We had a great time with Cathy Salit today, CEO of Performance of a Lifetime.  A powerful company with a  funny name.  As you can see from the photos, she engaged a whole class of psychology students by asking them to perform (and groan and stretch).  Their teacher wrote:

Hi Cathy,

    My students and I enjoyed your Webinar.

​They groaned with you, and wrote what they learned afterwards.

Play and performance is so radical, when people get it, it’s life transforming.

Great job.

Rafael​

Cathy spoke about her book, Performance Breakthrough:  A Radical Approach to Success at Work.  Based in a field called Performative Psychology founded by Lois Holzman, Fred Newman and Ken & Mary Gergen from the Taos Institute.  As Dr. Holzman said:  ”We collectively create our lives through performance (simultaneously who we are and who we are becoming).”  Salit has coined this The Becoming Principle.

There are five key fundamental elements of performance she covered.

1)  Choose to Grow.

(This is where we groaned.)  You have to make a choice to grow, because growing is hard work.

2)  Build Ensembles Everywhere

Their work is also based on Lev Vygotsky who coined the phrase ‘zone of proximal development’.  Basically, how we allow children to perform a head taller than they are.  We grow in groups, not alone.  This has been a criticism of positive psychology, that we are only focusing research on the individual.

Her practice, “Say ‘we’ when you would normally say ‘I’.”

3) Listen!:  The Revolutionary Way to Have a Conversation

Apparently, most people only listen 20% of the time.  This is the fundamental point of improvisation (the methodology of POAL’s work).  While we didn’t have time to do the ‘yes, and’ exercise I recommend you looking it up.  If we all really listened, how amazing would our conversations be?  A great Ted talk in this regards is Ken Robinson’s.

The practice?  Perform being curious.  Even if you’re not.

4) Create with Crap

“Option A is not available.  So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.”  Sheryl Sandberg

This is my favorite section and comes out of the listening for ‘offers’.  In improv, an ‘offer’ isn’t always something you want.  How do you create with something you don’t want?  Cathy gave a good example of empathy when you get the crying person in your office after a performance review.

The practice?  She encouraged participants to make a poem from their ‘crap’.  Send your “Create with Crap” poem to stories@performanceofalifetime.com.

5)  Improvise Your Life

1. Say “Yes, and” (and mean it!)

Yes means you accept what your partner gives you, ‘and’ means you add to it.

2. Make the other person look good

If you don’t do this in improv the scene dies.  Same is true for making your boss look good.

3. Celebrate mistakes and failures

We learn by failing.  As Beckett said, “Fail fast.  Fail better.”

4. Follow the follower

If you are following each other then you can really build rather than try to dominate a ‘scene’ (or a meeting).

5. Delight in curveballs

Take what you weren’t expecting and run with it.  I wasn’t expecting tech glitches in the webinar but we rolled with them!

Wrap up:

Performance is all around us.  We don’t wake up in the morning with a script.  So take a risk.  Even if it is a small one in your workplace.  And write us back to tell us what you decided to do!  See below for more ways to stay in touch with Cathy.

And you can follow @CathySalit on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  

We’ll be posting some of her questions to webinar participants in another blog post.

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.

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.

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.

This book is a no-cost, no-permission guide for boosting individual, team, and business performance. Whether you lead three employees or 3,000, this book shows you how to increase productivity, collaboration, and profitability using the simple, yet powerful tools from the new field of Positive Psychology.

Featuring case studies of some of the most forward-thinking and successful companies today – Zappos, Google, and Amazon to name a few – Profit from the Positive provides over two-dozen evidence-based tools that “business schools will be teaching in ten years” (Shawn Achor, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage).

Learn how to GET MORE DONE, WITHOUT HAVING TO WORK MORE HOURS by:

1. “Outsourcing” yourself
2. Setting habits instead of goals

Learn how to BEAT YOUR COMPETITION by:

1. Hiring for what’s NOT on the resume
2. Quitting

Learn how to BOOST YOUR TEAM’S PRODUCTIVITY UP TO 40% by:

1. Recognizing the Achoo! effect
2. Previewing—not just reviewing—performance

The best part?  These strategies don’t cost a dime to implement!  You will not need to hire an expensive consulting company or go through internal red tape to secure permission to begin implementing these tools today.  Trained by Dr. Martin Seligman, known as the father of Positive Psychology, Greenberg and Maymin translate the scientific research and finally make it accessible to the business world.

So, what is Positive Psychology?  (If you’ve been reading our blog for a while then you know…but just to clarify….)  First, let’s be clear about what it is not: Positive Psychology is not positive thinking. Positive Psychology researchers have studied topics such as productivity, resilience, motivation, collaboration, and much more.  In short, they seek answers to questions that every business leader wrestles with.

Readers of Malcolm Gladwell, Chip and Dan Heath, Marshall Goldsmith, and Dan Pink will especially enjoy the book.  In fact, Marshall Goldsmith (NY Times best selling author of Mojo and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There) endorsed it, saying: “Put it on your nightstand, bring it on the plane with you—however you do it—read this book. Profit from the Positive gives actionable steps for managers’ biggest burning questions. As a 21^st-century leader, you cannot do without it.”

Profit from the Positive has been endorsed by bestselling authors including Gretchen Rubin, Tony Hsieh, Adam Grant, and Chris Brogan. These no-cost, no-permission tools have been successfully implemented by business leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, executive coaches, and human resource professionals at companies ranging from Google to Aetna.

We only recommend the best here at Positive Business DC.  And we’re happy to know that really good books can help the business world increase their positive practices.  Read it.  Give it to that HR manager you know.  You’ll be glad you did.

For more information, please visit www.ProfitFromThePositive.com.

For interviews, review copies, webinars, or more information, please contact:

Senia Maymin, Coauthor, Profit from the Positive, LLC:  Phone: (415) 480-4190 / senia@profitfromthepositive.com

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Margaret Greenberg is a sought after executive coach by Fortune 500 companies.  In 1997, after a fifteen year career in corporate HR, she founded The Greenberg Group, a consulting firm dedicated to coaching business leaders and their teams to achieve more than they ever thought possible. A pioneer in the field of positive psychology, Greenberg also designs and leads workshops, webinars, and conferences for business audiences and is an expert on creating strengths-based organizations.  Greenberg’s research has been featured in the popular Gallup Management Journal and she is a regular business contributor at www.PositivePsychologyNews.com.  She has also been interviewed by national media outlets in the US (Entrepreneur Magazine) and Canada (The Globe and Mail).   She holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Hartford, a Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from the University of Pennsylvania, and is recognized by the International Coach Federation as a professional certified coach.  Greenberg lives in Connecticut with her husband and two dogs. They have two grown daughters.  For more information, visit Greenberg’s website at www.TheGreenbergGroup.org.

Senia Maymin, PhD, has been featured in the media—including PBS’s This Emotional Life, Business Week, Public Radio International, and USA Today—primarily for her work as a positive psychology executive coach.  When entrepreneurs and executives seek far-reaching productivity improvements, they call on Maymin as an executive coach and workshop leader. Maymin founded and is editor in chief of a research news website featuring more than 1,000 articles by over 100 authors.  Additionally, Maymin oversees a network of coaches that specialize in positive psychology methods. She has worked in finance on Wall Street and in technology as cofounder and president of two start-ups. Maymin holds a BA in Math and Economics from Harvard, a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA and PhD in Organizational Behavior from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She speaks Russian, French, and Japanese. She lives with her family in California.  You can visit the research news website at www.PositivePsychologyNews.com, the coaches network at www.PositiveCoaches.net, and Maymin’s website at www.senia.com.

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

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.