Note From Jim: I’m a follower and fan of Heidi Grant Halverson’s work. Want to enhance the success of your own goal achievement or that of your teams? Embrace Nancy's advice, all of which is drawn from research. Click on the link below.
Excerpts – Nine Ways:
1. Have self-compassion
2. Think about the “Big Picture”
3. Rely on routines
4. Take five (or ten) minutes to do something you find interesting
5. Add where and when to your To Do List
6. Use if-thens for positive self-talk
7. See your work in terms of progress, not perfection
8. Think about the progress that you’ve already made
9. Know whether optimism or defensive pessimism works for you
***
Access Article And Other Great Stuff At Nancy's Website: http://www.heidigranthalvorson.com/
***
Heidi Grant Halvorson is a rising star in the field of motivational science. She is a an expert blogger for Fast Company, WSJ.com, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, as well as a regular contributor to the BBC World Service's Business Daily, the Harvard Business Review, and SmartBrief's SmartBlog on Leadership. Her writing has also been featured on CNN Living and Mamapedia.
Heidi is also Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School.
Showing posts with label Resiliency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resiliency. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Learning to Prevail: When Dreams Disappoint and Hopes Fail - Leadership Wired
Note From Jim:
Do you embrace failure in a heatlhy way? Follow John Maxwell's sage advice. Access his artcile to find out. Follow the teaser below:
By The John Maxwell Company.
Excerpts:
How should a leader respond when her dream dies? How does a leader recover when his hopes are dashed?
1) A failed dream doesn’t make you a failure.
... possess an internal self-image that’s unaffected by outcomes. People with an unhealthy view of failure personalize it, seeing the failure as a reflection of their inadequacy. Conversely, those with a healthy outlook on life externalize failure. They understand its inevitability, and they look for the lessons it brings. One mindset wallows in the emotions of failure; the other works through them in anticipation of future triumphs.
2) Even when dreams die, our purpose remains.
... you will never exhaust your capacity to grow toward your potential, nor will you run out of opportunities to help others. Your dreams may not come true, but the purpose for which you were created always endures.
3) By reflecting on our purpose, we can birth new dreams.
Peering into our life’s purpose inspires us to revise our dreams or to give birth to new ones... The specific dream I choose to follow may not work out, but I still have a purpose, and I can keep exploring new avenues to realize it.
Access Article & Blog: http://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/learning-to-prevail-when-dreams-disappoint-and-hopes-fail
Do you embrace failure in a heatlhy way? Follow John Maxwell's sage advice. Access his artcile to find out. Follow the teaser below:
By The John Maxwell Company.
Excerpts:
How should a leader respond when her dream dies? How does a leader recover when his hopes are dashed?
1) A failed dream doesn’t make you a failure.
... possess an internal self-image that’s unaffected by outcomes. People with an unhealthy view of failure personalize it, seeing the failure as a reflection of their inadequacy. Conversely, those with a healthy outlook on life externalize failure. They understand its inevitability, and they look for the lessons it brings. One mindset wallows in the emotions of failure; the other works through them in anticipation of future triumphs.
2) Even when dreams die, our purpose remains.
... you will never exhaust your capacity to grow toward your potential, nor will you run out of opportunities to help others. Your dreams may not come true, but the purpose for which you were created always endures.
3) By reflecting on our purpose, we can birth new dreams.
Peering into our life’s purpose inspires us to revise our dreams or to give birth to new ones... The specific dream I choose to follow may not work out, but I still have a purpose, and I can keep exploring new avenues to realize it.
Access Article & Blog: http://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/learning-to-prevail-when-dreams-disappoint-and-hopes-fail
"This article is used by permission from Leadership Wired, John Maxwell's premiere leadership newsletter, available for free subscription at www.johnmaxwell.com/newsletters."
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience - Peter Bregman - HBR
Note from Jim: Great and quick lessons below from Peter Bregman.
Try It. Just 10 minutes a day. Separate your self from the messages that your mind produces.
Find your self. Watch / observe your breadth. Your breathing happens unconsciously. So does your thinking.
Observe what you mind is doing… what is it that your mind is thinking and saying. Don't engage with the thoughts or the emotions they create. Just be a witness. The witness is your self, not your mind, or the thinking, the messages, and the images that your mind produces.
Best Always - Jim
-------------------
Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience
by Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/12/try-meditation-to-strengthen-y.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date
Excerpts:
One of the great gifts of meditation is that it exposes your Self. As it turns out, it's surprisingly easy to find because it's always there, watching.
Follow your breath as it goes in and out of your body without thinking about anything in particular except your breath. soon enough, you will notice that your mind is thinking about something
The person noticing those thoughts? That's you. That's your Self. Your Self just noticed "thinking".
... no matter what happens,... you'll be fine. Even though everything around you may change — how much money you have, whether you have a job, whether you're married, and so on — your Self will still be there, observing.
... even in failure, you'll be able to let the part of you that did not change as a result of the failure see what it feels like to fail. Then, when you realize your Self is still intact, you'll get up and try again.
[REPEAT] The person noticing those thoughts? That's you. That's your Self. Your Self just noticed "thinking".
You are not your thinking. You are the person watching your thinking. That little distinction is the difference between feeling your feelings and being them — and it's critically important. When you feel anger, you're in control of what you do next. When you are angry, you've lost control.
The part of you that observes your thoughts and feelings is steady and wise and trustworthy. Identifying with your stable, predictable Self makes you a stable, predictable person and leader, one who doesn't get tossed around by random events and the decisions of the people around you.
PETER BREGMAN
Peter Bregman is a strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/12/try-meditation-to-strengthen-y.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date
Try It. Just 10 minutes a day. Separate your self from the messages that your mind produces.
Find your self. Watch / observe your breadth. Your breathing happens unconsciously. So does your thinking.
Observe what you mind is doing… what is it that your mind is thinking and saying. Don't engage with the thoughts or the emotions they create. Just be a witness. The witness is your self, not your mind, or the thinking, the messages, and the images that your mind produces.
Best Always - Jim
-------------------
Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience
by Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/12/try-meditation-to-strengthen-y.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date
Excerpts:
One of the great gifts of meditation is that it exposes your Self. As it turns out, it's surprisingly easy to find because it's always there, watching.
Follow your breath as it goes in and out of your body without thinking about anything in particular except your breath. soon enough, you will notice that your mind is thinking about something
The person noticing those thoughts? That's you. That's your Self. Your Self just noticed "thinking".
... no matter what happens,... you'll be fine. Even though everything around you may change — how much money you have, whether you have a job, whether you're married, and so on — your Self will still be there, observing.
... even in failure, you'll be able to let the part of you that did not change as a result of the failure see what it feels like to fail. Then, when you realize your Self is still intact, you'll get up and try again.
[REPEAT] The person noticing those thoughts? That's you. That's your Self. Your Self just noticed "thinking".
You are not your thinking. You are the person watching your thinking. That little distinction is the difference between feeling your feelings and being them — and it's critically important. When you feel anger, you're in control of what you do next. When you are angry, you've lost control.
The part of you that observes your thoughts and feelings is steady and wise and trustworthy. Identifying with your stable, predictable Self makes you a stable, predictable person and leader, one who doesn't get tossed around by random events and the decisions of the people around you.
PETER BREGMAN
Peter Bregman is a strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/12/try-meditation-to-strengthen-y.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Talent, Passion, and the Creativity Maze - HBR
HBR Blog Network.
Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer
12:25 PM Monday February 27, 2012
by Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer
Comments (7)
We live in a world mad for talent. From Hollywood and sports to executive search firms and HR departments around the globe, everyone seeks that special mix of natural abilities and attitudes that will make performance pop. A few months ago, Douglas Conant wrote a terrific blog post on how to find talented candidates for a job. When evaluating a potential hire, Conant looks for a strong mix of three qualities — competence, character, and skill as a team player. He gives great advice on how to find such a person. But he's missing a crucial ingredient.
That ingredient, at least as important as the talent package described by Conant, is passion for the work — what psychologists call intrinsic motivation. Without it, no amount of talent will yield great performance. For 35 years, we have been exploring how motivation affects creativity. In studies involving groups as diverse as children, college students, professional artists, and knowledge workers, we have found that people are more creative when they are more strongly intrinsically motivated — driven by interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and a sense of personal challenge in the work they are doing.
Arthur Schawlow, a Nobel laureate in physics, said it eloquently: "The labor of love aspect is important. The successful scientists often are not the most talented, but the ones who are just impelled by curiosity. They've got to know what the answer is."
Intrinsically motivated people are more creative because they engage more deeply with the work. Imagine a task you have to do — say, an important marketing problem you have to solve at work — as a maze you need to get through. Most business problems have multiple solutions that would work, multiple exits from that maze. Often, there is one clear, straight path out of the maze — the standard solution that everyone uses for this type of problem. If you're extrinsically motivated, perhaps by a looming deadline or fear of a negative evaluation, you're likely to take that safe path. The solution works, but it's boring; it doesn't move things forward. But if you're intrinsically motivated, you love the hunt through the maze for a more interesting — and likely more creative — solution.
As a manager, you can leverage the link between passion and creativity by following three guidelines:
First, hire for passion as much as for talent. If you don't look for passion in the people you hire, you could end up with employees who never engage deeply enough to dazzle you with their creative productivity. As Conant advises, get to know potential hires for important positions as thoroughly as possible, long before you might have an opening for them. When you talk to them, ask why they do what they do, what disappointments they've had, what their dream job would be. Look for fire in their eyes as they talk about the work itself, and listen for a deep desire to do something that hasn't been done before. When you talk to their references, watch for mentions of passion.
Second, nourish that passion. Unfortunately, standard management approaches often (unwittingly) end up dousing passion and killing creativity. But keeping it alive isn't rocket science. We have found that the single most important thing you can do to fuel intrinsic motivation is to support people's progress in the work that they are so passionate about. This is the progress principle, and it applies even to the seemingly minor small wins that can lead to great breakthroughs. You can use the progress principle by understanding what progress and setbacks your people are experiencing day by day, getting at the root causes, and doing whatever you can to remove the inhibitors and enhance the catalysts to progress.
For example, be vigilant about whether your creative professionals have sufficient resources to make progress without a constant struggle. Give them autonomy in how to achieve a project's goals, because there's no point in hiring people with great talent if you don't let them use it. And support them in learning from both successes and failures, because talent is not a fixed quantity; it can and should grow over time. Give talented people every opportunity to develop, keeping in mind the "10,000 hour rule" cited by Malcolm Gladwell: You can't become expert enough to create an innovative breakthrough in a field unless you have put in at least 10,000 hours of practice. That kind of persistence is fueled by passion.
Finally, look to yourself. If you don't have passion for your own work, you'll end up disappointing both yourself and those who count on you. And you're unlikely to develop your own best talents. One of us, Steve, is an avid photographer of landscapes. An important mentor, the photographer Craig Tanner, has taught both of us a great deal about the connection between passion and the development of talent. In a brilliant essay on "The Myth of Talent," Craig says: "Long-term, focused, practice powered by the energy of passion [...] leads to amazing transformations. The bumbling beginner becomes the exalted expert. The trapped and depressed become the liberated and empowered."
Ask yourself: Am I liberated and empowered by passion in my work? Are the people around me?
Teresa Amabile is Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She researches what makes people creative, productive, happy, and motivated at work. Steven Kramer is a psychologist and independent researcher. They are coauthors of The Progress Principle (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011); visit its website.
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/02/talent-passion-and-the-creativ.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date
Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer
12:25 PM Monday February 27, 2012
by Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer
Comments (7)
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We live in a world mad for talent. From Hollywood and sports to executive search firms and HR departments around the globe, everyone seeks that special mix of natural abilities and attitudes that will make performance pop. A few months ago, Douglas Conant wrote a terrific blog post on how to find talented candidates for a job. When evaluating a potential hire, Conant looks for a strong mix of three qualities — competence, character, and skill as a team player. He gives great advice on how to find such a person. But he's missing a crucial ingredient.
That ingredient, at least as important as the talent package described by Conant, is passion for the work — what psychologists call intrinsic motivation. Without it, no amount of talent will yield great performance. For 35 years, we have been exploring how motivation affects creativity. In studies involving groups as diverse as children, college students, professional artists, and knowledge workers, we have found that people are more creative when they are more strongly intrinsically motivated — driven by interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and a sense of personal challenge in the work they are doing.
Arthur Schawlow, a Nobel laureate in physics, said it eloquently: "The labor of love aspect is important. The successful scientists often are not the most talented, but the ones who are just impelled by curiosity. They've got to know what the answer is."
Intrinsically motivated people are more creative because they engage more deeply with the work. Imagine a task you have to do — say, an important marketing problem you have to solve at work — as a maze you need to get through. Most business problems have multiple solutions that would work, multiple exits from that maze. Often, there is one clear, straight path out of the maze — the standard solution that everyone uses for this type of problem. If you're extrinsically motivated, perhaps by a looming deadline or fear of a negative evaluation, you're likely to take that safe path. The solution works, but it's boring; it doesn't move things forward. But if you're intrinsically motivated, you love the hunt through the maze for a more interesting — and likely more creative — solution.
As a manager, you can leverage the link between passion and creativity by following three guidelines:
First, hire for passion as much as for talent. If you don't look for passion in the people you hire, you could end up with employees who never engage deeply enough to dazzle you with their creative productivity. As Conant advises, get to know potential hires for important positions as thoroughly as possible, long before you might have an opening for them. When you talk to them, ask why they do what they do, what disappointments they've had, what their dream job would be. Look for fire in their eyes as they talk about the work itself, and listen for a deep desire to do something that hasn't been done before. When you talk to their references, watch for mentions of passion.
Second, nourish that passion. Unfortunately, standard management approaches often (unwittingly) end up dousing passion and killing creativity. But keeping it alive isn't rocket science. We have found that the single most important thing you can do to fuel intrinsic motivation is to support people's progress in the work that they are so passionate about. This is the progress principle, and it applies even to the seemingly minor small wins that can lead to great breakthroughs. You can use the progress principle by understanding what progress and setbacks your people are experiencing day by day, getting at the root causes, and doing whatever you can to remove the inhibitors and enhance the catalysts to progress.
For example, be vigilant about whether your creative professionals have sufficient resources to make progress without a constant struggle. Give them autonomy in how to achieve a project's goals, because there's no point in hiring people with great talent if you don't let them use it. And support them in learning from both successes and failures, because talent is not a fixed quantity; it can and should grow over time. Give talented people every opportunity to develop, keeping in mind the "10,000 hour rule" cited by Malcolm Gladwell: You can't become expert enough to create an innovative breakthrough in a field unless you have put in at least 10,000 hours of practice. That kind of persistence is fueled by passion.
Finally, look to yourself. If you don't have passion for your own work, you'll end up disappointing both yourself and those who count on you. And you're unlikely to develop your own best talents. One of us, Steve, is an avid photographer of landscapes. An important mentor, the photographer Craig Tanner, has taught both of us a great deal about the connection between passion and the development of talent. In a brilliant essay on "The Myth of Talent," Craig says: "Long-term, focused, practice powered by the energy of passion [...] leads to amazing transformations. The bumbling beginner becomes the exalted expert. The trapped and depressed become the liberated and empowered."
Ask yourself: Am I liberated and empowered by passion in my work? Are the people around me?
Teresa Amabile is Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She researches what makes people creative, productive, happy, and motivated at work. Steven Kramer is a psychologist and independent researcher. They are coauthors of The Progress Principle (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011); visit its website.
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/02/talent-passion-and-the-creativ.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Can Resilience be Developed? Envisia
February 5, 2012 by Ken Nowack
EXCERPTS:
Profile of Hardy Talent
Hardy talent appear to develop an ongoing commitment to maintain a lifestyle that enables them to balance the demands at work and home while remaining energized, productive and healthy.
If you are interested in seeing how resilient you are and would like a free trial of StressScan (www.getlifehub.com/stress_scan) just email me at ken@envisiaonline.com and I will be happy to set you up! Be well….
Kenneth M. Nowack, Ph.D. - President & Chief Research Officer, Co-Founder
Dr. Ken Nowack is a licensed psychologist (PSY 13758) and President & Chief Research Officer of Envisia Learning. He provides strategic vision/leadership, conceptual product design and development, research, public relations, and advanced client relations.
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://results.envisialearning.com/
EXCERPTS:
Profile of Hardy Talent
- Experience and report less work and family stress on a daily basis
- Maintain a high level of physical activity/exercise despite travel and work/family demands (e.g., work out at least 3 days a week for 60 minutes).
- Maintain heart healthy eating/nutrition habits (e.g., eat breakfast, avoid convenience food, and manage weight).
- Are non-smokers and drink alcohol in moderation (e.g., no more than 2 alcoholic drinks per day).
- Consistently maintain an adequate level of sleep and practice sound sleep hygiene (e.g., avoid building a sleep debt and get adequate sleep required to avoid being inappropriate sleepy during the day).
- Minimize hostile, impatient and aggressive behaviors towards others that are associated with eliciting the “fight or flight” response.
- Practice some type of daily mental or physical activity that elicits the “relaxation response” (e.g., meditation or yoga) reversing stress activation.
- Cultivate and utilize a strong social and professional support network by spending time with those who are satisfying to be around and avoiding those who are “energy zappers” in our life.
- Possess a hardy outlook on life including viewing change as a challenge, identifying and spending time on his/her passions and develop an external set of attributions for failures4.
- Identify and emotionally express strong feelings in writing or verbally to others on a daily basis.
- Stop obsessive thoughts that create tension and explore action plans to resolve the stressor.
- Minimize the use of defeating and perfectionist “self-talk” (e.g., constantly using the words “must” or “always”).
- Actively ruminate and express gratitude for his/her life situation
- Identify and act on his/her signature strengths to maximize career and life satisfaction.
Hardy talent appear to develop an ongoing commitment to maintain a lifestyle that enables them to balance the demands at work and home while remaining energized, productive and healthy.
If you are interested in seeing how resilient you are and would like a free trial of StressScan (www.getlifehub.com/stress_scan) just email me at ken@envisiaonline.com and I will be happy to set you up! Be well….
Kenneth M. Nowack, Ph.D. - President & Chief Research Officer, Co-Founder
Dr. Ken Nowack is a licensed psychologist (PSY 13758) and President & Chief Research Officer of Envisia Learning. He provides strategic vision/leadership, conceptual product design and development, research, public relations, and advanced client relations.
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://results.envisialearning.com/
Monday, January 30, 2012
Social Support of Bosses and Health
Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D.
Being a leader can be a lonely place. The higher you go in an organization the least likely you are to have colleagues and reports provide you with honest and candid feedback about your behavior. How many of us of heard the refrain, “another great meeting Lou” only to wander out the door muttering to ourselves just how much a waste a time the meeting actually was.
Leaders also seem to be high in self-delusion (no research has looked at how many leaders still have “imaginary friends”). In a recent study reported in Harvard Business Review, CEOs seem to have unrealistically optimistic perceptions about several aspects of their top team’s performance. In this study, CEOs reported providing significantly higher effective direction for their team or believed that team members are less interested in promoting themselves than caring more about team interests than their direct reports (Rosen, R. & Adair, F. (2007). CEOs Misperceive Top Team’s Performance. Harvard Business Review, September 2007).
What exactly do relationships at work do for talent? Do close relationships with one’s boss and colleagues have any impact on engagement and productivity? Current research suggest strong relationships with one’s boss and direct reports are associated with:
Despite the challenges and problems in both conceptualizing social support, social integration and networking by researchers and practitioners, having people in our lives to use for emotional, functional and intellectual support appears to be a protective factor in health and one that simultaneously contributes to increase productivity.
We took a look at some social support research results from our stress and health risk assessment called StressScan by analyzing availability, utility and satisfaction of social support by gender. We tested gender differences by using a statistical test called analysis of variance (ANOVA) and found some interesting differences in gender with a sample of almost 800 professional working men and women.
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://blog.lifehub.com/2011/04/social-support-of-bosses-and-health/
Access Ken's Website: http://results.envisialearning.com/
Being a leader can be a lonely place. The higher you go in an organization the least likely you are to have colleagues and reports provide you with honest and candid feedback about your behavior. How many of us of heard the refrain, “another great meeting Lou” only to wander out the door muttering to ourselves just how much a waste a time the meeting actually was.
Leaders also seem to be high in self-delusion (no research has looked at how many leaders still have “imaginary friends”). In a recent study reported in Harvard Business Review, CEOs seem to have unrealistically optimistic perceptions about several aspects of their top team’s performance. In this study, CEOs reported providing significantly higher effective direction for their team or believed that team members are less interested in promoting themselves than caring more about team interests than their direct reports (Rosen, R. & Adair, F. (2007). CEOs Misperceive Top Team’s Performance. Harvard Business Review, September 2007).
What exactly do relationships at work do for talent? Do close relationships with one’s boss and colleagues have any impact on engagement and productivity? Current research suggest strong relationships with one’s boss and direct reports are associated with:
A.Less inflammation measured as C-Reactive Protein (Suarez, E. (2004). C Reactive Protein Is Associated With Psychological Risk Factors of Cardiovascular Disease in Apparently Healthy Adults. Psychosomatic Medicine 66:684-690).In fact a recent survey of over 15,670 employees in diverse industries by Career Systems International, the third most important retention driver was having strong relationships and working with great people (42%). Only having stimulating/exciting work (48%) and having an opportunity to grow and develop (42.9%) were rated higher.
B. Enhanced immunity (Schwartz, G.E., Schwartz, J.I., Nowack, K.M., & Eichling, P.S. (1992). Changes in perceived stress and social support over time are related to changes in immune function. University of Arizona and Canyon Ranch. Unpublished manuscript).
C. Less burnout in professional working women–lower depersonalization and higher personal accomplishment (Nowack, K. and Pentkowski, A. (1994). Lifestyle habits, substance use, and predictors of job burnout in professional working women. Work and Stress, 8, 19-35).
D. Increased depression (Stroetzer, U. et al. (2006). Problematic interpersonal relationships at work and depression: A Swedish prospective cohort study. Journal of Occupational Health, 51, 144-151).
E. Enhanced job satisfaction (Simon, L., Judge, T., & Halvorsen-Ganepola, M. (2010). In good company? A multi-level investigation of the effects of coworker relationships on well-being. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76, 534-546).
F. Greater longevity and less illness during our life based on meta-analytics reviews of over 148 studies (Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB (2010) Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLoS Med 7(7): e1000316. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316).
Despite the challenges and problems in both conceptualizing social support, social integration and networking by researchers and practitioners, having people in our lives to use for emotional, functional and intellectual support appears to be a protective factor in health and one that simultaneously contributes to increase productivity.
We took a look at some social support research results from our stress and health risk assessment called StressScan by analyzing availability, utility and satisfaction of social support by gender. We tested gender differences by using a statistical test called analysis of variance (ANOVA) and found some interesting differences in gender with a sample of almost 800 professional working men and women.
A. In general, women reported greater availability and use of their social support network (supervisor/boss, colleagues/co-workers, partner, family and friends) then their male counterparts (all p’s < .01).In our statistical analysis of social support for professional men and women we were able to determine the relative amount of dissatisfaction with specific sources of social support. Men and women (N= 785) rated they were either “Not at All” or only “Slightly” satisfied with the following sources to meet their emotional and instrumental support needs:
B. Women reported using their boss or supervisor significantly more frequently then men which was surprising as research suggests that more successful women indicate that mentoring was less important to their career advancement than did less successful women.
C. Women reported significantly more availability, use and satisfaction with their friends compared to males. They also reported greater availability and use of their partners, families and friends (all p’s < .01) which is consistent to what Shelly Taylor, Ph.D. has suggested as part of the female “tend and befriend” response to coping with work and life stress (Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., & Updegraff, J. A. Behavioral Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight” Psychological Review, 107(3):41-429).
•Boss/Supervisor 31.0%Having a strong social support network and being satisfied appears to be associated with the level of stress and well-being. Men and women in our sample who reported greater overall social support also reported significantly stronger correlations with:
•Colleagues/Co-Workers 16.8%
•Family 13.0%
•Partners/Significant Others 9.9%
•Friends 8.3%
•Lower Stress ( r= .35, p < .01)Maybe the Youngbloods were right after all….”C’mon people now, Smile on your brother, Ev’rybody get together, Try and love one another right now, Right now…” Right now! Be well……
•Greater Resilience/Hardiness (r= .47, p < .01)
•Greater Happiness (r= .58, p < .01)
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://blog.lifehub.com/2011/04/social-support-of-bosses-and-health/
Access Ken's Website: http://results.envisialearning.com/
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Developing Mindful Leaders - Harvard Business Review - Polly LaBarre
HBR Blog Network.
3:32 PM Friday December 30, 2011
by Polly LaBarre
Comments (32)
Organizations invest billions annually on a success curriculum known as "leadership development," which ends up leaving so much on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs — absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit to assessment, fix a problem. Likewise, they leave too many people behind with an elite selection process that fast-tracks "hi-pos" and essentially discards the rest. And they leave most people cold with flavor of the month remedies, off sites, immersions, and excursions — which produce little more than a grim legacy of fat binders gathering dust on shelves.
What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed that they were already full of potential and created an environment that promoted their long-term well-being?
In other words, what if cultivating a successful inner life was front and center on the leadership agenda?
That was the question Todd Pierce asked himself in 2006 after years of experimenting with the full menu of trainings, meetings, and competency models in his capacity as CIO of biotechnology giant Genentech. He had just scoured the development reports of some 700 individuals in the IT department and found that "not one of them had an ounce of inspiration. I remember sitting there and saying, 'There's got to be a another way.'"
At the time, Pierce was benefiting personally from work with a personal coach and had recently woken up to the power of the practice of mindfulness. He called in a kindred soul, Pamela Weiss, a long-time executive coach and meditation teacher, to help design an experiment that would cast out the traditional approach to leadership development to focus instead on helping people grow.
"If you want to transform an organization it's not about changing systems and processes so much as it's about changing the hearts and minds of people," says Weiss. "Mindfulness is one of the all-time most brilliant technologies for helping to alleviate human suffering and for bringing out our extraordinary potential as human beings."
Pierce and Weiss distilled a set of principles that form the basis of what became the "Personal Excellence Program" (PEP), now heading into its sixth year inside Genentech (Pierce left the company this fall after 11 years to join salesforce.com). Together, these pillars offer up a short course in unleashing human capability, resilience, compassion, and well-being (and they're unpacked in even more detail in Weiss and Pierce's entry).
As PEP heads into its sixth year at Genentech, some 800 people have participated in the program. (Weiss added a graduate curriculum and a student training program to create "PEPtators" as few people want the journey to end.) The impact has been nothing short of transformative for individuals and organization alike. When Pierce took over the IT department in 2002, its employee satisfaction scores were at rock bottom; four years into the program, the department ranked second in the company and is now consistently ranked among the best places to work in IT In the world (even in the wake of Genentech's 2009 merger with Roche Group — always a turbulent and dispiriting experience).
Pierce attributes that to "the emotional intelligence of people and the capacity to change" developed in PEP. But don't take his word for it. The data-obsessed Pierce commissioned a third path impact report on PEP. It came in glowing: 10-20% increase in employee satisfaction, 50% increase in employee collaboration, conflict management, and communication; 12% increase in customer satisfaction; and nearly three times the normal business impact.
"Through PEP we have created a smarter, more agile, and more responsive organization," says Pierce. "The reduction of suffering, the capacity to deal with difficulties, the level of engagement — these things are very powerful and you can't call a meeting to get them or give people stock options and have them. These are skills and qualities you have to cultivate and practice."
So how's this for a new year's resolution for hard-charging leaders: turn every ringing, pinging, tweeting, and blinking thing off — especially your mind — and just breathe.
Polly LaBarre is the Editorial Director of the Management Innovation eXchange.
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/developing_mindful_leaders.html
3:32 PM Friday December 30, 2011
by Polly LaBarre
Comments (32)
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Organizations invest billions annually on a success curriculum known as "leadership development," which ends up leaving so much on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs — absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit to assessment, fix a problem. Likewise, they leave too many people behind with an elite selection process that fast-tracks "hi-pos" and essentially discards the rest. And they leave most people cold with flavor of the month remedies, off sites, immersions, and excursions — which produce little more than a grim legacy of fat binders gathering dust on shelves.
What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed that they were already full of potential and created an environment that promoted their long-term well-being?
In other words, what if cultivating a successful inner life was front and center on the leadership agenda?
That was the question Todd Pierce asked himself in 2006 after years of experimenting with the full menu of trainings, meetings, and competency models in his capacity as CIO of biotechnology giant Genentech. He had just scoured the development reports of some 700 individuals in the IT department and found that "not one of them had an ounce of inspiration. I remember sitting there and saying, 'There's got to be a another way.'"
At the time, Pierce was benefiting personally from work with a personal coach and had recently woken up to the power of the practice of mindfulness. He called in a kindred soul, Pamela Weiss, a long-time executive coach and meditation teacher, to help design an experiment that would cast out the traditional approach to leadership development to focus instead on helping people grow.
"If you want to transform an organization it's not about changing systems and processes so much as it's about changing the hearts and minds of people," says Weiss. "Mindfulness is one of the all-time most brilliant technologies for helping to alleviate human suffering and for bringing out our extraordinary potential as human beings."
Pierce and Weiss distilled a set of principles that form the basis of what became the "Personal Excellence Program" (PEP), now heading into its sixth year inside Genentech (Pierce left the company this fall after 11 years to join salesforce.com). Together, these pillars offer up a short course in unleashing human capability, resilience, compassion, and well-being (and they're unpacked in even more detail in Weiss and Pierce's entry).
1. Developing people is a process — not an event. "Development is all too often considered a one-time event," says Weiss. She and Pierce designed PEP as a ten-month-long journey that unfolds in three phases, with big group meetings, regular small group sessions, individual coaching, peer coaching, and structured solo practice.
2. People don't grow from the neck up. Too much training focuses on the the mind — it's about transferring content. "We talk about the head, the heart, and the body," says Weiss. In fact, they do more than talk about it — they enact it every day at the start of every meeting. The "3-center check in" is the gateway drug to mindfulness. As Weiss describes it: "You close your eyes for a moment and you notice, 'What am I thinking — what's happening in my head center,' then you notice, 'What am I feeling — what's happening in my heart center.' then, 'What am I feeling — what's happening in my body.' It's a way in which people start paying attention and practicing mindfulness without ever practicing meditation."
3. Put mindfulness at the center (but don't call it that!). Weiss and her team were careful to keep the language of specific belief systems and religions out of PEP. The program revolves around three phases: reflection on and selection of a specific quality or capacity you want to work on (patience, decisiveness, courage); three months of cultivating the capacity for self-observation; and the hard work of turning insight into deliberate, dedicated, daily practice.
4. It's hard to grow alone. "People grow best in community," says Weiss. "People don't grow as well just reading a book, getting an online training, or just taking in information. There's an exponential impact in having people grow and learn together." That's why the PEP "pod" (small 6-8 person group) is the main vehicle throughout the year.
5. Everybody deserves to grow. Pierce felt strongly that PEP should be available to people across the board — not just the usual "stars" — and that it should be voluntary. "The program is by application and not declaration," he says.
As PEP heads into its sixth year at Genentech, some 800 people have participated in the program. (Weiss added a graduate curriculum and a student training program to create "PEPtators" as few people want the journey to end.) The impact has been nothing short of transformative for individuals and organization alike. When Pierce took over the IT department in 2002, its employee satisfaction scores were at rock bottom; four years into the program, the department ranked second in the company and is now consistently ranked among the best places to work in IT In the world (even in the wake of Genentech's 2009 merger with Roche Group — always a turbulent and dispiriting experience).
Pierce attributes that to "the emotional intelligence of people and the capacity to change" developed in PEP. But don't take his word for it. The data-obsessed Pierce commissioned a third path impact report on PEP. It came in glowing: 10-20% increase in employee satisfaction, 50% increase in employee collaboration, conflict management, and communication; 12% increase in customer satisfaction; and nearly three times the normal business impact.
"Through PEP we have created a smarter, more agile, and more responsive organization," says Pierce. "The reduction of suffering, the capacity to deal with difficulties, the level of engagement — these things are very powerful and you can't call a meeting to get them or give people stock options and have them. These are skills and qualities you have to cultivate and practice."
So how's this for a new year's resolution for hard-charging leaders: turn every ringing, pinging, tweeting, and blinking thing off — especially your mind — and just breathe.
Polly LaBarre is the Editorial Director of the Management Innovation eXchange.
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/developing_mindful_leaders.html
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Don't Give Up - Nilofer Merchant - Harvard Business Review
Life is full of twists and turns and it is sometimes easy to get sick of the many gyrations that are needed to make a business thrive, a project launch, or even to get internal signoff in some bureaucratic version of the Hokey Pokey.
It would be so easy to quit.
But a part of you knows that many a failure turns into the big success story. In start-up land, Air B&B notably went for 4 years with scraping the barrel kind of funding and just recently received $112 million. Most people don't remember how dire the Apple situation was in 1997 when Steve Jobs returned. A share of Apple back then would buy you a cup of coffee; now it'll get you a nice bottle of Opus One from, say, 1987.
Business is full of stories of perseverance and pursuit — of the almost-failed hero who didn't quit when times were dark. Those stories admonish quitters, and honor the survivors. I should know. I am both.
My dark night literally came in a late evening 1987, when I was attacked by a serial rapist (I was #24 in a long string of crimes, I came to learn later) as I walked home alone to my rented room after a college study session at Denny's restaurant. After the attack, I spent hours with the police capturing details, viewing a police lineup, and visiting the ER to do the rape kit and get sutures for a knife wound.
There were moments in the middle of that night when I thought about quitting. By this time in my life, I had already experienced enough child protective services, enough violence, enough sadness, and enough battles to last many lifetimes. Until that point, I had believed that these struggles were escapable. But the terrorizing thoughts that ran through my mind that night were that I was somehow doomed to this kind of existence. That I must have deserved this. That it was a punishment from God for being disrespectful to my family in even trying to escape. The terror was that I must have done something to bring this on.
If there is such a thing as hell, I am convinced it feels just like that night when a fire of ugly thoughts burns you up from the inside. I admit that I wanted to give up on my life, to end it then because I didn't want to face the shame. I didn't think my friends would want to know me. I didn't think I had the strength to face the pain that would surely follow as the incident took its course through the justice system, interminable counseling sessions, and vivid night terrors. But I did fight. I fought for my dignity. I fought for strength, and I fought for the love-filled life that I experience today. If I had given up, I would not be here to experience any of today's joys, probably the most precious of which is my relationship with my husband and son.
I could have shared a professional business story because I have those too, but it is the visceral nature of our darkest moments I want us to connect to. The desire to quit never comes on a sailboat, feeling the wind on your face, during long hikes in the mountains, or after joyous mountain bike summits. It's not those puppies and sunshine moments that test us. It is when we feel lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted that we feel the desire to quit. Wanting to quit comes when you are tired of the fight and sick of being beaten down in the darkest times of suffering and loss. It's when we can't raise funds and we will be forced to shut our doors. It is when we find out we were betrayed by a fellow founder. It's when a product that needs to work isn't living up to its promise and the marketplace is beating the crap out of the company. It's when we don't know if we'll have another client and we don't know how we'll feed our families. These relentless fears crowd in on us, taking up space. We need something to break our way our way, but instead just the opposite happens — we feel more trapped than ever. That's when the desire to quit floods in.
While I am a survivor, I am also a quitter. In 2010, I shut down my strategy consulting company. I just wasn't able to find a way for it work without a level of persistent attention and energy that had become unsustainable. What had once been inspiring and challenging had become a grind; it was sapping me of my energy. After 11 years of building it, I did what seemed to others a sudden about-face and quit. Colleagues, clients, friends almost universally thought I had lost my mind. I was told I had failed, and I heard that people said to one another that I lacked courage. Hmmph. I mean really. Hmmph.
Life is full of twists and turns. But it also has straight stretches of open road. As each one of us has to learn for ourselves, failure can lead us to a new place. Many times that means sticking it out, pushing through, and yet, sometimes that means putting the thing down. Perseverance is needed in life to be successful, and it is wisdom that lets us know when enough is enough. Sometimes, to get where you're going, you first have to leave where you've been.
If I hadn't put down Rubicon, I know I would still be doing that one thing. All. The. Time. And many people I respected pointed me back to the consulting life because I had proven to be successful at it. As if what I'd done up to this point defined all of what is possible in the future. But a part of me imagined there could be a different way to contribute my domain expertise, and passion for igniting cultures of innovation. And this is key; I imagined it before it was true. I had no proof that I would find a new outlet to use my abilities. That is until this week, when I joined the Board of Directors of EPAX, a NASDAQ-traded education company.
And so sometimes quitting lets us create space to create the next thing. My career wasn't going to be over just because I didn't stick to the firm I had started, and built and led for 11 years.
While your story of wanting to quit will certainly differ from mine, I want to share this: just because you stop doing something doesn't mean you are quitting. Sometimes it's bravery to know it's time to stop and walk away. Experiencing failure isn't the same thing as failing. Letting go doesn't mean you're giving up. And stopping isn't quitting; it is just a pause that lets you sort out where you'll turn next. In our black-and-white, win-or-lose society, we admonish quitters and we celebrate survivors. But life is more nuanced than that.
When might it be your time to "quit"? I can't answer that for you, but I can give you this as a guideline: You can quit things like businesses or projects if you know they are merely one means to your passion. You know if you've done your very best to make it work. But what you can't quit is fighting for your purpose, and living, and finding new, more effective ways to bring forth your passions in the world. We can quit things, but what we can't quit is fighting for our dreams.
Nilofer Merchant - Nilofer Merchant (http://www.nilofermerchant.com/) is a corporate director and a speaker on igniting cultures of innovation. Read her book The New How at your peril, for it will change the way you look up and down your organization's hierarchy. You can find her on Twitter at @nilofer.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Why Your Passion for Work Could Ruin Your Career - Scott Barry Kaufman - Harvard Business Review
10:41 AM Tuesday August 2, 2011
by Scott Barry Kaufman Comments (24)
by Scott Barry Kaufman Comments (24)
Every business wants workers who passionately love their work. And for good reason: workers who are inspired are more productive, and passion can provide the energy necessary to fuel engagement, amidst obstacles and setbacks. But while passion seems clearly desirable, recent psychological research suggests that not all forms are adaptive. In fact, some forms can be downright detrimental.
According to Robert J. Vallerand's Dualistic Model of Passion, passion has two main flavors: [1] harmonious and [2] obsessive. Those with harmonious passion engage in their work because it brings them intrinsic joy. They have a sense of control of their work, and their work is in harmony with their other activities in life. At the same time, they know when to disengage, and are better at turning off the work switch when they wish to enjoy other activities or when further engagement becomes too risky. As a result, their work doesn't conflict with the other areas of their lives. When they are at the opera, for instance, or spending time with their children, they aren't constantly thinking of work, and they don't report feeling guilty that they aren't working. Questionnaire items measuring harmonious passion include: "This activity reflects the qualities I like about myself", "This activity is in harmony with the other activities in my life," and "For me it is a passion that I still manage to control."
Obsessive passion is a different story. Like those with harmonious passion, those with obsessive passion perceive their work as representing a passion for them, and view their work as highly valued. A major difference is that they have an uncontrollable urge to engage in their work. As a result, they report feeling more conflict between their passion and the other activities in their life. Questionnaire items measuring obsessive passion include: "The urge is so strong. I can't help myself from doing this activity," "I am emotionally dependent on this activity," and "My mood depends on me being able to do this activity."
Both forms of passion are associated with very different outcomes. Harmonious passion is associated with higher levels of physical health, psychological well-being, self-reported self-esteem, positive emotions, creativity, concentration, flow, work satisfaction, and increased congruence with other areas of one's life. These effects spill over into other areas. Because people with harmonious passion can actively disengage from work and experience other parts of their lives, they report general positive affect over time.
In contrast, those with obsessive passion display higher levels of negative affect over time and display more maladaptive behaviors. They report higher levels of negative affect during and after activity engagement; they can hardly ever stop thinking about their work, and they get quite frustrated when they are prevented from working. They also persist when it's risky to do so (just like a pathological gambler). A reason for this is that their work forms a very large part of their self-concept. To protect their selves, they display more self-protective behaviors, such as aggression, especially when their identity is threatened. Those with obsessive passion also have a more negative image of themselves, being quicker to pair the word "unpleasant" with "self" than those showing lower levels of obsessive passion. This suggests that their persistence doesn't come from a place of intrinsic joy, but an unstable ego.
These differences have implications for work burnout. A recent study investigated burnout (measured by emotional exhaustion) in two samples of nurses over a six-month period, across two different countries. Obsessive passion increased the chances of burnout while harmonious passion helped protect against burnout. The researchers identified some key factors explaining this relationship. Obsessive passion was associated with higher conflict with other life tasks and was unrelated to work satisfaction, while harmonious passion was associated with lower conflict, and higher work satisfaction. Importantly, these effects held even after controlling for the number of hours worked. People with harmonious passion come to work refreshed and ready to tackle new problems, whereas those with obsessive passion are at much higher risk of experiencing burnout.
But isn't persistence a good thing? Many great works appear to have come about due to an obsessive focus on work to the exclusion of all else. The research suggests this may be a myth. It's important to distinguish between flexible and rigid forms of persistence. Those with obsessive passion rigidly persist even when it's no longer sensible to do so. Those with harmonious passion are much more flexible, and are ultimately more successful. This may explain why so many child prodigies fizzle out later in life — regardless of their talent. By being obsessively attached their domain, they are increasing their chances of burning out.
According to Robert J. Vallerand's Dualistic Model of Passion, passion has two main flavors: [1] harmonious and [2] obsessive. Those with harmonious passion engage in their work because it brings them intrinsic joy. They have a sense of control of their work, and their work is in harmony with their other activities in life. At the same time, they know when to disengage, and are better at turning off the work switch when they wish to enjoy other activities or when further engagement becomes too risky. As a result, their work doesn't conflict with the other areas of their lives. When they are at the opera, for instance, or spending time with their children, they aren't constantly thinking of work, and they don't report feeling guilty that they aren't working. Questionnaire items measuring harmonious passion include: "This activity reflects the qualities I like about myself", "This activity is in harmony with the other activities in my life," and "For me it is a passion that I still manage to control."
Obsessive passion is a different story. Like those with harmonious passion, those with obsessive passion perceive their work as representing a passion for them, and view their work as highly valued. A major difference is that they have an uncontrollable urge to engage in their work. As a result, they report feeling more conflict between their passion and the other activities in their life. Questionnaire items measuring obsessive passion include: "The urge is so strong. I can't help myself from doing this activity," "I am emotionally dependent on this activity," and "My mood depends on me being able to do this activity."
Both forms of passion are associated with very different outcomes. Harmonious passion is associated with higher levels of physical health, psychological well-being, self-reported self-esteem, positive emotions, creativity, concentration, flow, work satisfaction, and increased congruence with other areas of one's life. These effects spill over into other areas. Because people with harmonious passion can actively disengage from work and experience other parts of their lives, they report general positive affect over time.
In contrast, those with obsessive passion display higher levels of negative affect over time and display more maladaptive behaviors. They report higher levels of negative affect during and after activity engagement; they can hardly ever stop thinking about their work, and they get quite frustrated when they are prevented from working. They also persist when it's risky to do so (just like a pathological gambler). A reason for this is that their work forms a very large part of their self-concept. To protect their selves, they display more self-protective behaviors, such as aggression, especially when their identity is threatened. Those with obsessive passion also have a more negative image of themselves, being quicker to pair the word "unpleasant" with "self" than those showing lower levels of obsessive passion. This suggests that their persistence doesn't come from a place of intrinsic joy, but an unstable ego.
These differences have implications for work burnout. A recent study investigated burnout (measured by emotional exhaustion) in two samples of nurses over a six-month period, across two different countries. Obsessive passion increased the chances of burnout while harmonious passion helped protect against burnout. The researchers identified some key factors explaining this relationship. Obsessive passion was associated with higher conflict with other life tasks and was unrelated to work satisfaction, while harmonious passion was associated with lower conflict, and higher work satisfaction. Importantly, these effects held even after controlling for the number of hours worked. People with harmonious passion come to work refreshed and ready to tackle new problems, whereas those with obsessive passion are at much higher risk of experiencing burnout.
But isn't persistence a good thing? Many great works appear to have come about due to an obsessive focus on work to the exclusion of all else. The research suggests this may be a myth. It's important to distinguish between flexible and rigid forms of persistence. Those with obsessive passion rigidly persist even when it's no longer sensible to do so. Those with harmonious passion are much more flexible, and are ultimately more successful. This may explain why so many child prodigies fizzle out later in life — regardless of their talent. By being obsessively attached their domain, they are increasing their chances of burning out.
In sum, the type of passion one has matters. Not just for work, but for many other areas of life. What kind of you passion do you have? Do you gain intrinsic satisfaction from your work, or do you feel as though you are constantly working to prove things to others? Do you feel a compulsive need to work or are you easily able to disengage and enjoy other interests in life? Managers: what kind of passion are you getting out of your workers? Don't be fooled by hard workers. Some may be on the verge on burnout.
Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist and personality psychologist. He's an an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University.
Follow him on twitter @sbkaufman.
Follow him on twitter @sbkaufman.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
A Roadmap to a Life that Matters - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review
So, are you psyched for the new Harry Potter movie? Like you, your kids, and approximately 99% of humanity, I confess: I too am captivated by the thought of a magical world where diligently memorized incantations can grant thunderous powers beyond the reach of mortals. "Accio, job growth!"
If only it were that easy. In our messy muggle world, there are no magic formulas. So, while many of you have been asking me for a roadmap to prosperity — and I've tried to offer a blueprint of a better kind of business — it might be that, despite what late-night infomercials and endless banner ads suggest, there's probably no framework you can pick up off the shelf, pay a few bucks for, do a little dance around, and (voila!) prosper. The plain fact is that great achievement, deep fulfillment, lasting relationships, or any other aspects of an unquenchably, relentlessly well lived life aren't formulaically executable or neatly quantifiable. First and foremost, they're searingly, and deeply personally, meaningful. The inconvenient truth is: you'll probably have to not just blaze your own trail — you'll also probably have to plot your own map for own journey.
So while I can't offer a roadmap, I can try and give you a pen and protractor instead to help you begin to create your own:
Put what, why, and who you love ahead of what, why, and who you don't, and your roadmap will begin to write itself.
Now, my little principle might cause those with hand-made suits and beancounterly tendencies to leap out of their chairs and hit me with the tarantallegra jinx. But even the cynics might be willing to admit: given a mysteriously non-recovering "recovery" for a global economy perpetually poised on the brink of perma-crisis, the status quo's out of ideas, out of options, and running out of time.
In an economy dedicated to the pursuit of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier, the greatest hidden cost and unintended consequence is that something vital, enduring, resonant, and animating has gone missing from our lives — and it might just be the biggest thing: meaning in what we do, and why we're here.
More, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier has built an economy that might just be in furious pursuit of mediocrity. Five hundred channels and nothing on, corporations whose behavior plunges past merely unethical, or criminal, to sociopathic, big box stores larger than an airplane hangars, billions of dreary, me-too, not-so-great "goods" that fail to inspire, not enough McJobs to go around, financial markets that are more deft at blowing up scarce resources than at allocating them.
So what went wrong with our path to prosperity? I'd suggest: our economy might be in pursuit of mediocrity because too many of us put what, why, and who makes us want to go into a fetal crouch, plug our ears, and bang our foreheads against our knees above, beyond, and before what, why, and who we love.
There's no magic formula for a life well lived, but my humble suggestion is that the above is probably the polar opposite: a surefire recipe for a life poorly lived, for intellectual, relational, social, ethical, and creative stagnation. Hence, what's stagnating not just our economy — but our human potential. Too many of us (and some have argued, the best and brightest among us) are trained from birth to be — and rewarded with each bonus to remain — what economists call "rent-seekers," experts at squabbling over (and winning) the last stale morsels of yesterday's fading industrial age harvests, the mere mechanics and advocates of wealth extraction, instead of value creators, the architects and master builders, dreamers and doers, theorists and practitioners of the art of great human accomplishment.
Hence, I'd suggest: my tiny principle might not just a disposable epigram, but a diagnosis for dysfunction — and a challenge to all of you. The pursuit of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier too often seems to demand putting what, why, and who we love at the end of the list, the underworld of the inbox, the bottom of the heap. That's a recipe for stagnation, whether for people, communities, cities, countries, or the globe. But the converse might just hold, too: if nations and corporations want to punch past the glass ceiling of mere opulence, to what I call eudaimonic prosperity — lives that are meaningfully well lived — well, then people might just have to begin by making if not radically, then at least marginally more meaningful choices themselves.
Here's what my little principle doesn't mean: immediate, lowest-common-denominator self-gratification. That, for example, since you "love" Jersey Shore, you should spend all day, every day GTLing harder than the last. Sorry, lotus eaters. Instead, what it suggests is that if you "love" GTL [Gym, Tan, Laundry] that much, then, well, your roadmap might be clear. Whatever the method to your madness, whether inventing a better tanning bed, perfecting a better workout, or devising less water-intensive laundry, the authenticity principle says: don't just mutely "consume" it — live it. Better it, reimagine it, blow the doors off it, and don't stop until you're within shouting distance of the point that it matters to the future of humanity.
If only it were that easy. In our messy muggle world, there are no magic formulas. So, while many of you have been asking me for a roadmap to prosperity — and I've tried to offer a blueprint of a better kind of business — it might be that, despite what late-night infomercials and endless banner ads suggest, there's probably no framework you can pick up off the shelf, pay a few bucks for, do a little dance around, and (voila!) prosper. The plain fact is that great achievement, deep fulfillment, lasting relationships, or any other aspects of an unquenchably, relentlessly well lived life aren't formulaically executable or neatly quantifiable. First and foremost, they're searingly, and deeply personally, meaningful. The inconvenient truth is: you'll probably have to not just blaze your own trail — you'll also probably have to plot your own map for own journey.
So while I can't offer a roadmap, I can try and give you a pen and protractor instead to help you begin to create your own:
Put what, why, and who you love ahead of what, why, and who you don't, and your roadmap will begin to write itself.
Now, my little principle might cause those with hand-made suits and beancounterly tendencies to leap out of their chairs and hit me with the tarantallegra jinx. But even the cynics might be willing to admit: given a mysteriously non-recovering "recovery" for a global economy perpetually poised on the brink of perma-crisis, the status quo's out of ideas, out of options, and running out of time.
In an economy dedicated to the pursuit of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier, the greatest hidden cost and unintended consequence is that something vital, enduring, resonant, and animating has gone missing from our lives — and it might just be the biggest thing: meaning in what we do, and why we're here.
More, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier has built an economy that might just be in furious pursuit of mediocrity. Five hundred channels and nothing on, corporations whose behavior plunges past merely unethical, or criminal, to sociopathic, big box stores larger than an airplane hangars, billions of dreary, me-too, not-so-great "goods" that fail to inspire, not enough McJobs to go around, financial markets that are more deft at blowing up scarce resources than at allocating them.
So what went wrong with our path to prosperity? I'd suggest: our economy might be in pursuit of mediocrity because too many of us put what, why, and who makes us want to go into a fetal crouch, plug our ears, and bang our foreheads against our knees above, beyond, and before what, why, and who we love.
There's no magic formula for a life well lived, but my humble suggestion is that the above is probably the polar opposite: a surefire recipe for a life poorly lived, for intellectual, relational, social, ethical, and creative stagnation. Hence, what's stagnating not just our economy — but our human potential. Too many of us (and some have argued, the best and brightest among us) are trained from birth to be — and rewarded with each bonus to remain — what economists call "rent-seekers," experts at squabbling over (and winning) the last stale morsels of yesterday's fading industrial age harvests, the mere mechanics and advocates of wealth extraction, instead of value creators, the architects and master builders, dreamers and doers, theorists and practitioners of the art of great human accomplishment.
Hence, I'd suggest: my tiny principle might not just a disposable epigram, but a diagnosis for dysfunction — and a challenge to all of you. The pursuit of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier too often seems to demand putting what, why, and who we love at the end of the list, the underworld of the inbox, the bottom of the heap. That's a recipe for stagnation, whether for people, communities, cities, countries, or the globe. But the converse might just hold, too: if nations and corporations want to punch past the glass ceiling of mere opulence, to what I call eudaimonic prosperity — lives that are meaningfully well lived — well, then people might just have to begin by making if not radically, then at least marginally more meaningful choices themselves.
Here's what my little principle doesn't mean: immediate, lowest-common-denominator self-gratification. That, for example, since you "love" Jersey Shore, you should spend all day, every day GTLing harder than the last. Sorry, lotus eaters. Instead, what it suggests is that if you "love" GTL [Gym, Tan, Laundry] that much, then, well, your roadmap might be clear. Whatever the method to your madness, whether inventing a better tanning bed, perfecting a better workout, or devising less water-intensive laundry, the authenticity principle says: don't just mutely "consume" it — live it. Better it, reimagine it, blow the doors off it, and don't stop until you're within shouting distance of the point that it matters to the future of humanity.
The roadmap you need to follow is deeply, resonantly, profoundly, and irrevocably your own — the one that calls to you in every dreary meeting, every missed birthday, and every misplaced-but-not-quite-forgotten dream. It's the one that leads you to your better self. It says: "Follow my lead. Let's go somewhere that matters — not just somewhere that glitters."
Umair Haque is Director of the Havas Media Lab and author of The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business. He also founded Bubblegeneration, an agenda-setting advisory boutique that shaped strategies across media and consumer industries.
Access Content Source, Embedded Article Links, And Other Great Stuff: http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/07/a_roadmap_to_a_life_that.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Realistic Optimists VS Unrealistic Optimists- Be an Optimist Without Being a Fool - Heidi Grant Halvorson - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review
Be an Optimist Without Being a Fool - Heidi Grant Halvorson - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
Harvard Business Review
Realistic Optimists VS Unrealistic Optimists
Be an Optimist Without Being a Fool
There are quite a number of motivational speakers and self-improvement books out there with a surprisingly simple message: believe that success will come easily to you, and it will. There is one small problem in this argument, however, which unfortunately doesn't seem to stop anyone from making it: it is utterly false.
In fact, not only is visualizing "effortless success" unhelpful, it is disastrous. This is good advice to give only if you are trying to sabotage the recipient. It is a recipe for failure. And no, I'm not overstating it.
But how can this be? Isn't optimism a good thing? Yes it is. Optimism and the confidence it creates are essential for creating and sustaining the motivation you need to reach your goals. Albert Bandura, one of the founding fathers of scientific psychology, discovered decades ago that perhaps the best predictor of an individual's success is whether or not they believe they will succeed. Thousands and thousands of experiments later, he has yet to be proven wrong.
But there is an important caveat: to be successful, you need to understand the vital difference between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily. Put another way, it's the difference between being a realistic optimist and an unrealistic optimist.
Realistic optimists (the kind Bandura was talking about) believe they will succeed, but also believe they have to make success happen — through things like effort, careful planning, persistence, and choosing the right strategies. They recognize the need for giving serious thought to how they will deal with obstacles. This preparation only increases their confidence in their own ability to get things done.
Unrealistic optimists, on the other hand, believe that success will happen to them — that the universe will reward them for all their positive thinking, or that somehow they will be transformed overnight into the kind of person for whom obstacles cease to exist. (Forgetting that even Superman had Kryptonite. And a secret identity that took a lot of trouble to maintain. And also relationship issues.)
One of the clearest illustrations of the dangers of unrealistic optimism comes from a study of weight loss. Psychologist Gabriele Oettingen asked a group of obese women who had enrolled in a weight-loss program how likely they felt they were to reach their goals. She found that those women who were confident that they would succeed lost 26 pounds more than self-doubters, as expected.
But Oettingen also asked the women to tell her what they imagined their road to success would be like — if they thought they would have a hard time resisting temptation, or if they'd have no problem turning down free doughnuts in the conference room and a second trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet. The results were astounding: women who believed they would succeed easily lost 24 pounds less than those who thought their weight-loss journey would be no walk in the park.
She has found the same pattern of results in studies of students looking for high-paying jobs after college, singles looking to find lasting love, and seniors recovering from hip replacement surgery. Realistic optimists send out more job applications, find the courage to approach potential romantic partners, and work harder on their rehabilitation exercises — in each case, leading to much higher success rates.
Believing that the road to success will be rocky leads to greater success because it forces you to take action. People who are confident that they will succeed, and equally confident that success won't come easily, put in more effort, plan how they'll deal with problems before they arise, and persist longer in the face of difficulty.
Unrealistic optimists are only too happy to tell you that you are "being negative" when you dare to express concerns, harbor reservations, or dwell too long on obstacles that stand in the way of your goal. In truth, this kind of thinking is a necessary step in any successful endeavor, and it is not at all antithetical to confident optimism. Focusing only on what we want, to the exclusion of everything else, is just the kind of naïve and reckless thinking that has landed industry leaders (and at times entire industries) in hot water.
Cultivate your realistic optimism by combining a positive attitude with an honest assessment of the challenges that await you. Don't visualize success — visualize the steps you will take in order to make success happen.
Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be found at http://www.heidigranthalvorson.com/. Follow her on Twitter @hghalvorson
In fact, not only is visualizing "effortless success" unhelpful, it is disastrous. This is good advice to give only if you are trying to sabotage the recipient. It is a recipe for failure. And no, I'm not overstating it.
But how can this be? Isn't optimism a good thing? Yes it is. Optimism and the confidence it creates are essential for creating and sustaining the motivation you need to reach your goals. Albert Bandura, one of the founding fathers of scientific psychology, discovered decades ago that perhaps the best predictor of an individual's success is whether or not they believe they will succeed. Thousands and thousands of experiments later, he has yet to be proven wrong.
But there is an important caveat: to be successful, you need to understand the vital difference between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily. Put another way, it's the difference between being a realistic optimist and an unrealistic optimist.
Realistic optimists (the kind Bandura was talking about) believe they will succeed, but also believe they have to make success happen — through things like effort, careful planning, persistence, and choosing the right strategies. They recognize the need for giving serious thought to how they will deal with obstacles. This preparation only increases their confidence in their own ability to get things done.
Unrealistic optimists, on the other hand, believe that success will happen to them — that the universe will reward them for all their positive thinking, or that somehow they will be transformed overnight into the kind of person for whom obstacles cease to exist. (Forgetting that even Superman had Kryptonite. And a secret identity that took a lot of trouble to maintain. And also relationship issues.)
One of the clearest illustrations of the dangers of unrealistic optimism comes from a study of weight loss. Psychologist Gabriele Oettingen asked a group of obese women who had enrolled in a weight-loss program how likely they felt they were to reach their goals. She found that those women who were confident that they would succeed lost 26 pounds more than self-doubters, as expected.
But Oettingen also asked the women to tell her what they imagined their road to success would be like — if they thought they would have a hard time resisting temptation, or if they'd have no problem turning down free doughnuts in the conference room and a second trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet. The results were astounding: women who believed they would succeed easily lost 24 pounds less than those who thought their weight-loss journey would be no walk in the park.
She has found the same pattern of results in studies of students looking for high-paying jobs after college, singles looking to find lasting love, and seniors recovering from hip replacement surgery. Realistic optimists send out more job applications, find the courage to approach potential romantic partners, and work harder on their rehabilitation exercises — in each case, leading to much higher success rates.
Believing that the road to success will be rocky leads to greater success because it forces you to take action. People who are confident that they will succeed, and equally confident that success won't come easily, put in more effort, plan how they'll deal with problems before they arise, and persist longer in the face of difficulty.
Unrealistic optimists are only too happy to tell you that you are "being negative" when you dare to express concerns, harbor reservations, or dwell too long on obstacles that stand in the way of your goal. In truth, this kind of thinking is a necessary step in any successful endeavor, and it is not at all antithetical to confident optimism. Focusing only on what we want, to the exclusion of everything else, is just the kind of naïve and reckless thinking that has landed industry leaders (and at times entire industries) in hot water.
Cultivate your realistic optimism by combining a positive attitude with an honest assessment of the challenges that await you. Don't visualize success — visualize the steps you will take in order to make success happen.
Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be found at http://www.heidigranthalvorson.com/. Follow her on Twitter @hghalvorson
********************************************************
http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Resilience for the Rest of Us - Daniel Goleman - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review
Resilience for the Rest of Us - Daniel Goleman - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
Harvard Business Review
Resilience for the Rest of Us
There are two ways to become more resilient: one by talking to yourself, the other by retraining your brain.
If you've suffered a major failure, take the sage advice given by psychologist Martin Seligman in the HBR article "Building Resilience." Talk to yourself. Give yourself a cognitive intervention and counter defeatist thinking with an optimistic attitude. Challenge your downbeat thinking and replace it with a positive outlook.
But, fortunately, major failures come along rarely in life.
What about bouncing back from the more frequent annoying screwups, minor setbacks and irritating upsets that are routine in any leader's life? Resilience is, again, the answer — but with a different flavor. You need to retrain your brain.
The brain has a very different mechanism for bouncing back from the cumulative toll of daily hassles. And with a little effort, you can upgrade its ability to snap back from life's downers.
Whenever we get so upset we say or do something we later regret (and who doesn't now and then?), that's a sure sign that our amygdala — the brain's radar for danger, and the trigger for the fight-or-flight response — has hijacked the brain's executive centers in the prefrontal cortex. The neural key to resilience lies in how quickly we recover from that hijacked state.
The circuitry that brings us back to full energy and focus after an amygdala hijack concentrates in the left side of our prefrontal area, finds Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin. He's also found that when we're distressed, there's heightened activity on the right side of the prefrontal area. Each of us has a characteristic level of left/right activity that predicts our daily mood range — if we're tilted to the right, more upsets; if to the left, quicker recovery from distress of all kinds.
To tackle this in the workplace, Davidson teamed with the CEO of a high-pressure, 24/7, biotech startup and Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn offered the employees at the biotech outfit instruction in mindfulness, an attention-training method that teaches the brain to register anything happening in the present moment with full focus — but without reacting.
The instructions are simple:
After eight weeks, and an average 30 minutes a day of practicing mindfulness, the employees had shifted their ratio from tilted toward the stressed-out right side to the resilient left side. What's more, they said they remembered what they loved about their work — they got in touch with what had brought them energy in the first place.
To get the full benefit, a daily practice of 20 to 30 minutes works best; think of it like a mental exercise routine. It can be very helpful to have guided instructions, but the key is to find a slot for it in your daily routine. (There are even instructions for using a long drive as your practice session.)
Mindfulness has been steadily gaining credence among hard-nosed executives. There are several centers where mindfulness instruction has been tailored for businesspeople, from tony resorts like Miraval to programs in mindful leadership at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. Google University has been offering a course on mindfulness to employees for years.
Might you benefit from tuning up your brain's resilience circuitry by learning mindfulness? Among high-performing executives, the impacts of stress can be subtle. My colleagues Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee suggest as a rough diagnostic of leadership stress asking yourself, "Do I have a vague sense of unease, restlessness, or the feeling that life is not great (a higher standard than "good enough")?" A bit of mindfulness might put your mind at ease.
If you've suffered a major failure, take the sage advice given by psychologist Martin Seligman in the HBR article "Building Resilience." Talk to yourself. Give yourself a cognitive intervention and counter defeatist thinking with an optimistic attitude. Challenge your downbeat thinking and replace it with a positive outlook.
But, fortunately, major failures come along rarely in life.
What about bouncing back from the more frequent annoying screwups, minor setbacks and irritating upsets that are routine in any leader's life? Resilience is, again, the answer — but with a different flavor. You need to retrain your brain.
The brain has a very different mechanism for bouncing back from the cumulative toll of daily hassles. And with a little effort, you can upgrade its ability to snap back from life's downers.
Whenever we get so upset we say or do something we later regret (and who doesn't now and then?), that's a sure sign that our amygdala — the brain's radar for danger, and the trigger for the fight-or-flight response — has hijacked the brain's executive centers in the prefrontal cortex. The neural key to resilience lies in how quickly we recover from that hijacked state.
The circuitry that brings us back to full energy and focus after an amygdala hijack concentrates in the left side of our prefrontal area, finds Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin. He's also found that when we're distressed, there's heightened activity on the right side of the prefrontal area. Each of us has a characteristic level of left/right activity that predicts our daily mood range — if we're tilted to the right, more upsets; if to the left, quicker recovery from distress of all kinds.
To tackle this in the workplace, Davidson teamed with the CEO of a high-pressure, 24/7, biotech startup and Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn offered the employees at the biotech outfit instruction in mindfulness, an attention-training method that teaches the brain to register anything happening in the present moment with full focus — but without reacting.
The instructions are simple:
- Find a quiet, private place where you can be undistracted for a few minutes — for instance, close your office door and mute your phone.
- Sit comfortably, with your back straight but relaxed.
- Focus your awareness on your breath, staying attentive to the sensations of the inhalation and exhalation, and start again on the next breath.
- Do not judge your breathing or try to change it in any way.
- See anything else that comes to mind as a distraction — thoughts, sounds, whatever — let them go and return your attention to your breath.
After eight weeks, and an average 30 minutes a day of practicing mindfulness, the employees had shifted their ratio from tilted toward the stressed-out right side to the resilient left side. What's more, they said they remembered what they loved about their work — they got in touch with what had brought them energy in the first place.
To get the full benefit, a daily practice of 20 to 30 minutes works best; think of it like a mental exercise routine. It can be very helpful to have guided instructions, but the key is to find a slot for it in your daily routine. (There are even instructions for using a long drive as your practice session.)
Mindfulness has been steadily gaining credence among hard-nosed executives. There are several centers where mindfulness instruction has been tailored for businesspeople, from tony resorts like Miraval to programs in mindful leadership at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. Google University has been offering a course on mindfulness to employees for years.
Might you benefit from tuning up your brain's resilience circuitry by learning mindfulness? Among high-performing executives, the impacts of stress can be subtle. My colleagues Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee suggest as a rough diagnostic of leadership stress asking yourself, "Do I have a vague sense of unease, restlessness, or the feeling that life is not great (a higher standard than "good enough")?" A bit of mindfulness might put your mind at ease.
Daniel Goleman is Co-Director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University, co-author of Primal Leadership: Leading with Emotional Intelligence, and, most recently, author of The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights.
http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Leadership Caffeine: Coping with Workplace Critics | Management Excellence
Leadership Caffeine: Coping with Workplace Critics Management Excellence
I’ve yet to accomplish anything worth a damn when I didn’t have a fair number of critics lined up and all too happy to tell me why I was out of my mind. It’s a fair bet you’ve seen this before as well.
In my experience, the more audacious and creative the idea, program or strategy, the more vocal the critics become.
A Fortune 50 client of mine has a sign in their learning center that reads something to the effect of, “You’ll be told No too many times to count. Keep pushing for what you believe in or we’re in trouble.”
I love that!
The Destructive Power of Workplace Critics:
If you’ve ever found yourself suddenly under fire from one or more sources for an idea or program, you recognize how annoying and potentially destructive the criticism can be. And I’m not talking about someone offering a good, objective alternative viewpoint, I’m talking about the global criticism of your initiative and attempts to discredit you in the process.
The worst of the critics seem to thrive on sewing doubt and pushing others off-balance. It’s a form of bullying carried over from the playground days. The location has changed, but the tools of the critic’s trade are well honed from years of practice. Rumor, innuendo, disparaging comments, and in-your-face attacks are all tools of the critic’s trade.
Critic or Devil’s Advocate?
It’s important to differentiate between the useful, formal role of Devil’s Advocate and the Office Critic I’ve described above. The Devil’s Advocate is supposed to poke holes in ideas and challenge groups to look at the world through a different set of eyes. Proper devil’s advocacy isn’t about derailing or destabilizing. It’s about challenging people to think harder and to look in different directions. Executed properly, the person playing the role helps identify potentially flawed decisions or directions and encourages fresh thoughts.
The Critic’s motives are often political or at least selfishly personal. Change represents stress and work for the critic. Worse yet, it provides an opportunity for others to see beneath the painstakingly constructed illusions that many corporate critics work so hard to foster about their own contributions.
5 Ideas for Coping with Workplace Critics:
1. Always check the view from the critic’s perspective. I’m all for understanding the views of others…including critics. If someone has a different way of looking at things, I want to try and get a glimpse of the situation through their eyes. It’s unlikely you or I have thought of everything, so, take the time to learn from even your harshest critics.
2. Invite a Critic to Your Table. On occasion, a critic is someone who hasn’t figured out a more elegant way of asking for a seat at your table. Your willingness to provide a seat might build a new ally. Just don’t count on it. And there’s a bit of truth in the notion of keeping your enemies close at hand. Besides, good groups are pretty effective at self-policing.
3. Duel with a Critic, But Only on Your Terms: I observed as a great idea person (who happened to be a master politician) effectively maneuvered her biggest critic into a bake-off. Idea versus idea. Political capital versus political capital. The critic had nothing but bluster and blather and was effectively vanquished in the court of project team opinion.
4. Shrug Off the Critics. (That’s my polite form of, “Don’t let the bastards slow you down.” In my experience, the naysayers tend not to be those holding decision-making power. Build your coalition and your support with those that control the resources and the decision-making power and you effectively neutralize critics.
5. Deliver on your ideas. Nothing silences critics like success.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Your path to project or career success will likely be filled with obstacles, setbacks and in some cases, people not particularly interested in seeing you succeed. A good colleague uses the barbs of her critics as fuel for her own performance. “Every shot they take helps me work that much harder to succeed.” Certainly taking strength from unfounded criticism and unqualified critics is much more effective than letting it get to you.
And remember:
-“You’ll be told No too many times to count. Keep pushing for what you believe in or we’re in trouble.”
-“Rule #17 If the flak is heavy, you’re near the target. (No flak, no target.)”
—
******************************************************** http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
Management Excellence - ArtPetty.com
Leadership Caffeine: Coping with Workplace Critics
April 4, 2011 by Art Petty
Rule #17: If the flak is heavy, you’re near the target. (No flak, no target.) From Management Lessons of the Memphis Belle copyright: Eric Lieberman and Paul Byrne
I’ve yet to accomplish anything worth a damn when I didn’t have a fair number of critics lined up and all too happy to tell me why I was out of my mind. It’s a fair bet you’ve seen this before as well.
In my experience, the more audacious and creative the idea, program or strategy, the more vocal the critics become.
“We can’t do that.”
“It will never work.”
“We tried that three years ago, and it didn’t work then and it won’t work now.”
Or the old standby, “You’re out of your mind.”
A Fortune 50 client of mine has a sign in their learning center that reads something to the effect of, “You’ll be told No too many times to count. Keep pushing for what you believe in or we’re in trouble.”
I love that!
The Destructive Power of Workplace Critics:
If you’ve ever found yourself suddenly under fire from one or more sources for an idea or program, you recognize how annoying and potentially destructive the criticism can be. And I’m not talking about someone offering a good, objective alternative viewpoint, I’m talking about the global criticism of your initiative and attempts to discredit you in the process.
The worst of the critics seem to thrive on sewing doubt and pushing others off-balance. It’s a form of bullying carried over from the playground days. The location has changed, but the tools of the critic’s trade are well honed from years of practice. Rumor, innuendo, disparaging comments, and in-your-face attacks are all tools of the critic’s trade.
Critic or Devil’s Advocate?
It’s important to differentiate between the useful, formal role of Devil’s Advocate and the Office Critic I’ve described above. The Devil’s Advocate is supposed to poke holes in ideas and challenge groups to look at the world through a different set of eyes. Proper devil’s advocacy isn’t about derailing or destabilizing. It’s about challenging people to think harder and to look in different directions. Executed properly, the person playing the role helps identify potentially flawed decisions or directions and encourages fresh thoughts.
The Critic’s motives are often political or at least selfishly personal. Change represents stress and work for the critic. Worse yet, it provides an opportunity for others to see beneath the painstakingly constructed illusions that many corporate critics work so hard to foster about their own contributions.
5 Ideas for Coping with Workplace Critics:
1. Always check the view from the critic’s perspective. I’m all for understanding the views of others…including critics. If someone has a different way of looking at things, I want to try and get a glimpse of the situation through their eyes. It’s unlikely you or I have thought of everything, so, take the time to learn from even your harshest critics.
2. Invite a Critic to Your Table. On occasion, a critic is someone who hasn’t figured out a more elegant way of asking for a seat at your table. Your willingness to provide a seat might build a new ally. Just don’t count on it. And there’s a bit of truth in the notion of keeping your enemies close at hand. Besides, good groups are pretty effective at self-policing.
3. Duel with a Critic, But Only on Your Terms: I observed as a great idea person (who happened to be a master politician) effectively maneuvered her biggest critic into a bake-off. Idea versus idea. Political capital versus political capital. The critic had nothing but bluster and blather and was effectively vanquished in the court of project team opinion.
4. Shrug Off the Critics. (That’s my polite form of, “Don’t let the bastards slow you down.” In my experience, the naysayers tend not to be those holding decision-making power. Build your coalition and your support with those that control the resources and the decision-making power and you effectively neutralize critics.
5. Deliver on your ideas. Nothing silences critics like success.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Your path to project or career success will likely be filled with obstacles, setbacks and in some cases, people not particularly interested in seeing you succeed. A good colleague uses the barbs of her critics as fuel for her own performance. “Every shot they take helps me work that much harder to succeed.” Certainly taking strength from unfounded criticism and unqualified critics is much more effective than letting it get to you.
And remember:
-“You’ll be told No too many times to count. Keep pushing for what you believe in or we’re in trouble.”
-“Rule #17 If the flak is heavy, you’re near the target. (No flak, no target.)”
—
Art Petty coaches, trains and speaks on leadership development, high performance team development, feedback and decision-making. Drop Art a note to talk about a workshop program, speaking opportunity or coaching need.
Access Content Source: http://artpetty.com/2011/04/04/leadership-caffeine-coping-with-workplace-critics/
******************************************************** http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ... | Video on TED.com
Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ... Video on TED.com
A performing poet since she was 14 years old, Sarah Kay is the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E, teaching poetry and self-expression at schools across the United States.
hands are not about politics / this is a poem about love / and fingers/ fingers interlock like a beautiful zipper of prayer
--Sarah Kay
Plenty of 14-year-old girls write poetry. But few hide under the bar of the famous Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan’s East Village absorbing the talents of New York’s most exciting poets. Sarah Kay also had the guts to take its stage and hold her own against performers at least a decade her senior. Her talent for weaving words into poignant, funny, and powerful performances paid off.
Now 22, Kay is a successful spoken word poet and codirects Project V.O.I.C.E. (Vocal Outreach Into Creative Expression). Founded by Kay in 2004, Project V.O.I.C.E. encourages people, particularly teenagers, to use spoken word as a tool for understanding the world and self, and a medium for vital expression.
********************************************************
http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
Ted - Ideas Worth Spreading
Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ...
Awesome!!!!!!
Video 18:29
A performing poet since she was 14 years old, Sarah Kay is the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E, teaching poetry and self-expression at schools across the United States.
About this talk
"If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B ... " began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis -- from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. -- and gives two breathtaking performances of "B" and "Hiroshima."
Why you should listen to her:
hands are not about politics / this is a poem about love / and fingers/ fingers interlock like a beautiful zipper of prayer
--Sarah Kay
Plenty of 14-year-old girls write poetry. But few hide under the bar of the famous Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan’s East Village absorbing the talents of New York’s most exciting poets. Sarah Kay also had the guts to take its stage and hold her own against performers at least a decade her senior. Her talent for weaving words into poignant, funny, and powerful performances paid off.
Now 22, Kay is a successful spoken word poet and codirects Project V.O.I.C.E. (Vocal Outreach Into Creative Expression). Founded by Kay in 2004, Project V.O.I.C.E. encourages people, particularly teenagers, to use spoken word as a tool for understanding the world and self, and a medium for vital expression.
"A day with Sarah Kay reminded me of poetry's power to help us make sense of our lives, to see the world in a new way."
Deb Martin, Rowan University
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Right Way to Respond to Failure - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review
The Right Way to Respond to Failure - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review
My wife Eleanor and I were visiting some friends on a Saturday when their nine-year-old daughter, Dana*, came home. She was close to tears, barely holding it together.
"Oh sweetie," her mom said. "What happened at the swim meet?"
Dana is an excellent swimmer. She trains hard, arriving at swim practice by six most mornings and swimming some afternoons as well. And her efforts are rewarded; she often wins her events, scoring points for her swim team. It is clear she is very proud of these wins.
It isn't like that for all her endeavors. She struggles with some subjects in school, doing extra math homework to keep up with the other kids and getting special help with her reading. But she always works hard.
"I was disqualified," she told us. She swam the race well, but dove in a fraction of a second before the starting gun went off: a false start.
We were in the foyer of the house and she sat down on the bottom stair of the staircase, her swim bag still on her shoulder, staring into space, almost expressionless.
"Honey," her dad said, "there are a lot more swim meets in the season. You'll have other chances to win."
I told her, "The fact that you left the block prematurely means you were at your edge. You're trying not to waste a millisecond in hesitation. That's the right instinct. You misjudged the timing but that's OK. The more you do this, the better you'll get at it."
"Every swimmer on every team has been disqualified at some point," Eleanor said. "It's part of the sport."
"I'm sure your coach will help you practice your starts before the next meet," her mom said, "and you'll figure out exactly when to spring off the block so that you don't waste a second but you don't dive too early either. You'll get it."
Nothing we said seemed to have any impact on her. Nothing changed her expressionless stare. Nothing helped.
Then her grandmother Mimi walked over.
We were all standing over Dana, when Mimi moved through us and sat down next to her. She put her arm around Dana and just sat there quietly. Eventually, Dana leaned her head on Mimi's shoulder. After a few moments of silence Mimi kissed Dana's head and said, "I know how hard you work at this, honey. It's sad to get disqualified."
At that point, Dana began to cry. Mimi continued to sit there, with her arm around Dana, for several minutes, without saying anything.
Eventually Dana looked up at Mimi, wiped her tears, and said, simply, "Thanks Mimi." And I thought, every leader, every manager, every team member, should see this.
All of us except Mimi missed what Dana needed.
We tried to make her feel better by helping her see the advantage of failure, putting the defeat in context, teaching her to draw a lesson from it, and motivating her to work harder and get better so it doesn't happen again.
But she didn't need any of that. She already knew it. And if she didn't, she'd figure it out on her own. The thing she needed, the thing she couldn't give herself, the thing that Mimi reached out and gave her?
Empathy.
She needed to feel that she wasn't alone, that we all loved her and her failure didn't change that, She needed to know we understood how she was feeling and we had confidence that she would figure it out.
I wanted every leader, manager, and team member to see that, because the empathetic response to failure is not only the most compassionate, it's also the most productive.
Empathy communicates trust. And people perform best when they feel trusted.
When I sit with you in your mistake or failure without trying to change anything, I'm letting you know that you're okay, even when you don't perform. And, counter-intuitively, feeling okay about yourself — when you fail — makes you feel good enough to get up and try again.
Most of us miss that. Typically, when people fail, we blame them. Or teach them. Or try to make them feel better. All of which, paradoxically, makes them feel worse. It also prompts defensiveness as an act of self-preservation. (If I'm not okay after a failure, I'd better figure out how to frame this thing so it's not my failure.)
Our intentions are fine; we want the person to feel better, to learn, to avoid the mistake again. We want to protect our teams and our organizations.
But the learning — the avoidance of future failures — only comes once they feel okay about themselves after failing. And that feeling comes from empathy.
Thankfully, the expression of empathy is fairly simple. When someone has made a mistake or slipped up in some way, just listen to them. Don't interrupt, don't offer advice, don't say that it will be all right. And don't be afraid of silence. Just listen.
And then, after some time, reflect back what you heard them say, what you feel they're feeling. That's it.
I said simple, not easy. It's hard to just listen and reflect back. It's hard not to give advice or solve a problem. Hard, but worth the effort.
After some time, Dana got up from the stairs, we all had dinner, and then she went to watch some TV.
We were talking in the living room when she came in to say good night.
"How are you feeling?" I asked her.
"OK, I guess." She shrugged. "I'm still bummed."
I almost told her not to worry, that it would be OK, that she would feel better in the morning, that there was always the next race, that she had lots of time to practice.
Almost.
"I understand," I told her. "It's a bummer."
*Names and some details changed
********************************************************
http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
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Peter Bregman
"When someone has made a mistake or slipped up in some way, just listen to them. Don't interrupt, don't offer advice, don't say that it will be all right. And don't be afraid of silence. Just listen. And then, after some time, reflect back what you heard them say, what you feel they're feeling. That's it."
The Right Way to Respond to Failure
My wife Eleanor and I were visiting some friends on a Saturday when their nine-year-old daughter, Dana*, came home. She was close to tears, barely holding it together.
"Oh sweetie," her mom said. "What happened at the swim meet?"
Dana is an excellent swimmer. She trains hard, arriving at swim practice by six most mornings and swimming some afternoons as well. And her efforts are rewarded; she often wins her events, scoring points for her swim team. It is clear she is very proud of these wins.
It isn't like that for all her endeavors. She struggles with some subjects in school, doing extra math homework to keep up with the other kids and getting special help with her reading. But she always works hard.
"I was disqualified," she told us. She swam the race well, but dove in a fraction of a second before the starting gun went off: a false start.
We were in the foyer of the house and she sat down on the bottom stair of the staircase, her swim bag still on her shoulder, staring into space, almost expressionless.
"Honey," her dad said, "there are a lot more swim meets in the season. You'll have other chances to win."
I told her, "The fact that you left the block prematurely means you were at your edge. You're trying not to waste a millisecond in hesitation. That's the right instinct. You misjudged the timing but that's OK. The more you do this, the better you'll get at it."
"Every swimmer on every team has been disqualified at some point," Eleanor said. "It's part of the sport."
"I'm sure your coach will help you practice your starts before the next meet," her mom said, "and you'll figure out exactly when to spring off the block so that you don't waste a second but you don't dive too early either. You'll get it."
Nothing we said seemed to have any impact on her. Nothing changed her expressionless stare. Nothing helped.
Then her grandmother Mimi walked over.
We were all standing over Dana, when Mimi moved through us and sat down next to her. She put her arm around Dana and just sat there quietly. Eventually, Dana leaned her head on Mimi's shoulder. After a few moments of silence Mimi kissed Dana's head and said, "I know how hard you work at this, honey. It's sad to get disqualified."
At that point, Dana began to cry. Mimi continued to sit there, with her arm around Dana, for several minutes, without saying anything.
Eventually Dana looked up at Mimi, wiped her tears, and said, simply, "Thanks Mimi." And I thought, every leader, every manager, every team member, should see this.
All of us except Mimi missed what Dana needed.
We tried to make her feel better by helping her see the advantage of failure, putting the defeat in context, teaching her to draw a lesson from it, and motivating her to work harder and get better so it doesn't happen again.
But she didn't need any of that. She already knew it. And if she didn't, she'd figure it out on her own. The thing she needed, the thing she couldn't give herself, the thing that Mimi reached out and gave her?
Empathy.
She needed to feel that she wasn't alone, that we all loved her and her failure didn't change that, She needed to know we understood how she was feeling and we had confidence that she would figure it out.
I wanted every leader, manager, and team member to see that, because the empathetic response to failure is not only the most compassionate, it's also the most productive.
Empathy communicates trust. And people perform best when they feel trusted.
When I sit with you in your mistake or failure without trying to change anything, I'm letting you know that you're okay, even when you don't perform. And, counter-intuitively, feeling okay about yourself — when you fail — makes you feel good enough to get up and try again.
Most of us miss that. Typically, when people fail, we blame them. Or teach them. Or try to make them feel better. All of which, paradoxically, makes them feel worse. It also prompts defensiveness as an act of self-preservation. (If I'm not okay after a failure, I'd better figure out how to frame this thing so it's not my failure.)
Our intentions are fine; we want the person to feel better, to learn, to avoid the mistake again. We want to protect our teams and our organizations.
But the learning — the avoidance of future failures — only comes once they feel okay about themselves after failing. And that feeling comes from empathy.
Thankfully, the expression of empathy is fairly simple. When someone has made a mistake or slipped up in some way, just listen to them. Don't interrupt, don't offer advice, don't say that it will be all right. And don't be afraid of silence. Just listen.
And then, after some time, reflect back what you heard them say, what you feel they're feeling. That's it.
I said simple, not easy. It's hard to just listen and reflect back. It's hard not to give advice or solve a problem. Hard, but worth the effort.
After some time, Dana got up from the stairs, we all had dinner, and then she went to watch some TV.
We were talking in the living room when she came in to say good night.
"How are you feeling?" I asked her.
"OK, I guess." She shrugged. "I'm still bummed."
I almost told her not to worry, that it would be OK, that she would feel better in the morning, that there was always the next race, that she had lots of time to practice.
Almost.
"I understand," I told her. "It's a bummer."
*Names and some details changed
Peter Bregman speaks, writes, and consults on leadership. He is the CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc., a global management consulting firm, and the author of Point B: A Short Guide To Leading a Big Change. Sign up to receive an email when he posts.
********************************************************
http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
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