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.

 It was dark in the theater. The crowd was hushed waiting for the big reveal. The musical was Sweeney Todd, and my college audience had heard from their friends about what happens when the first victim gets the ax (or in this case, the razor). The seat and foot on the trick chair drop, and the actor falls through the roof of the second floor set to the crash pad below.

I had the good fortune to play Mrs. Lovett, and I had also sourced the barber’s chair for this production. At the time, I was backstage waiting for an entrance. I heard the moment in the music, and then I heard screams. Just like we rehearsed.

But these weren’t the screams of an actor playing a character who was just killed. These were real screams. The chair had failed, and the actor was bloodied. It was chaos, there was fog on the stage so no one could really see what was going on, the orchestra didn’t know what had happened so they kept playing, and the actor who had bloodied shins and a possibly broken nose was trying to live by the “Show must go on” rule. He kept singing and moving to his next entrance.

The other actors, technicians, and musicians knew this was the one exception to the rule. The stage manager stopped the show and went into action. Everyone involved with the production was on high alert. It was a wonderful example of teamwork as a group strength, and also teamwork as an individual strength. Each person abandoned his or her ego for what the production needed at that moment. The tech people filled in for each other’s duties while the actor was taken to the hospital. The orchestra was waiting poised for their instructions. Even a doctor in the audience offered to come back stage to give medical help.

If you’ve ever been in an artistic production you know that there can be many egos involved. But you also know that the best experiences for both actor and audience occur when people set status aside and do what must be done for the good of the production.

What is the Character Strength called Teamwork?

In Character Strengths and Virtues, Peterson and Seligman define the character strength of teamwork (with related synonyms of citizenship, social responsibility, loyalty) as

• Working well as a member of a group or team; Being loyal to the group

• Doing one’s share

In the circumplex model of character strengths that Peterson describes in his primer, teamwork is a heart based strength (as opposed to head) focused on others (as opposed to self).

When using the word teamwork, people frequently fail to differentiate between concept of high performing teams and what it means to have the individual signature strength of teamwork. The Sweeney Todd example shows both, but sometimes it is difficult to even identify it as a strength.

The Shadow Side

I was coaching a new manager in a governmental organization, and we were at a bit of an impasse. She described a crushing workload and an unbelievable work ethic (not the common perception of government employees) that led her to working nights and weekends, often until early in the morning. She was balancing being a new manager, her previous work duties, and going back to graduate school. We spent a few sessions probing around values and discussing the benefit of self-care.

See your place in the big picture

The light bulb didn’t go off for her until we looked at her VIA strengths and realized that teamwork was a top strength. Doing her share was a top value. She put it above her own well-being.

What ended up working for her was exploring the concept of a shadow side of the strength. After she could see her strength clearly and the signs of overuse, she was able to adjust her behavior to avoid burnout. Then she could see that delegating work actually served her team.

How do you spot someone with a top strength of teamwork? Watch for someone with the ability to identify with team goals and sometimes put them ahead of personal gratification, just as my client did. It involves being able to see the big picture as well as one’s place in it.

Building Teamwork

Today I’d like to discuss one way to build teamwork as a character strength. Come back tomorrow or three more ways that build this strength in yourself and those you lead, thus enhancing the teams in which you participate.

Approach 1: “We” Before “Me”

Performance of a Lifetime is an organization in New York City that uses improv to teach skills of listening, teamwork, and collaboration. In his recent book To Sell is Human, Dan Pink describes some of their work. One exercise is called Predator/Protector. Each person picks two people in the room, one her protector, one her predator. Then all try to place their protectors between themselves and their predators. What results is usually a flurry of running around the room, people bumping into one another and furiously trying to save themselves from this imaginary threat.

Teamwork in the hive

Then the facilitator stops the group and asks the participants to start again and pay attention to how the group is doing. On a second try, all of a sudden, the movement slows down and finally comes to a stop when people take into account the rest of the group and ultimately achieve their goal.

If we are paying attention to how the group is doing, we are letting go of ego, disregarding status and building a better team. David Sloan Wilson has shown that oftentimes people put the ‘we’ before the ‘I’ even though it may be economically irrational to do so.

As NYU professor, Jonathan Haidt, and colleagues say, “We are hive creatures.” During your next team meeting take a director moment. Stop and view the meeting from the balcony and ask yourself, “How is the group doing?” You might ask the team directly to disregard rank or position and ask them to comment on what they see going on in the room.

Come back tomorrow for three more ways to build teamwork as a character strength in yourself and others.

And if you haven’t yet, you can find out what your character strengths for free here.

References:

Haidt, J., Seder, J. P., & Kesebir, S. (2008).  Hive psychology, happiness, and public policy.  Journal of Legal Studies, 37, S133-S156.

Peterson, C. & Seligman, M. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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

Pink, D. (2013).  To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others. Riverhead Trade.

Sober, E., & Wilson, D. S. (1998). Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

VIA Institute on Character.  Teamwork as a top character strength.

Wilson, D. S. (2015). Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others (Foundational Questions in Science). Yale University Press. Publication date: January 13.

Listening is like driving.  Everyone thinks they are good at it.  But probably less than half of people really are.  That’s why I was interested by the research of Kate Muir.

Research into how emotions change over time has revealed that negative emotions tend to fade to a greater extent over time compared to positive emotions, an effect known as the fading affect bias.

Talking to others is an important way in which this process can be enhanced: frequent social disclosure of past emotional events can help dissipate negative emotions and maintain positive emotions.  The question is, how and why does talking help?

Kate described experimental research which demonstrates that the degree of responsiveness of the listener during social disclosure is pivotal in how the speaker feels afterwards. Further, merely responding to the speaker is not enough.  This research provides preliminary evidence that there are particular types of listener responses which are associated with the speaker feeling less negative about unpleasant events, and more positive about pleasant events.

She listed three factors that were key for good listening.  Here they are and what they mean:

Alignment

• Participants take turns at talk allowing speaker to tell story
• Smooth conversational flow
• Mutual understanding of story meaning

Emotional Support

• Listener takes role as troubles’ recipient
• Display understanding of speaker’s emotional state
• Express sympathetic concern

Encouraging Positive Focus

• Encourage speaker to build on positive aspects of negative events
• Develop positive interpretation of events
• And you need to demonstrate understanding when someone shares negative events:
• Anticipatory response uses same evaluative term as speaker
• Continuer is in the form of expression of sympathy, i.e. emotional support
• Listener tells related story (self-disclosure)
• More sympathy expressed as part of story assessment
• Story agrees with speaker’s assessment demonstrating understanding of meaning
• Acknowledgement of speaker’s negative feelings as valid emotional reaction
• Self disclosure engenders rapport and intimacy

The suggestions for sharing positive events mimics the research by Gable on Active Constructive Responding.  Fascinating…next time you talk to someone, you know what to do.

————–

Speaker Bio: Kate Muir is a Research Fellow in linguistics and social behaviour at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Kate’s current research focuses on the factors that influence linguistic accommodation, including differences in power roles and personality traits, and the social consequences of accommodation.

Kate’s other research interests include the influence of social interaction and individual differences upon subjective and objective aspects of autobiographical memories, including reported emotional intensity and memory narratives. In her spare time Kate teaches on the Psychology undergraduate degree for the Open University.

Kate completed her BSc (Hons) and PhD in Psychology at the University of Leeds in the UK. Her doctoral research concentrated on the roles of social disclosure and listener behaviour in the fading affect bias. This work demonstrated that listener behaviour is an important factor in emotional regulation processes which encourage negative emotions to fade and positive emotions to be retained in autobiographical memory, and has been recently published in the journal Memory. Kate lives near Bristol with her husband and young son.

 Join our Hacking Creativity Webinar on September 24 at noon EST.  Register here.

I believe everyone has the potential to be creative when given the time, freedom, and autonomy. And, combined witha subtle dose of inspiration,  that creativity may turn into full-blown innovation.

In business, creativity used to be reserved for the designers, marketers, and artistic talent that represented the antidote to buttoned-up organizational cultures. In today’s  increasingly ubiquitous “VUCA” environments, where volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity have seeped across industry verticals, creativity is no longer reserved solely for the hip folk clad in skinny jeans.  The ability to innovate across the corporate value chain – from strategy formulation to go-to-market execution – is a pre-requisite for market competitiveness. Those who do it best relish an ascent up the corporate ladder with increased reputational capital: they are the leadership game-changers.

Armed with this insight, a group of six students from the University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program sought to collide the frontier of positive psychology—or the scientific study of human flourishing—with the science of creativity. The mash-up was an interdisciplinary take on two emergent fields that are garnering increased popularity in the corporate world.   The team learned that at the intersection of positive psychology and creativity emerged some interesting insights that are both actionable and accessible.

For example, consider  Adam Grant’s (2013) research in the best-selling book,  Give and Take.  Grant’s research displays a strong link between collaboration and creative character. A recent study conducted by Baer (2012) found more of the same, suggesting that creativity and implementation are regulated by people’s ability to network and the number of strong relationships they hold. Lucky for the team, collaboration – or rather, relationships at large – is shown to be one of the most important contributors to one’s overall happiness. Here we begin to see a picture emerge where positive psychology and creativity can, indeed, tango together. And this is just the beginning – many more insights continued to unfold, illuminating the commonality between these seemingly disparate fields.

In fact, another example near and dear to a positive psychologists heart is positive emotional states. Fredrickson’s (1998) ground-breaking broaden and build theory posits that positive emotions contribute to an upward spiral of more positive emotions, open-mindedness, increased scope of attention, out-of-the-box thinking, and increased problem solving.  And yet, the plot actually thickens when creativity is examined  further. Negative emotions also have the power to boost creativity. One study of 161 employees found that creativity increased when both positive and negative emotions were running high (George & Zhou, 2007). In short, they appeared to be using the drama in the workplace positively. It turns out that finding ways to turn negative moods from creativity foes to allies can be a deceptively simple strategy: don’t resist the resistance. There is no need to turn that frown upside down after all.

As we stumbled across findings such as these we went right to the creativity core. We coupled the time-tested definition of creativity—the generation of novel and useful ideas (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996)—with Einstein’s famous quip that we cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. Putting the two together, and making sure to stay true to the big “A” in MAPP (application),  a sixty- minute webinar was designed, “Hacking Creativity,” that explores the intersection of these fields in an intriguing, insightful, and all together imaginative way.

Baer, M. (2012). Putting creativity to work: the implementation of creative ideas in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 55(5), 1102-1119.

Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions?Review of General Psychology, 2, 300-319.

Grant, M. (2013). Give and take: A revolutionary approach to success. New York: Viking Press.

George, J. M., & Zhou, J. (2007). Dual tuning in a supportive context: Joint contributions of positive mood, negative mood, and supervisory behaviors to employee creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 50(3), 605-622.

Oldham, G. R., & Cummings, A. (1996). Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors at work. Academy of management journal, 39(3), 607-634.

If you are interested in learning what the team discovered, and howto leverage it against creativity-starved challenge, come join us on September 24^th at noon EST.  We look forward to sharing the result of our efforts to concoct a distinctive creativity and happiness tonic.  Go here to register:  https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/119275815.

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.

en*theos International Day of Happiness Virtual Conference

Kathryn: Getting back to the personal of this, what’s the most interesting thing that you learned about yourself in the course of doing AI summits?

Shannon: Oh that’s a great question. A number of things, I think one of the things I learned is that even though I’ve had all of this training in positive psychology I still too have a negativity bias and I have not been cured of that. I was doing an AI summit leading into strategic plan for an organization recently and the AI summit was great because the positivity principle is built in and really started to design the strategic plan and I started to slip into “well the lease is up in 2017 and what if we lose it” and then I had to jolt myself out of it and say “wait a minute Shannon, that goes against all of that principles.” So even I have to keep applying the principles. I also think what I’ve discovered is that I used to think that I had to do the heavy lifting in facilitating something like this. I had to do all the work, I had to do all the prep and what you realize with this process is that there is the collective wisdom of the people in the room and if you are open to accepting and working with what people in the room have to say the process really, in some ways leads itself, the real work is leading up to and designing the guide, what questions are you going to ask, that takes a lot work, but once you are in the day it really starts to sing and I stopped worrying about being the expert in the room and suddenly everyone in the room was the expert and then the process went much better.

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

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

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

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

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

Shannon: I have.

Kathryn: And then what happened?

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

Kathryn: And then what happens when he asks that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shannon: Thanks so much.

The first myth is that you either have it or you don’t.  If this were true there wouldn’t be any drama schools, no need for weeks of rehearsals before opening night and nor cottage industry for selling classes to actors.  There are tangible techniques that you can use to control your anxiety and increase your influence whether you have a formal presentation or are just running a meeting.  I’ll look at the external aspects of presence, the internal aspects of presence, managing anxiety and accessing flow.

What is your objective?

When you get up in front of a room…what do you want?  Many people who are presenting have one goal – to get off as fast as possible.  But our intention has a big impact on our presence and on our audience.

Masaru Himoto is a scientist who studied the molecular structure of water.  When subjects send distilled water positive thoughts like love, appreciation, happiness, and truth.  As a result the water turned into delicate crystalline shapes.

When water was sent a negative message like hatred and hostility, the water turned into chaotic fragmented structures.  Water makes up 60% of human body and 70% of human brain.  The energy and attention we send to ourselves and others has an enormous affect on our well being and our presence.  You must be attuned to your own true self.  If you are putting on persona or disguise an audience will know.   We know from recent psychology research that emotions are, in fact, contagious.

In the theater an actor with Stanislavsky training will choose an action verb – an infinitive – to be their ‘objective’ for the entire play.  Every action you take falls under that one verb.  The lead role in the movie Stand and Deliver might have an objective – to inspire.  Junah, the Matt Damon role in the dreadful golf movie The Legend of Baggar Vance might have an objective – to find my true swing.  Sandra Bullock’s character in The Blind Side might have an objective – to mentor.  So when you are presenting or leading your next meeting – what is your objective?  To inspire?  To entertain?  To enliven?

Managing Emotions

Much has been written in the psychological literature (from cognitive behavioral therapy to Peter Salovey’s work on EQ) about emotions.  Managing emotions is one of those aspects of external presence you can control.  One study had half of the participants place a pencil in between their teeth (inducing a smile) and the other half placed a pencil in between their eyebrows (inducing a frown).   The results showed that people who were induced with a smile were happier than the control group.  And participants who were induced with a frown were less happy than the control group.  People always ask me if you can ‘fake it til you make it’.  I think this work and Amy Cuddy’s work displays evidence that you can.

Power Poses

Amy Cuddy is a social science researcher from Harvard Business School.  Her famous YouTube on power poses has been viewed over three million times.  In it she discusses how she noticed that certain people in her classes were asking questions and certain students (usually the females and non-white males) were not speaking up.  She  also noticed that they had very different postures in class.  This led her to track the level of testosterone (power/strength hormone) and cortisol (stress hormone) of subjects who were in different poses.  When they were in poses hunched over an iPhone (which is what you might be doing before a job interview, for instance) they had high levels of cortisol, which made them perform more poorly in the interview.  When she had subjects spend just 2 minutes before their interview in one of a few ‘power poses’ (i.e. feet on a desk, hands on hips, arms out wide in a ‘Y’) their cortisol dropped and their testosterone shot up.  They performed much better in their interviews.  She doesn’t recommending striking the pose in the middle of the interview, however.

Keep Breathing

While there are any number of aspects of physical presence I get asked about on a regular basis (i.e. “What do I do with my hands?”) there is one that is the North Star.  If you can get your breathing correct it can cure a multitude of sins.

As you’re reading this, place your left hand on your chest and your right hand on your lower belly.  Take a few deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.  (By the way, this is the most efficient way to breathe.  Nostril breathing warms and filters the air.)  Which hand moves more?  If you said your right, you win!  We ultimately want our diaphragm to move down and push our internal organs out of the way when we inhale.  This flies in the face of all the ‘sucking it in’ we’ll most likely be doing as swimsuit weather is upon us.  In addition if you breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in, it will activate the parasympathetic nervous system and lower your heart rate.  Just what you need when the nerves kick in at the beginning of a presentation or important meeting.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Do you remember that old joke about the person on the streets of New York who asks a local how to get to Carnegie Hall?  And the sardonic New Yorker replies:  “Practice practice practice.”  I would make one edit to that – practice aloud!  I have one client who told me that she always practices her speeches a number of times but was still having issues with anxiety and feeling successful.  It took a while before I discovered that she was practicing – in her head!  So in order to cultivate a positive presence you need to think about your intention, manage your emotions, manage your emotions, strike a power pose and find centered breathing to manage anxiety.  But you also need to practice.  That’s the only way to change a habit.

en*theos International Day of Happiness Virtual Conference

Kathryn: Tell us a little bit more about the process; you said the process is very organized so that makes it kind of keep things on track. So maybe you could lead us through what happened with the Cincinnati Summit.

Shannon: Sure. So first you know there is a maybe 25 minutes of what is this principle, what’s the process of Appreciate Inquiry, what are we taking people through just to orient them, you don’t want to have more than about 30 minutes of it because then peoples energy tends to wane. What you want to do is immediately get them into one-on-one interviews. So you have people in tables of eight usually and you have them find a partner and you asked them they have a program guide in front of them and generally they are asking “you what is a high point moments you have involved in this organization? So what’s a high point moment living in Cincinnati in one of those cities?” Then a continuity question, “what’s something you want to keep?” So this city is going to change, what’s one thing special you want to keep? And then usually it’s a vision of the future question of “if anything was possible, what would you want to create?” And you have people talking and because they’re engaging with each other they are energized, they are enlivened, they are already feeling valued, they are discovering the strengths of each other and you’re also required to report back to the table for the person you’re interviewing, so you have a job to do.

Kathryn: So you’re listening?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en*theos International Day of Happiness Virtual Conference

Kathryn: Good morning Shannon, thank you for joining me here we are in celebration of world happiness day. Before we jump into your topic, Appreciative Inquiry, could you tell us a bit about yourself?

Martin Seligman with Shannon Polly

Shannon: Sure, thanks for having me Catherine. I am a positive psychology practitioner, I’m a coach, a facilitator, trainer, speaker and I live in Washington DC. I have my own consulting company call Shannon Polly and Associates and I also found an organization called Positive Business DC and our mission is to increase the tonnage of happiness starting in the nation’s Capitol, but not limited to the nation’s Capitol, so my passion is around helping individuals and organizations learn how to flourish by using training and positive psychology practices.

Kathryn: Alright thank you, so tell us a little bit about Appreciative Inquiry, those are very powerful words, what do they mean when you put them together?

Appreciative Inquiry

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kathryn: And what does MAPP stand for?

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

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

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

Kathryn: Might as well.

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

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

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

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

We wanted to give you something that would help make your life a little better next year.   Keep these things in mind when you are crafting your New Year’s Resolutions.

1. Give something away.  It makes you happier than buying something for yourself.  College students were given money to either give away or spend on themselves.  Guess which group was happier.  When we buy stuff, we always think it will make us happier, for a longer period of time, than it actually does.  Think – what did you give for the holidays versus what did you get?
2. Give an experience.  If you are going to give something away, research shows that giving someone an experience versus a thing you can hold, makes people happier.  It also makes people happier to be with others (even if you are an introvert).  For example I gave my husband a trip around a racetrack for his birthday one year.  He’s still talking about it.
3. Stop watching the news.  It’s depressing.  There is a ratio of 27:1 negative to positive news.  So no wonder you’re depressed watching it or reading about it.  You’ll find out about the important things eventually.  And with all that free time you could do something that actually makes you happier.
4. Spice Up That Date Night.  Don’t do the thing you always do – dinner and a movie.  Do something new.  Do something active.  Research shows that couples are happier when they do something novel together.
5. Fight Your Confirmation Bias.  What is that, you ask?  It’s your tendency to always confirm your own beliefs and ignore facts that don’t fit your beliefs.  For example, I will get an email and KNOW someone is upset with something.  When I consult my husband he invariably asks, “What did the email actually say?”  And he’s usually right.  Play the ‘devil’s advocate’ when there is a situation in which the facts are a bit fuzzy.
6. Manage Up.  It’s gotta be done so don’t wimp out on that conversation.  But be saavy.  Learn what makes your boss tick before you do.  Is there a way this person likes to communicate?  Phone/email/instant message?  What are this person’s strengths?  And what is the specific thing you are asking for (within reason)?  Then start with asking their perspective.  Because it’s not a conversation until you ask a question.
7. Sleep More.  This is a ‘duh’ research finding.  But Tom Rath encapsulates loads of research in his book Eat Sleep Move that you are warding off depression, processing things you’ve learned, performing better at work and at home with just a few extra Z’s.
8. Move more.  Like the above, we all know we should get more movement in our day, but did you know you can actually fight off cancer by vigorously exercising 30 minutes/day?  Not to mention people who exercise do better on academic tests.  (Read:  You’re smarter than a couch potato.)  Better than a pill, that exercising thing.
9. Plan Your Meetings Ahead of Time.  A lot of your day is spent in meetings.  We get it.  You barely have time to breathe, nonetheless have time to Google the person you are meeting with.  But in order to make your life more productive, you’ll need to plan ahead.  What topics are you going to cover?  How much time will they take?  Who is speaking to them?  Who is taking notes? Facilitating? Keeping time?  (Hint:  These last three should not all be the same person.)
10. Create a “Grati-do” list – I get stressed out just looking at all the of the things that I need to get done.  Even crossing them off doesn’t make me feel better.  I just replace that item with something else.  So in my phone, I’ve created a list that I add to with all the things I’m grateful for.  And looking back on the list when I open it makes me happy all over again.  Oh, yes, I remember when my daughter first said ‘Mama’.  It’s one list that you can add to forever.  And it helps you know what makes you happy, so you can do more of those things (i.e. being in nature, being with family, etc.)
11. Create your “To NOT do” list – I am very good at putting things on my list.  But not very good at taking them off.  And the more I add, the most stressed I get.  As the old adage goes, “Less is more.”  So go through your list and see (as Julie Morgenstern says) what you can ‘Delete, Delay, Delegate, or Diminsh.’  You’ll never be happier underachieving.
12. Vision Your Future.   Imagine yourself 5 years from now and everything is going just as you wanted it to.  Even better, actually, at work and at home.  What does it look like?  Who is with you?  Take 15 minutes to write that down and be as specific as possible.
13. Ask yourself provocative questions.  Before crafting your New Years Resolutions, try asking yourself this:  What is the smallest change you could make to your life next year (work or home) that would have the biggest impact?
14. If there is one thing you do next year to make yourself happier and more productive, it is MEDITATE.  I spoke with meditation expert Sharon Salzberg and she said the latest neuroscience research shows that all you need to change your brain is 30 minutes/week and it doesn’t have to be all at once.  “Short moments, many times.”  And check out her new book called Real Happiness at Work.

There are many lists for the new year….take a look at the ones on this list that resonate with you.  Choose one or two.  And commit to them.  Change takes about 21 days.  So try them out and let us know how it goes.

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.

I have taught resilience to business execs and Army sergeants.  And the same myths come up every time when I ask about their definition of resilience.

1. Resilient people are almost always positive & upbeat.
2. Resilient people know how to go it alone.
3. Resilient people almost never give up.
4. Resilient people tend to be perfectionists.

The reality is that resilient people experience most of the problems that non-resilient people experience. The major difference between a resilient and a non-resilient person is how quickly resilient people recover from failures and setbacks in their life.

If physical fitness is the speed with which you can recover from physical stress, resilience is the speed with which you can bounce back from psychological stress.

Resilient and truly happy people understand the meaning of “good enough”. They know when to stop and enjoy what they have achieved without being disappointed about how they can improve something even better. They use mindfulness as one of their strength to help them enjoy life as it is rather than be disappointed by the ideas that life can be even better sometime in the future.

One research study of POVs from Vietnam who were held captive for over 5 years (who did not develop PTSD) has listed the following 10 critical psychological elements and characteristics of resilience:

1. Optimism.  Those who are extremely optimistic tend to show greater resilience, which has implications for cognitive therapies that enhance a patient’s positive view of his or her options, thereby increasing optimism.
2. Altruism. Those who were resilient often found that helping others was one way to handle extreme stress, which can also be used therapeutically as a recovery tool.
3. Having a moral compass or set of beliefs that cannot be shattered.
4. Faith and spirituality. For some POWs, prayer was a daily ritual, although others were not at all involved or interested in religion.
5. Humor. Know how to reframe situations and experiences. Be able to laugh at your own self.
6. Having a role model. Many people with role models draw strength from this. for treatment, using a role model, role modeling, or helping someone discover a role model can be beneficial.
7. Social supports. Having contact with others who can be trusted, either family or friend, with whom one can share most difficult thoughts was important in recovery.
8. Facing fear (or leaving one’s comfort zone).
9. Having a mission or meaning in life.
10. Training. One can train to become a resilient person or to develop resilience by experience in meeting and overcoming challenges.  (Or in actual resilience training i.e. the Army training mentioned above.)

Update: Although not on the list, physical exercise can also help you develop psychological resilience. Physical exercise helps you improve your health, improve your brain functions, and develop the needed discipline to keep pushing forward when it hurts.

How many of these factors help YOU when going through a stressful time?  We’d love to hear your thoughts…

References:

Rosenbaum, J. & Covino, J. (2005). Stress and Resilience: Implications for Depression and Anxiety. Medscape Today.

Reivich, K. & Shatte, A. (2003). The Resilience Factor:  7 Keys for Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life’s Hurdles.

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.

But it will be worth it.  I’ve been to the first two and each time I’m learned as much as going to a graduate level course and made good connections (and gotten jobs) from/with the people I’ve met.

The IPPA website as such press worthy quotes as:  ”Presentations, workshops, and poster sessions will feature leading-edge research, as well as applications of positive psychology in a variety of fields – from business to education to medicine. Attendees will have the opportunity to discuss the latest research, insights, and ideas, and interact with other people who focus on studying what is best in life and how to create more of it. The internationally diverse audience will consist of researchers, clinicians, educators, students, business owners, coaches, consultants – anyone committed to the science and practice of positive psychology.”  Which is all true, actually.  There are a few crazies there, but most are students and consultants and wanna be consultants and some researchers.

Martin Seligman and Shannon Polly

What am I looking forward to?

While talks and discussions will cover a wide range of topics, the Congress will feature a particular emphasis on these five themes:

1. Positive Development across the Lifespan
2. Positive Environments, Sustainability, and Conservation
3. The Healthy Body and the Healthy Mind
4. Work and Well-Being
5. Creativity and Evolution

Featured speakers include Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Richard Davidson, Barbara Fredrickson, Martin Seligman (whom I’m excited to see), and anyone whose written a book you’ve seen on your way through Barnes and Noble.  (Does anyone go to bookstores anymore?)

The workshops (for which they charge a fee) fall under three categories:

• •Master Lecture Series, featuring leading scholars discussing their research
• •Research Methods Workshops, offering the opportunity to learn advanced research techniques relevant to positive psychological science
• •Applied Practice Workshops, featuring best practices for applying positive psychology in a range of disciplines

Mostly I’m looking forward to connecting with the 50+ graduates of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at UPenn (there is one in London who is a wee bit jealous of the attention we get).

I want to know what they are doing, how they are doing and what exciting things are happening in their lives.  It’s going to be one big reunion.  But I also want to branch out and meet new people.  I tell my participants that when I do my Networking courses.  And I want to learn.  I want to learn new things and ask questions because I’m curious, not because I want to look good or get noticed.  I’m going to be growth mindset this time.  And I’m going to be present.  And I’ll write some more posts about what I learn (and tweeting when I can).

How about you?  What is a situation where you can just BE this week?