meaning.  Having a purpose in life—this happens when we belong to or serve something that we think is bigger than ourselves.
4. Accomplishment.  The mastery and achieving of goals for the sake of the accomplishment.  It involves grit, or stick-to-it-ness, which has been found to guide accomplishment even more than intelligence.  According to Seligman, studies show “self-discipline counts for twice as much variance as IQ” in accomplishment.
5. Relationships.  Relationships bring a sense of community and a sense of connectedness to others.

What are Signature Strengths?  In the workplace, studies have shown that human strength—not the absence of weaknesses—are the keys to productivity, increased job satisfaction, and reduced turnover.  Signature strengths are our top innate strengths, and are likely the signature by which we are known. Examples of signature strengths are: perseverance, integrity, critical thinking, kindness, and ingenuity.  Feelings that might signify we are using a signature strength might include feeling like “this is the real me,” having a feeling of excitement when using that strength, or experiencing a sense of inevitability while using it.  When people capitalize on their signature strengths, they tend to be happier and more satisfied.  Gallup Studies have shown that companies whose employees are encouraged to use their strongest skills are the most successful.

The Growth of Positive Psychology:  Positive psychology is now making its way into many different fields, such as the Military, education, law, medicine, politics, engineering, the arts, and business.  Many universities offer courses in positive psychology, and several offer degrees specializing in positive psychology including the University of Pennsylvania, Claremont University, and the University of East London.  The University of Pennsylvania, where Seligman is currently the Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology and Director of the Positive Psychology Center, offers a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP degree).  60% of alumni with MAPP degrees return to their original area of work, spreading positive psychology into different fields.

Zappos

A great example of positive psychology in the corporation is Zappos, international shoe and apparel eTailer. I am a big fan of Zappos, and according to Business Week and Forbes, they are one of the best places to work.  Tony Hsieh, CEO, used positive psychology to make Zappos such a wonderful place to be employed.

So how is selling shoes online meaningful?  For Hsieh, it’s not about shoes—it’s about delivering happiness to customers and employees. He delivers happiness to his customers in the form of amazing customer service. Zappos employees strive to deliver “Wow!” and are trusted to do the right thing with customers in regard to making decisions to please each customer. Uniquely, if you call Zappos, you will be talking to a person without scripts – they are trusted to use their best judgment to fulfill the charter for best customer service.  Zappos delivers an acclaimed culture and work environment to its employees.  Hsieh integrated elements of positive psychology into his culture and operationally in a way that is enviable.  Here’s a short peek into Zappos:

Working at Zappos feels purposeful. Delivering happiness is big and it’s bold. The company has values that are more than lip service or, as Hsieh puts it, not “just a plaque in the lobby” but values that have been operationally and culturally integrated.  Here are their values:

1. Deliver WOW through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More with Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

Social interaction is increased in many ways. For example, before employees can log into their computers in the morning, they must identify the “mystery employee” whose photo is displayed on their computer screens. Everyone gets to be that mystery employee at some time. In this way workers get to know the names and the faces other employees whom they may not meet otherwise. In addition, there is only one entrance at headquarters.  The other entrances in the building have been turned into emergency exits.  All employees entering through the same door greatly increases happenstance interactions between employees.
These are just a few of many Zappos examples.  I highly recommend reading, Delivering Happiness, A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, and checking out the The Zappos Family 2010 Culture Book (which you can order for free at from culturebook.org).

With the success of the book, Delivering Happiness has now evolved into its own company, with the sole purpose to grow a global movement to spread and inspire happiness at work, in communities and everyday life.

If you want to learn even more strategies to use for your own business, Zappos recently created a whole new branch of their organization, Zappos Insights and DH@work, which can be found at www.zapposinsights.com and deliveringhappiness.com.  Through these programs, they are sharing with the world the secret sauce that makes Zappos a great place to work, and ways other companies can successfully apply happiness as a business model.  Already, the program has helped many businesses, which report an increase in sales and morale almost immediately.

Happiness Myths

As much as we are learning about ways that we can be happier, we also have many beliefs regarding ways we can be happier that simply aren’t true.  Here are a few widespread myths about achieving happiness.

Getting the best will make me happy.

One of the most persistent myths of happiness is that getting the “best,” will make us happier.  Barry Schwartz, in his book The Paradox of Choice, points out that there are two types of decision makers—Satisficers (someone who attempts to meet a decision criteria for adequacy) and Maximizers.  Maximizers try to make the best decision every time—they look for the best mate, the best job, and so on. Satisficers make a decision once they satisfy their criteria.  They are satisfied if they find a restaurant that has the qualities they want, instead of searching for the #1 restaurant available.  But while Maximizers are paralyzed and can’t make a decision until they have thoroughly examined every option, Satisficers have eaten a delicious meal and are happily moving along to the next big thing.

More money will make me happy.

When we do not have enough money to pay the bills, we know and studies show our sense of well-being decreases.  But once bills are paid and there is a margin of disposable income, people in general (and those who are very wealthy) actually fare about the same on the happiness scale.  Clearly, money plays a serious role to the negative—that is, if we seriously lack money we are less happy—but it’s much less impactful to the positive.  A good example of this can be found in the behavior of lottery winners.  Studies have shown that their happiness spikes when they first win, but months later their happiness levels are similar to where they were prior to winning.  In other words, we tend to return to our usual happiness level in a matter of months regardless of the amount of winnings.

I will be happy as soon as I _________.

You fill in the blank.  I will be happy when I meet Mr. (or Ms.) Wonderful.  I will be happy when I make law partner.  I will be happy when I wear a size 4.  In Arrival Fantasy, Tal Ben-Shahar explains that the “arrival fallacy” is a fallacy because the arriving actually rarely makes you as happy as you expect.

Happiness Tips

Now for the nitty gritty.  How can you bring happiness to our company and to your culture?

1. Find a larger purpose that your company can rally around.  Zappos isn’t simply selling shoes—they deliver happiness.
2. Create an environment that inspires, and motivation will follow.  Build your culture and your brand around what stand for, and integrate it into your operations.  Take every opportunity to speak about your culture and brand within—and outside of—your company.  Then live it.  As one worker in an enviable work environment said, “I would have come in as a dishwasher to be in this environment.”  Now that’s inspiration.
3. Foster a strong sense of community and a deep belief in your people.
4. Hire for strengths—and screen for strengths during the recruitment process.
5. Let employees be themselves as much as possible.
6. Find ways to apply existing strengths in new ways. Move employees if necessary.
7. Ask employees for ideas about positive changes. What do they want to do?  In what environment do they feel most comfortable and happy?  What ideas do they have for the company?  How can they bring the most value to the company?
8. Read Tribal Leadership, Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. Being part of a “tribe” and having a shared purpose—propelled by values across your company and employees—is big.  It helps strengthen relationships and fulfill the need to be part of something important.
9. Have fun. Southwest Airline’s CEO and cofounder, Herb Kelleher, built a company where celebrations are a normal part of business. Southwest—in the meantime—grew revenue by almost 400% in the last decade.  Celebrations can be small, spontaneous, or all-out affairs.  In another Zappos example, it is commonplace for a department to have impromptu parades.  That may not be appropriate for every company’s culture, but adding more fun to your culture—in your own way—adds to positive feelings and camaraderie.
10. Look for Positive Deviance. Find pockets of individual successes where a problem is being solved differently and employ more widely.
11. Start all meetings positively. Ask managers and participants the three things that are going well in their departments.
12. Use teamwork. In the past decade, business has seen large growth in productivity because of teamwork, which has taken larger hold in business.  This is primarily driven by the technology business that requires teams at every stage of development.  This shift has been followed by many other business sectors, as well. When working in teams, weaknesses do not matter nearly as much as they do when someone is working as an individual because the team can still function effectively.  Also, working in teams makes people happy.
13. Be more positive than negative. Sure, there are negative things we need to focus on, but change the ratio.  Several recent studies have shown that negative occurrences are more powerful than positive.  You need to outnumber the “bad” with the “good.”  Marcial Losada calculated that the tipping point need for positive feelings and experiences is 2.9013 positive interactions/occurrences for every negative one, coined the “Losada Line.” And, for workgroups, the research shows that a ratio of 6 to 1 is where teams produce their very best work.  You don’t have to ignore the negative, but remembering to note the positive will shift morale.
14. Give employees chances to succeed and achieve. Consider followings Zappo’s lead on this one.  They used to promote their merchandise assistants to assistant buyers every 18 months, as long as they met all the requirements to qualify.  Currently, after gaining more understanding of human nature, they give smaller promotions every six months with a large promotion occurring at the 18-month mark.  The result is the same in terms of training, certification, and pay, but employees are happier because there have an ongoing sense of progress.

Still Unconvinced?  Here’s More Science.

Happiness can actually be seen—in the form of brain-scanning technology, which has confirmed the effect of positive psychology exercises in studies.

“The adage that we become what we think is more than an expression – it’s a scientific fact,” says Kristi Hedges, leadership coach and author, Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others.  Hedges explains that neuroscience has shown that what we consistently think creates synaptic connections that become a veritable path of least resistance in the brain. This has tremendous implications for people, and deserves to be taken seriously and developed strategically.  There’s even an entire field dubbed neuroleadership that’s emerged.

In Hedges’ book, she discusses that in the corporate world we have tended to delegitimize positive conceptualization or self-talk as a New Age indulgence. But think of athletes. We admire their ability to visualize a successful outcome and to mentally propel themselves to achieve. The reason positive thinking works for them is the reason it works for all of us. If we think we can win, we’ll embody that thought and change our actions. And each time we are actually creating neural pathways and eventually, with repetition, they become the path of least resistance.

The trick for changing your brain, and subsequent behavior, is to approach positive thoughts with focus and deliberation. For most of us, this requires structural changes and systems to keep the ideas top of mind. This can be as simple as scheduling five minutes each morning to reflect on the tone you want to set for your day, or as involved as meeting with a coach or mentor regularly. Feedback can be a valuable catalyst to test and refine a person’s thinking.

Need a Bit of Help to Get Going?

Leadership is critical to a positive work environment and is essential to bringing out the strengths of the workforce.  If you want a jumpstart, you may consider getting some outside expertise.  There are many good coaching and consulting companies that are specifically trained to help you or your employees increase happiness and shift culture. Coaches who are trained in such things can often facilitate change more quickly.

Local Washington DC Coach/Trainer, Shannon Polly, a graduate of the MAPP program at the University of Pennsylvania, offers a suite of workshops for companies to achieve optimal performance using positive psychology techniques.   One workshop Polly led for Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort and Spa incorporated the strengths research of Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Chris Peterson, as well as Appreciative Inquiry (AI), which is a change management technique created by Dr. David Cooperrider in the 1980s.  The workshop for the Westin Savannah had 100 employees for a day, and the process guided attendees to discover their strengths so they could leverage them and envision the future they wanted to create.  The hotel manager was amazed at the level of engagement from the part-time employees, especially.

Finding a coach/consultant that can have such an effect on your business is not difficult.  Search online or use the International Coach Federation’s referral service of credentialed coaches at coachfederation.org.  And, Of course, Kristi Hedges and Shannon Polly, mentioned above, are also local DC coaches.   Either way, good luck on your path to delivering happiness and increasing your company’s success.