The Secret to Flourishing (In Relationships, At Work and Health)

Note From Jim:


Unless you’ve fully mastered the art and science of “Human Flourishing”, the article below about your conscious use of words and actions, is a must to read.

The lessons conveyed are imperative for your self, for the special people in your life, for your business colleagues, for your business team, for your subordinates, and for your relations with bosses.

Ken Nowack of Envisa has given me ongoing permission to repost his work at my Blog. I do so below because of the important lessons that his most recent work brings to light.

I’ve listed some excerpted items to tickle your intellectual curiosity but a full read of Ken’s article will most certainly be required in order to advance your own mastery.


Excerpts:

…if you really want to flourish, emphasize the positive at least three times more than the negative… studies demonstrate the power of positive emotions and behaviors individuals, relationships and team functioning. They even suggest an upper and lower “tipping point” for all of us to consider.

[It is possible]… to actually predict how long relationships will last, how healthy we will be or how well teams will be high performers just based on the ration of positive to negative interactions with others…

… a common positive-to-negative ratio of emotions and behaviors of about 3:1 (sometimes called the Losada ratio).
… individuals, partnerships and teams appear to flourish when this “tipping point” is reached.

The Magic Positive-to-Negative Ratio for Happy Relationships…John Gottman’s pioneering research on marriages suggests that there is a “magic ratio” of 5 to 1 — in terms of our balance of positive to negative interactions. Gottman found that marriages are significantly more likely to succeed when the couple’s interactions are near that 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative. When the ratio approaches 1 to 1, marriages “cascade to divorce.”

The Magic Positive-to-Negative Ratio for Team Performance…accurately predict how well teams perform … Maricial Losada and his team in 1999… Their analysis suggested that the high performing or flourishing teams could be categorized as those have at least a 2.9 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions among team members.

[But] So, for team productivity and performance there appears to be an upper limit to just how many times team members can be positive before it has a detrimental impact on the functioning of the team.

The Magic Positive-to-Negative Ratio for Mental Health… the importance of the positive-to-negative ratio for mental health and well-being comes from Robert Schwartz and colleagues from the University of Pittsburg… Schwartz and colleagues reported that among patients who showed optimal remission, indexed by both self-report and clinical ratings, mean post-treatment positivity ratios were 4.3 to 1. Among those who showed typical remission by the same criteria, mean post-treatment positivity ratios were 2.3…. Recent research by Barbara Fedickson at the University of Michigan provides one more bit of evidence about the 3:1 positivity-to-negativity ratio with mental health. She followed 188 participants for 28 days asking them to keep a daily report of positive and negative emotions they experienced. Results showed that the mean ratio of positive to negative affect was above 2.9 for individuals classified as flourishing and below that threshold for those not flourishing.

Positive Emotions and Physical Health… Three important studies also suggest that emphasizing positive emotions play a direct role on our physical health and well-being and even predict longevity

Taken together, these studies demonstrate the power of positive emotions and behaviors individuals, relationships and team functioning. They even suggest an upper and lower “tipping point” for all of us to consider.

… if you really want to flourish, emphasize the positive at least three times more than the negative

------------------------------------------------------------------

The Secret to Flourishing (In Relationships, At Work and Health) February 3, 2013 by Ken Nowack

“Fall seven times; stand up eight.”
Japanese proverb

Is it possible to actually predict how long relationships will last, how healthy we will be or how well teams will be high performers just based on the ration of positive to negative interactions with others?

It appears that we can and that all of the above share a common positive-to-negative ratio of emotions and behaviors of about 3:1 (sometimes called the Losada ratio).

In fact, individuals, partnerships and teams appear to flourish when this “tipping point” is reached.

The Magic Positive-to-Negative Ratio for Happy Relationships

John Gottman’s pioneering research on marriages suggests that there is a “magic ratio” of 5 to 1 — in terms of our balance of positive to negative interactions. Gottman found that marriages are significantly more likely to succeed when the couple’s interactions are near that 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative. When the ratio approaches 1 to 1, marriages “cascade to divorce.” In a fascinating study, Gottman teamed up with two mathematicians to test this model. Starting in 1992, they recruited 700 couples who had just received their marriage licenses. For each couple, the researchers videotaped a 15-minute conversation between husband and wife and counted the number of positive and negative interactions. Then, based on the 5 to 1 ratio, they predicted whether each couple would stay together or divorce. Ten years later, Gottman and his colleagues followed up with each couple to determine the accuracy of their original predictions. The results were stunning. They had predicted divorce with 94% accuracy — based on scoring the couples’ interactions for 15 minutes.

Evidence corroborating the idea that this positivity ratio separates flourishing from languishing can be drawn from other research by John Gottman1. He and his colleagues observed 73 couples discussing an area of conflict in their relationship.

Researchers measured positivity and negativity using two coding schemes: one focused on positive and negative speech acts and another focused on observable positive and negative emotions. Gottman reported that among marriages that last and that both partners find to be satisfying (N=3)—what might be called flourishing marriages—mean positivity ratios were 5.1 for speech acts and 4.7 for observed emotions.

By contrast, among marriages identified as being on cascades toward dissolution—languishing marriages at best—mean positivity ratios were 0.9 for speech acts and 0.7 for observed emotions (Gottman, 1994). Summarizing two decades of observational research on marriages, Gottman (1994) concluded that unless a couple is able to maintain a high ratio of positive to negative affect (5 to 1), it is highly likely that their marriage will end.

The Magic Positive-to-Negative Ratio for Team Performance

Can we accurately predict how well teams perform by counting the positive to negative interactions of team members?

From behind one-way mirrors, researcher Maricial Losada and his team in 1999 observed 60 management teams crafting their annual strategic plans and rated every interpersonal interaction of team members. Communications were coded as “positive” if team members showed support, encouragement, or appreciation towards others, and they were coded as “negative” if team members showed disapproval, sarcasm, or cynicism. They were coded as “inquiry” if they asked questions aimed at exploring a position and as “advocacy” if they provided logic or arguments in favor of the team member’s viewpoint. They were coded as “self” if they referred to the team member speaking, and they were coded as “other” if they referenced a person or group who was neither present nor part of the company.

Thje researchers identified 15 flourishing teams, defined as showing uniformly high performance across three indicators: profitability, customer satisfaction, and evaluations by superiors, peers, and subordinates2. Other teams had mixed (n=26) or uniformly low performance (n=19). Their analysis suggested that the high performing or flourishing teams could be categorized as those have at least a 2.9 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions among team members.

Interestingly, signs of disintegration of team performance appeared with a positivity ratio of 11.6. So, for team productivity and performance there appears to be an upper limit to just how many times team members can be positive before it has a detrimental impact on the functioning of the team.

The Magic Positive-to-Negative Ratio for Mental Health

Research on the importance of the positive-to-negative ratio for mental health and well-being comes from Robert Schwartz and colleagues from the University of Pittsburg3. They tracked the outcomes of 66 men undergoing treatment for depression and measured positivity ratios before and after treatment. Before treatment, positivity ratios were very low at 0.5. Schwartz and colleagues reported that among patients who showed optimal remission, indexed by both self-report and clinical ratings, mean post-treatment positivity ratios were 4.3 to 1. Among those who showed typical remission by the same criteria, mean post-treatment positivity ratios were 2.3.

Recent research by Barbara Fedickson at the University of Michigan provides one more bit of evidence about the 3:1 positivity-to-negativity ratio with mental health4. She followed 188 participants for 28 days asking them to keep a daily report of positive and negative emotions they experienced. Results showed that the mean ratio of positive to negative affect was above 2.9 for individuals classified as flourishing and below that threshold for those not flourishing.

Positive Emotions and Physical Health

Three important studies also suggest that emphasizing positive emotions play a direct role on our physical health and well-being and even predict longevity:

Nuns whose autobiographies contained the most sentences expressing positive emotions lived an average of seven years longer than nuns whose stories contained the fewest5.

Psychological well-being is associated with reduced risk of CHD–Whitehall II Study; 4 year study; N = 7,9426.

Subjective well-being/happiness, but not negative emotions, significantly predicted a 10 year increase in longevity–Alameda County Study; 28 year study; N = 6,8567.

Taken together, these studies demonstrate the power of positive emotions and behaviors individuals, relationships and team functioning. They even suggest an upper and lower “tipping point” for all of us to consider.

So, if you really want to flourish, emphasize the positive at least three times more than the negative…..Be well…..




1.Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum [↩]

2.Losada, M., & Heaphy, E. (2004). The role of positivity and connectivity in the performance of business teams: A nonlinear dynamics model. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(6), 740–765 [↩]

3.Schwartz, R. M., Reynolds, C. F., III, Thase, M. E., Frank, E., Fasiczka, A. L., & Haaga, D. A. F. (2002). Optimal and normal affect balance in psychotherapy of major depression: Evaluation of the balanced states of mind model. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 30, 439–450 [↩]

4.Fredrickson, B. L. & Losada, M. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist, 60, 678-686 [↩]

5.Danner, D. et al. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and longevity: Findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82-804-813 [↩]

6.Boehm, J. et al. (2011). A prospective study of positive psychological well-being and coronary heart disease. Health Psychology, 30, 259-267 [↩]

7.Xu, J. et al. (2010). The power of positive emotions: It’s a matter of life or death—subjective well-being and longevity over 20 years in a general population. Health Psychology, 29, 9-19 [↩]



Access Article And Other Great Stuff: http://results.envisialearning.com/the-secret-to-flourishing-in-relationships-at-work-and-health/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ResultsVsActivities+%28Results+vs.+Activities%29

That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work - NY Times

Note From Jim:


In recent years I have taken a keen interest in research from the field of "Positive Psychology", a segment of Psychology that has been championed by a former president of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman. Serious work in the disciple of Positive Psychology and the Psychology of Happiness has determined that we all have the power to make ourselves happier, more optimistic, more grateful, and more fulfilled. This applies to our relationships at home and at work. With regard to our personal relationships, the article below shares best practices recommended by top researchers and academics in this field.  Make a difference starting now!

****
Excerpts:
That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work
By JANE E. BRODY

Studies by Richard E. Lucas and colleagues at Michigan State University... Research reported by Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside.... Studies by Barbara L. Fredrickson, a social psychologist and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


[Apply important] effort to keep the embers of love alive... Infatuation and passion have even shorter life spans, and must evolve into "companionate love, composed more of deep affection, connection and liking,"

Building Companionship

... strategies include making time to be together and talk, truly listening to each other, and expressing admiration and affection.


"the importance of appreciation" [and expressions of gratefulness]: count your blessings and resist taking a spouse for granted. Routinely remind yourself and your partner of what you appreciate about the person and the marriage.

Also important is variety, which is innately stimulating and rewarding and "critical if we want to stave off adaptation," ... Mix things up, be spontaneous, change how you do things with your partner to keep your relationship "fresh, meaningful and positive."...Novelty is a powerful aphrodisiac that can also enhance the pleasures of marital sex.   Variety goes hand in hand with another tip: surprise. With time, partners tend to get to know each other all too well, and they can fall into routines that become stultifying. Shake it up. Try new activities, new places, new friends. Learn new skills together.  
"A pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a hug, an arm around the shoulder - the science of touch suggests that it can save a so-so marriage," Dr. Lyubomirsky writes. "Introducing more (nonsexual) touching and affection on a daily basis will go a long way in rekindling the warmth and tenderness."


Support your partner's values, goals and dreams, and greet his or her good news with interest and delight.

Positive Energy


Even a marriage that has been marred by negative, angry or hurtful remarks can often be rescued by filling the home with words and actions that elicit positive emotions, psychology research has shown.


... cultivating positive energy everyday "motivates us to reach out for a hug more often or share and inspiring or silly idea or image."... happily married couples average five positive verbal and emotional expressions toward one another for every negative expression, but "very unhappy couples display ratios of less than one to one."

[Work towards] striving to increase the ratio of positive to negative [to 5:1].


[Work towards] asking yourself each morning, "What can I do for five minutes today to make my partner's life better?" The simplest acts, like sharing an amusing event, smiling, or being playful, can enhance marital happiness.
--------------

Access Article and Other Great Content: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/that-loving-feeling-takes-a-lot-of-work/?emc=eta1

The Happiness Connection

Note From Jim:


Discover how powerful you will become by making the conscious choice, despite circumstance, to be happy. It's a decision and commitment that only you can make. Read Lionel Ketchien's Happiness Column. I look forward to his weekly newsletter, "The Happiness Zone." It always inspires me. Does it do the same for you?

Excepts:

There is another way to live your life. Decide to be happy no matter what. Wake up in the morning and decide to be happy. You go through the day and experience people and events that would make most people unhappy, but not you! You're too smart for that. You know that only you are in charge of your happiness. You would not want anyone else to be in charge of your happiness.


Access The Happiness Zone:  http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=svx5mvcab&v=001QYDB14zrJ48K4eXTPl4-LY86Q575ae7CuGQs0kN5S3KDlN4RqFzh3-VNt_pzPZbM6PF3USQCs7yfwVk1XmjuBWLW0_7GcHUQADdppMwkKtuUMMnIt7ERHA%3D%3D

Make It a Habit to Give Thanks - HBR - Ron Ashkenas

Note From Jim:  Ron, this advice is priceless.  Thank you!!! 


by Ron Ashkenas
12:00 PM November 20, 2012

Excerpts:

It's also a good reminder that "thankfulness" and "appreciation" are important managerial behaviors in effective organizations — behaviors that need to be fostered throughout the year, not just when there's a holiday.
[First] Interpersonal appreciation is the day-to-day ability to genuinely and graciously thank other people for what they do....  all of us need affirmation and positive feedback, at least occasionally... without some measure of day-to-day appreciation it's difficult to build relationships and trust, which are essential to a well-functioning workplace.... The challenge though is how to make the process of giving thanks more routine, so that it occurs without a reminder.

The second type of thanksgiving is appreciating how effectively your organization solves problems and gets things done. Many managers have a tendency to focus on the things that are not working well, the shortfalls and the misses. On the other hand, much of the power and potential in organizations is revealed by its success stories. By identifying these vignettes and shining a spotlight on them, managers can help to tease out important lessons, reinforce innovation, and unlock tremendous value.... an approach called positive deviance shows that finding people who succeed, when everyone else is struggling, can be a key to large-scale innovation.
... perhaps if all of us were more thankful and appreciative throughout the year, we'd have much more to be thankful for.


***Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.

***Access Article, HBR Website and Great Content: http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2012/11/make-it-a-habit-to-give-thanks.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

HBR Blog Network.Where You Sit Determines What You See - Ron Ashkenas

by Ron Ashkenas
8:00 AM November 6, 2012

Excerpts:

... all of us have biases that influence how we interpret events. To some extent we see what we unconsciously want to see

If you assume that these people perceive the assignment or challenge in the same way that you do, you'll be severely frustrated or disappointed. In fact, you'll be on much firmer ground if you start with the assumption that each person comes to the table with a different spin on the situation.
... [with] different perceptions of "the problem" the team easily could have become trapped in unproductive blaming or hardened their positions. Fortunately, the team leader understood the different perceptions and encouraged everyone to listen, repeat, and appreciate each others' starting points. Eventually each side realized that both positions were valid, which opened up the possibility of joint problem solving.

Of course, overcoming perceptual bias is not a one-time exercise. Just because the people in our example learned how to work together on one project doesn't mean that they won't revert back to their earlier blinders when they reenter their regular environments. In fact, there is a Stockholm syndrome effect for most people in organizations, in which they take on the biases and attitudes of those around them.

All of us see the world in different ways — which may make alignment that much harder, but at least makes things a lot more interesting.

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.
More blog posts by Ron Ashkenas ...More on: Execution, Leading teams, Managing yourself :
http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2012/11/where-you-sit-determines-what.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are - Power Posing - Amy Cuddy - Harvard Business School Via TED

TED Video Filmed 6/2012 - 21 Minutes 

Note From Jim: This is a must watch video!!!!!

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html

Create Your Future - "Do It Until You Become It"

Excerpts:

Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how “power posing” -- standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident -- can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success.


Amy Cuddy’s research on body language reveals that we can change other people’s perceptions — and even our own body chemistry — simply by changing body positions.

Cuddy is a professor and researcher at Harvard Business School, where she studies how nonverbal behavior and snap judgments affect people from the classroom to the boardroom. And her training as a classical dancer (another skill she regained after her injury) is evident in her fascinating work on "power posing" -- how your body position influences others and even your own brain.


Access TED and Its Great Content: http://www.ted.com/

The Secret to Health, Performance and Success: The Positivity to Negativity Ratio - Envisia - Kenneth Nowack

September 9, 2012

“If you have nothing to say, say nothing.”

Mark Twain

Here’s the answer: at least 3:1 to 5:1.

What’s the question?

Is there a universal ratio (P/N) of positive to negative communications, interactions and behaviors that predicts individual health, longevity, performance, relationship success and how team’s perform?

Across different disciplines, researchers continue to find an interesting relationship between “positive to negative” expressions of thoughts, attitudes and behavior that seem to predict things as diverse as how long we will live to how effectively teams function and product great results. This is sometimes referred to as the positivity to negativity ratio. Here are a few examples:

Longevity in Life

Handwritten autobiographies from 180 Catholic nuns, composed when participants were a mean age of 22 years, were scored for emotional content and related to survival during ages 75 to 951. The autobiography was to contain no more than two to three hundred words and should be written on a single sheet of paper. The nuns were asked to include place of birth, parentage, interesting childhood events, schools attended, influences that led to the convent, religious life, and outstanding events.

Their study revealed that the nuns whose autobiographies contained the most sentences expressing positive emotions lived an average of seven years longer than nuns whose stories contained the fewest. Further, lifespan increased by 9.5 years for nuns whose autobiographies contained the most words referring to positive emotions and by 10.5 years for nuns who used the greatest variety of positive-emotion words.

Positive Feedback

When we use 360-degree feedback assessments we always include at least 1-2 open-ended questions at the end of the questionnaire asking raters about perceived strengths to leverage and behaviors the leader can do more, less or differently to become even more effective. Smither and Walker (2004) analyzed the impact of upward feedback ratings as well as narrative comments over a one-year period for 176 managers2.

They found that those who received a small number of unfavorable behaviorally based comments improved more than other managers but those who received a large number (relative to positive comments) significantly declined in performance more than other managers. This is the only study I know of that has found that qualitative feedback in 360 interventions might actually be disengaging and demoralizing to participants if the ratio of positive to negative feedback is low.

Marriage/Relationship Longevity

John Gottman (1994) followed 700 couples for 10 years and found that when there was less than a 5 to 1 positive to negative interactions in a videotaped interaction of fifteen minutes it predicted subsequent divorce with 90% to 94% accuracy3.

He has observed couples for over 30 years, at his apartment-style laboratory, the “love lab” at the University of Washington. A Positive-to-Negative Ratio of 0.8 or less is a strong indicator of divorce with the most corrosive behaviors including:

• Criticism: Expressions indicating a defect in one’s partner’s personality (example: “You always talk about yourself”). Contempt: Expressions of superiority (example: “You just can’t get things right).”

• Defensiveness: Expressions of righteous indignation (example: “It’s not my fault that we’re always late—you are the one holding us up”).

• Stonewalling: Emotional withdrawal from interaction (e.g., ignoring the other individual).

Criticism predicted early divorcing (an average of 5.6 years after the wedding) and emotional withdrawal and anger predict later divorcing (an average of 16.2 years after the wedding).

Psychological Well-Being/Life Satisfaction

Fredrickson (2005) examined students’ month-long diaries and the positive/negative ratio of emotions seemed to differentiate those who were languishing from those who were high in psychological well-being4. She found that students who expressed a ratio of 3 times as many positive emotions than negative emotions reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and happiness than the other students.

Team Effectiveness

Over the years we have run developmental assessment centers that always have at least one leaderless group exericse. We can easily observe the differences between groups that appear to function effectively from those who don’t based on the communications and interpersonal behavior of the group members–not how smart any individual is or the collective experience or technical expertise of the members.

Recent studies have established that teams with positive to negative interaction ratios greater than 3 to 1 are significantly more productive than teams that do not reach this ratio (Things can worsen if the ratio goes higher than 13 to 1). Marcial Losada brought 60 management teams into a simulated board room where they could hold actual meetings5. Behind mirrors, researchers observed and coded every statement made by each individual on three scales:

1. Positive statements (support, optimism, appreciation) versus negative statements (disapproval, sarcasm, cynicism).

2. Self-focused statements (refer to the person speaking, the group present, or the company) versus other-focused statements (references to a person or group not part of the company).

3. Inquiry (questions aimed at exploring an idea) versus advocacy (arguments in favor of their own point of view).

Losada also measured something he called connectivity or how attuned or responsive the team members were to each other. Finally he gathered data on three dependent variables: profitability, customer satisfaction, and evaluations by superiors, peers and subordinates. In the study, positive to negative ratio (P/N) was measured by counting the instances of positive feedback (e.g. “that is a good idea”) vs. negative feedback (e.g. “this is not what I expected; I am disappointed”).

Overall, high performance teams had a P/N ratio of 5.6, medium performance teams a P/N of 1.9 and low performance teams a P/N of 0.36 (more negative than positive).

Taken together, it seems that the secret to individual and team health and productivity might be as simple as accentuating the positive to negative ratio of emotions and behaviors and being aware of when our own self-talk and expressions seem tilted in the wrong direction.

I will have to ask my wife, who is registered dietitian, if this ratio also applies to healthy eating….Be well….

1. Danner, D., Snowdon, D., & Friesen, W. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and longevity: Findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 804-813 [↩]

2. Smither, J. & Walker, A.G. (2004). Are the characteristics of narrative comments related to improvement in multirater feedback ratings over time? Personnel Psychology, 89, 575-581 [↩]

3. Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum [↩]

4. Fredrickson, B. L. & Losada, M. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist, 60, 678-686 [↩]
5. Losada, M., & Heaphy, E. (2004). The role of positivity and connectivity in the performance of business teams: A nonlinear dynamics model. American Behavioral Scientist, 47, 740–765 [↩]

Access Article, Source, And Great Ongoing Content: http://results.envisialearning.com/the-secret-to-health-performance-and-success-the-positivity-to-negativity-ratio/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ResultsVsActivities+%28Results+vs.+Activities%29  

Career Coach: Is your style causing problems for you? - Washington Post

By Joyce E. A. Russell, Published: March 4 2012

EXCERPTS:

Here are some of the primary issues that seem to cause stress among peers and reasons for why they don’t want to work with a particular individual:

An abrasive style, tactlessness or lack of empathy.

Intimidating, domineering or condescending style.

Disengagement or inconsistent engagement.

Unwillingness to change.

Undependability.

Disorganization and lack of focus.

Poor communication skills, especially failing to listen to other’s views.

Negativity, moodiness or bad temper. Individuals want to be around positive, hopeful people.

Don’t be the source of the problem. Collect candid feedback from others on your work style. Be sensitive to the reactions of others and be open to adjusting your behaviors to fit the current situation. Research has shown that people better at self-monitoring are often more effective in managerial positions because they are required to read situations and play multiple roles when communicating with different types of people.

Factors that employees have told me they most appreciate in peers include:

Collegial skills

Consistent high-quality work performance, regardless of the project

Timeliness of work

Positive “can-do” attitude and enthusiasm
Dedication to the project.

Consideration of others and being trustworthy — being sincere and genuine and truly caring about teammates.

So, if you want to be able to lead or influence others or even get them to pick you for that next project, think about your own style and what might be holding you back.
Joyce E. A. Russell is the director of the Executive Coaching and Leadership Development Program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. She is a licensed industrial and organizational psychologist and has more than 25 years of experience coaching executives and consulting on leadership and career management. She can be reached at jrussell@rhsmith.umd.edu.

Access Article, Source And Great Content: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/career-coach-is-your-style-causing-problems-for-you/2012/02/29/gIQARByrqR_story.html

Overcoming the Blues! - The Happy Zone - The Happiness Club

By Lionel Ketchian 02/01/2012

2000 years ago, Epictetus said: "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." If you are unhappy now, then in the next moment you will be no happier than you have been now. The good news is that this can work the other way for you. If you decide to be happy now, your next moment will be no less than what is has been.

Your happiness or unhappiness is your intention to decide how things will continue to be. If you decide to be happy than you have set that intention ahead of you to act as your trailblazer for the path you shall travel. Life is hard enough the way it is without being your own worst enemy!

In March of 2001, Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston reached their conclusions about the protective effect of happiness after analyzing data on 2,478 men and women. They were all 65 years of age or older. These people were all given a questionnaire that consisted of twenty questions or statements that required a yes or no response. Sixteen of these were negative pronouncements such as "I felt that I could not shake off the blues, even with the help of my family and friends," "I thought that my life had been a failure" and "I felt fearful." The other four statements were positive, such as "I felt that I was just as good as other people," and "I felt hopeful about the future."

None of the participants had ever had a stroke at the time the questionnaire was completed. The researchers then followed the participants over a six-year period to see how their health had changed. During that time, out of the 2,478 people who took the study, 340 had strokes, and 75 of these people died. The researchers then tried to connect those occurrences to the participants' original answers to the questionnaire.

For each "yes" answer to a positive statement there was a 26% decrease in the risk of stroke. Let's take a close look at this study. There were 20 questions or statements, 16 negative ones that dealt with unhappiness, and 4 positive ones that were about being happy and optimistic. If you answered yes to all 4 positive statements there was a 100% chance of not having a stroke. Strokes are the third most common cause of death and they are the leading cause of long-term disability among the elderly.

This study was published on Friday, March 23, 2001, in the Journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. Researchers said that this study shows that "high levels of positive effect" seem to shield older people from having a stroke. Elderly folks who often feel blue tend to have more strokes than those who are not depressed, according to the study.

You have a choice right now to look at things differently. Now you know that having an unhappy outlook may result in hurting you. Is unhappiness worth the price you may have to pay? No, the price is much too high. Take control of your happiness, it is the one thing you have control over. Do you really think you can control all the people and circumstances in your life? No, you will wear yourself out first. Take control of yourself, that is where your power lies.

In this case I am very happy that this study has been done so that you can see the positive effect of "Being Happy," on your health, the quality of your life, and length of your life. If you are the type of person that needs proof, then here you have it - "Proof Positive," it is here for you to see!

Twenty-three years ago I wrote a book called Food for Thought. Dr. Bernie Siegel endorsed it as well as Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, and Ken Blanchard, Ph.D. Dr. Bernie Siegel, who wrote, Love, Medicine and Miracles, has changed the way people think about being responsible for their health and attitude.

In 2004, Dr. Bernie S. Siegel and I had video tapped a two hour interview in his home in Connecticut. It was an important opportunity to learn more life lessons from one of the most compassionate doctors that has ever lived. We talked about his new book, called 365 Prescriptions for the Soul, (Daily Messages of Inspiration, Hope, and Love.) We also talked about attitudes, pain, suffering, health, healing, and happiness. Bernie shared his personal thoughts in this video interview. The interview was aired on PBS, where Bernie and I appeared live in person during the evening and the show is also aired on The Happiness Show on cable TV stations.

It is time to we taught happiness in school for every child in the system. Happiness, or emotional intelligence, as it is also know by, is just as important as learning facts. Do we need to remain stressed out all our lives and find out that the price we are paying is much too high? The need to become happy is one that we must learn to embrace. If it is not enough to know that it affects your health, now you know it is nothing less than a life and death matter. Your thinking, your state of mind, and the way you feel all have a direct effect on your health.

Walk around with happiness, get the feel of it in your stride, and in your heart, and your head. You will experience the very best that life has to offer you. Of course you will encounter negative things along the way, just like anyone else. But you will be taking the high road in life and you will be doing the best you can with what you have. You will feel happiness within yourself and you will spread it naturally and effortlessly to everyone you meet, even the unhappy.

By taking happiness for yourself you will be able to give it to others. How can you give what you do not have? Another important aspect about living a happy life is the fact that you will be spreading happiness in the world. This world needs happiness more than anything. What a wonderful gift your happiness will make. You will make all the difference in the world, and you do it by "Being Happy."

Meet some new friends and get yourself in a happy mood attend a Happiness Club Meeting or start your own club now. Admission is free. Be Happy! Live Longer!


About Lionel Ketchian   Lionel is the past President of LRK Communications Inc in Fairfield, CT since 1979. He is the author of the book, Food for Thought, published in 1989. He was co-host of: "Successful Living," a live, call-in Radio Talk Show from 1986-1993. Lionel taught classes on Happiness, at Sacred Heart University from 1999-2002. Lionel is the founder of the Happiness Clubs, which holds free monthly meetings at over 80 clubs around the world. He started the web site www.HappinessClub.com in 1999 and offers free happiness newsletters by e-mail. Lionel wrote the column called the Be Happy Zone, published by the Fairfield Citizen-News, from 2000 - 2011. He is the co-host of "The Happiness Show," broadcast on TV by Cablevision of Connecticut. Lionel has been married since 1968 and is the father of three wonderful kids and the grandfather to three terrific grand kids.



Access Source And Its Great Content: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=svx5mvcab&v=001s0rRepf3dPamF3KHIasuJFodBbwfTUKUHwfGT3wuoJswmoBKBGO85Au6yaoa7yulltwJiQSNeNTAvGNhDuiNZ3piq7TnXP6ADYx9ZcQrscjlK84L7Pm7pg%3D%3D

"How to Deal with Difficult People and Have Constructive Conflict" - Dumb Little Man Tips For Life

Written on 1/28/2012 by Joe Wilner

Life and relationships aren't always perfect. Take a minute to think of some difficult people you have to deal with in your life? These may be people you work with, the in-laws that come to town throughout the year, or your neighbor who can’t seem to take a hint. For whatever reason, you're just not jiving with these people.

Do you flee? Or, do you get flexible and learn to interact?

When we encounter these extreme personalities it can feel like they are trying to make our life miserable, but more often than not, it’s simply learning about these peoples’ tendencies and how to interact in a more tactful way. Some conflicts are unavoidable and shouldn’t be smoothed over or suppressed, though it’s learning to deal with our differences, and how to understand, resolve, and learn from these interactions that’s important.

Tips to dealing with problem people

Learn to recognize different personalities

First and foremost, we must develop self-awareness about our own personality tendencies. Are you more aggressive or passive? Are you more of an introvert or extrovert?

Once we know our personality tendencies we can learn to recognize other peoples’ personalities and adapt and interact in a more effective way.

Learn how to communicate with different personality types

When we are dealing with different people it requires we approach them in the way they want to be treated. Some people need more detail and clarity in communication. Some people are very direct and just want the facts, and others are more focused on relationships.

Consider how you can communicate verbally and through body language in the most effective way with these different types of people to build rapport and make them feel understood.

Know who triggers you and why

When we know who we tend to have conflict with and what it is that leads us to get frustrated, we can begin to be more proactive. We can learn to deal with this person more effectively by managing our own emotions and not be the target of their drama and unrest.

Learn to focus on strengths and positive qualities

A great way to deal with people more effectively in any relationship context is to focus on their positive qualities and to help them accentuate these when you can. Give people compliments, offer them recognition, and help them to use their strengths. We can empower others instead of knocking them down, and by doing so have a more positive influence and interaction.

Just because you apply these ideas doesn’t mean that people will always respond in a positive manner. The only person you have control is yourself, so to make sure that an unhealthy conflict doesn’t ensue.  Work to build these traits.

Managing conflict is being there with:

1.Availability: Accept full responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, actions, values, and perceptions that you contribute to the conflict.

2.Flexibility: Offer a willingness to make some degree of change, so that both people can move toward a joint solution. Compromise may be required.

3.Specificity: Seek to focus the conflict of real, significant issues that point toward a practical outcome that is within the range of responsibility. Don’t get personal.

4.Clarity: When the message intended and the impact received are nearly the same, communication is achieved. For this to happen, words, tone of voice, facial expression, posture must all be congruent with each other and context with they are said.

Here are some signs of constructive and healthy conflict.

You’ll know you’re on the right track when the following ideas are present.


Conflict is constructive when:

It opens up issues of importance, resulting in their clarification.

Results in the solution of problems

Increases the involvement of individuals in issues of importance to them

Causes authentic communication to occur

Serves as a release to pent-up negative emotions

Helps build cohesiveness among people, and allows them to learn about each other

Helps individuals grow and learn to become better in the future

We can learn a lot about ourselves and grow as a person when we work through conflict. It can also open up new possibilities and allow us to think differently about our beliefs and expectations.

Developing patience and tact to deal with others more effectively is a skill that can be applied in many areas of life. Continuing developing your ability to connect and influence others in a positive way.


Written on 1/28/2012 by Joe Wilner. Joe Wilner is a coaching and writer who manages www.shakeoffthegrind.com, where he inspires and empowers people to live a full, meaningful, and thriving life. You can also follow him on Twitter at @shakethegrind

Access Source And Its Great Content: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2012/01/how-to-deal-with-difficult-people-and.html

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:

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).

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).

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.

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).

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).

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:

•Boss/Supervisor 31.0%

•Colleagues/Co-Workers 16.8%

•Family 13.0%

•Partners/Significant Others 9.9%

•Friends 8.3%

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:

•Lower Stress ( r= .35, p < .01)

•Greater Resilience/Hardiness (r= .47, p < .01)

•Greater Happiness (r= .58, 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……


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/

Survival’s Ick Factor - New York Times

By JAMES GORMAN
Published: January 23, 2012

EXCERPTS

Disgust is having its moment in the light as researchers find that it does more than cause that sick feeling in the stomach. It protects human beings from disease and parasites, and affects almost every aspect of human relations, from romance to politics.

...scientists are exploring the evolution of disgust and its role in attitudes toward food, sexuality and other people.

“It’s in our everyday life. It determines our hygiene behaviors. It determines how close we get to people. It determines who we’re going to kiss, who we’re going to mate with, who we’re going to sit next to. It determines the people that we shun, and that is something that we do a lot of.”

“It is becoming a model emotion,” said Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia, a disgust pioneer with Dr. Rozin.

Dr. Haidt, Dr. Rozin and Clark McCauley of Bryn Mawr College claim nine different domains of disgust for North Americans. Dr. Curtis proposes seven categories. Joshua Tybur of VU University in Amsterdam proposed three domains of disgust, three separate psychological programs, for disease avoidance, mate choice and moral judgment.

Whatever the fine points of disgust, its power to affect behavior is unquestioned, and that power ought to be put to good use


Access Article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/science/disgusts-evolutionary-role-is-irresistible-to-researchers.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper

Leading Across: From Competing to Completing - Leadership Wired - The John Maxwell Company

Leadership Wired - The John Maxwell Company - November 1, 2011, Issue 1

Leading peers can be tricky since you’re simultaneously cooperating with and competing against them. For example, athletes on the same team contend for a limited number of positions in the starting lineup, yet compete together on game day. Musicians within an orchestra vie for the first chair, but then harmonize their talents to delight audiences with their music. Coworkers jockey for prestigious assignments but afterwards combine their skills to advance the mission of the organization.

Healthy work environments depend on competition and cooperation. Both are necessary in order to win. Either too much competition or a deficiency of it can damage team dynamics. In an overly competitive work culture, the natural antagonism of competition turns teammates into enemies and deters cooperation. Conversely, in an environment absent of competition, the aversion to conflict snuffs out critical thinking and stifles initiative.

Arriving at suitable levels of competitiveness at work begins by acknowledging that competition has benefits and drawbacks.

The Upside of Competition

1) Competition provides feedback. Until we match our skills against a competitor, we seldom know the extent of our strengths and weaknesses.

2) Competition calls forth our best efforts. Runners don’t set world records in practice; they break them when racing against other elite athletes.

The Downside of Competition

1) Competition can become personal. We use the phrase “friendly competition,” but oftentimes competition is anything but friendly and ends up fueling personal animosities.

2) Competition can warp our view of success and failure. In a culture obsessed with winning, we can be tempted to measure our self-worth by the outcome of competition.

Completing Instead of Competing

To have the most influence with your peers, put completing fellow leaders ahead of competing against them. Endeavor to make your teammates better instead of trying to prove that you’re the best. If you spend time adding value to peers, you’ll eventually become very valuable to them. The following tips will aid you in adopting a healthy perspective on competition in the workplace:

Switch your standard of comparison.  We tend to compare ourselves to other people, when we should compare ourselves to our potential.
“I'm not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance.”
~ Celine Dion

Reevaluate your definition of success and failure.  First, resist the temptation to define yourself by wins and losses. We can only control the effort we put in, not the outcomes we experience. Second, move from an individual to collective notion of accomplishment. Rather than being solely preoccupied with personal advancement, learn to see success as helping others to victory.

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”
~ John Wooden

“You will accomplish more in the next two months, developing a sincere interest in two people than you will accomplish in the next two months, trying to get two people interested in you.”
~ Tim Sanders

Adopt an abundance mindset. There are many lanes on the highway to success. Search for win-win partnerships with fellow coworkers in which you both stand to gain something valuable. Sharing resources or lending assistance to others enriches rather than impoverishes you.

“The more we develop an abundance mentality, the more we are genuinely happy for the successes, well-being, achievements, recognition, and good fortune of other people. We believe their success adds to…rather than detracts from…our lives.”
~ Stephen Covey

---------------------------

QUOTES - COMPETITION

"When the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game."
~ Grantland Rice

"I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated."
~ Emmitt Smith

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well."
~ The Olympic Creed

"Winning isn't getting ahead of others, it is getting ahead of yourself."
~ Roger Staubach
---------------------------------

This article is used by permission from Leadership Wired, John Maxwell's premiere leadership newsletter, available for free subscription at www.johnmaxwell.com/newsletters

Access Source And It's Great Content: http://www.johnmaxwell.com/products-resources/free-resources

Close Friends Less Common Today, Study Finds | Amercians' Confidantes & Social Isolation | Close Social Networks Decrease | LiveScience

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor

Date: 04 November 2011 Time: 11:22 AM ET

If asked how many friends you have, some may have trouble distinguishing between the lengthy list of Facebook friends and those close pals you confide in. Well, it turns out, Americans' lists of the close type has shrunk to two, down from three confidantes 25 years ago, a new study suggests.

The study also found that the number of us who have zero confidantes, or the socially isolated, has not increased over these decades, as scientists had suspected based on a 2006 study showing a near tripling of Americans' social isolation between 1985 and 2004.

Although this shrinking social network "makes us potentially more vulnerable," said Matthew Brashears, assistant professor of sociology at Cornell University, "we're not as socially isolated as scholars had feared." However, Brashears isn't confident in any of the numbers gathered for social isolation in past studies and the current one, suggesting better methods of getting true numbers are needed.

Friend list

Brashears surveyed more than 2,000 adults ages 18 and older from the nationally representative Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) program. The Internet surveys were conducted between April 23 and May 5, 2010.

Participants were asked to list the names of people they had discussed "important matters" with over the previous six months. If respondents said "none," they asked whether this was because they didn't have any important matters to discuss or no one with whom to discuss them in the past six months.

About 48 percent of participants listed one name, 18 percent listed two, and roughly 29 percent listed more than two names for these close friends. On average, participants had 2.03 confidantes. And just over 4 percent of participants didn't list any names.

When Brashears looked closer at that number of socially isolated individuals, he found that 64 percent indicated that this was because they had no topic to discuss, while only about 36 percent had no one to talk to. Turns out, female participants and those who were educated were the least likely to report no names on their confidante list.

Shrinking support

Are we becoming hermits? Not quite, according to Brashears.

"Rather than our networks getting smaller overall, what I think may be happening is we're simply classifying a smaller proportion of our networks as suitable for important discussions," Brashears told LiveScience. "This is reassuring in that it suggests that we're not becoming less social."

In fact, research by University of Toronto sociologist Barry Wellman has shown we can be close to and rely on a number of people with whom we don't discuss important matters.

"But it may still be concerning," Brashears added. "Discussion partners provide both emotional support and ideas for how to solve problems, so a shrinking discussion network may lead to more stress and poorer outcomes."

And support does seem to be waning.

Brashears asked participants about a randomly selected friend they had listed, including the types of support that person could provide. Answers included: companionship, a loan of a significant amount of money, and a loan of a significant amount of non-monetary support, such as a place to crash for a while.

"Interestingly, among those respondents who reported only one discussion partner, a number of them reported that their associate would not provide any of these benefits," Brashears said. "This leads me to think that we should be less concerned about social isolation, or lacking any social contact, and more concerned about social poverty, or not having adequate support."

Access Article And Other Great Stuff: http://www.livescience.com/16879-close-friends-decrease-today.html

\

Don't Send That Email. Pick up the Phone! - Anthony Tjan - Harvard Business Review

HBR Blog Network

Anthony K. Tjan - Anthony Tjan is CEO, Managing Partner and Founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball and vice chairman of the advisory firm Parthenon.

12:30 PM Tuesday November 1, 2011 | Comments ( 44)

HBR FEATURED PRODUCTS

The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less

by Tony Schwartz $6.95 Buy it now »

Decoding Steve Jobs: Select Commentary from HBR.org

by Horace Dediu, James Allworth, Max Wessel, et al. $1.99 Buy it now »

Around this time last year, I wrote about how we need to get back to allowing conversation to occur without texting, emailing, browsing, Tweeting, Facebooking, or doing whatever else zeros and ones can do these days on smart phones, iPads, notebooks, etc. I am as guilty as the next person of falling for the perception that any response latency is unacceptable. As 2012 fast approaches, this needs to go on top of my New Year's resolution list: focus on the live conversations at hand, rather than parallel conversations on the Blackberry screen.

But the bigger need is just for more live conversations to occur, period. This is especially true when people are trying to resolve a conflict or communicate an important business decision. There is a rising and unproductive trend towards people trying to do digital conflict resolution. The de facto path for issue resolution seems to be increasingly via email. More accurately, email has become a convenient mechanism for issue-avoidance. It is easier, quicker, less stressful, and less confrontational to have critical or challenging issues sent over email versus a live one-on-one with a counterpart.

Like many readers, I have experienced too many unproductive strings of back-and-forth emails or texts that should have stopped in round two, but continue. The problems with trying to resolve sensitive matters over email or text are quite obvious:

1. It is hard to get the EQ (emotional intelligence) right in email. The biggest drawback and danger with email is that the tone and context are easy to misread. In a live conversation, how one says something, with modulations and intonations, is as important as what they are saying. With email it is hard to get the feelings behind the words.

2. Email and text often promote reactive responses, as opposed to progress and action to move forward. Going back to the zero latency expectation in digital communications, it is hard for people to pause and think about what they should say. One of my colleagues suggests not reacting to any incendiary message until you have at least had a night to sleep on it, and always trying to take the higher ground over email. While by definition reactive responses occur in live discourse, they are usually more productive. The irony is that while email, as an asynchronous channel, has the potential to be more thoughtful, it often promotes the opposite tendency to be immediately reactive. Why? Because the bark is almost always bigger than the bite behind remote digital shields.

3. Email prolongs debate. Because of the two reasons above, I have seen too many debates continue well beyond the point of usefulness. Worse, I have experienced situations which start relatively benignly over email, only to escalate because intentions and interests are easily misunderstood online. When I ask people if they have called or asked to meet the counterpart to try and reach a resolution, there is usually a pause, then a sad answer of "no."

Email is one of the greatest productivity contributors of the past two decades, and social communication platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have fundamentally changed and positively enriched the means and reach with which we are able to interact. Yet we have to recognize when such digital channels cannot substitute for a live conversation. Email and social networking modes of communications have created a generation of casually convenient new connections, and even helped us deepen existing relationships, but they can rarely replace the real world. As digital communication accelerates the pace at which people form and broaden relationships, it is also decreasing the rate at which people are willing to resolve issues professionally and directly in-person. The next time you experience an issue over email, ask yourself if it is something that would be better served by a real conversation. Then have the courage to stop emailing and pick up the phone. Or even better: have a meeting.


Access Source And Its Great Content: http://blogs.hbr.org/tjan/2011/11/dont-send-that-email-pick-up-t.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

How to Really Listen - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review

HBR Blog Network

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. To receive an email when he posts, click here.

7:37 AM Wednesday October 19, 2011 Comments ( 2)

HBR FEATURED PRODUCTS

The Science of Thinking Smarter: A Conversation with Brain Expert John J. Medina

by John Medina, Diane Coutu $6.95 Buy it now »

Stop Making Plans; Start Making Decisions

by Michael Mankins, Richard Steele $6.95 Buy it now »

One morning, my wife Eleanor woke up, turned over, and said, "I am not looking forward to this day." I asked her why.

What came out is that we were at the start of the Jewish high holy day season, which means colder weather and three weeks of big social meals, long religious services, broken routines, and children out of school. Eleanor didn't grow up with these traditions, and they can be overwhelming.

Now, I run a management consulting company; problem solving is what I do. So it didn't take me long to jump in.

"Cold weather means ski season is about to start," I said. "You love skiing. And these holiday meals are fun and filled with people you love — they'll make you feel better. And I'll be with you; you won't be alone with the kids. Also, you know, Jesus was Jewish, so it's kind of your tradition too."

Even as I said it, I knew that last one was a reach. It became clear that I was making her feel worse and now she wasn't just sad, she was angry.

And when she got angry, I felt myself get angry too. And self-righteous. Here I am trying to help her and this is what I get?

But then I smartened up. Instead of giving in to my anger, which would have really blown things up, I shut up and listened. When I did, I began to hear the real stuff, the things that neither of us was actually saying.

What I discovered was that she was upset because the focus on mothers during the Jewish holidays taps into her insecurities about motherhood, not being a Jewish mom, and not having time to spend on her own work.

I also discovered that my own babbling wasn't so much to help her feel better as to help me feel better. I'm the reason she's in New York City, living through cold winters, and part of a Jewish family.

In other words, by trying to make her feel better, I was doing the opposite of making her feel better. I was arguing with her. In fact, most of the time when we try to make people feel better, we end up arguing with them because we're contradicting what they're feeling. Which, inevitably, makes them feel worse.

Listening, it turns out, is magic. Not only did it help me understand what was going on with both of us, but it helped Eleanor feel better, too. It made her feel that she wasn't alone in her feelings; I was with her.

All I had to do was listen.

But listening isn't easy. The more we listen to others, the more likely we will react — or overreact — to what they say. Listening, it turns out, is much harder than speaking. We have to allow things we might disagree with to hang in the air. We have to move over a little and create space for those things to linger.

That kind of listening takes tremendous courage.

But if we're interested in learning — about ourselves as well as others — then it's worth it. And if we're interested in being connected to others, showing them respect, helping them feel better, and solving problems between us, than it's more than worth it. It's essential.

Until people feel heard, they will fight to be heard. But once they are heard, there is little left to fight for, and then we can move on, not as "us vs. them" but simply as "us."

So how do you listen in a way that transforms conversations and relationships?

1. Actually listen. And only listen. That means don't multitask. I'm not just talking about doing email, surfing the web, or creating a grocery list. Thinking about what you're going to say next counts as multitasking. Simply focus on what the other person is saying.
2. Repeat back. This feels a little silly at first but works magic. If someone says she is angry about the decision you just made, you can say "you're angry about the decision I just made." I know, I know, she just said that. But it shows you're listening and it communicates to the other person that she's been heard. If you don't have the courage to try it with an adult, try it with a child. You'll see what a difference it makes and it will embolden you to try it with a colleague or your spouse.
3. Ask questions. Explore the other person's thoughts and feelings more deeply. And "You don't really believe that, do you?" does not count as a question. You are not using the Socratic method to prove your point; you are trying to better understand what's going on so you can better understand your partner in this conversation.

Really listening can feel risky, which seems strange because listening doesn't materially change anything. But sometimes you'll hear things that are hard to hear.

Remember that listening is not the same thing as agreeing. And it will never force you to take any particular action. If anything, it will reduce the intensity of people's insistence that you take a specific action. Because in many cases what they're looking for is proof that you've heard them. So if they feel you've really heard them, their need for action diminishes.

As Eleanor spoke, I noticed my own resistance to various things she was saying. There's no question that it's hard to really listen. But once I relaxed into it, I heard her in a much deeper way. That made her feel better. Call me co-dependent, but it made me feel better too.

It turns out that sometimes, just listening is problem-solving.

Access Source And Its Great Content: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2011/10/how-to-really-listen.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Lessons In Business From Dr. Love's Hug Orgy | Fast Company

BY Dawn LimMon Oct 3, 2011

There's a science to creating a world that's happier and more profitable, says neuroeconomist Paul Zak.

Over a microphone, neuroeconomist Paul Zak is exhorting 500 New Yorkers to give more love. "Everyone has to hug at least one stranger by the end of tonight," he insists, "No creepy hugs, please." We're at the luridly named "Love Night" at the BMW-Guggenheim Lab on a Friday night, to be test subjects for experiments in what triggers our brains to trust. Zak (above) wraps the guy next to him in a bear hug, and the heart-shaped, heat-sensitive cutout on his T-shirt turns neon green. That starts a hugging orgy that lasts for the next three hours.

Zak got the name "Doctor Love" from looking at how oxytocin--simply put, it's the brain chemical that makes people cuddle and bond--affects people's economic decisions. The chief-architect of "Love Night," Zak has to convince this roomful of hipsters, academics, and the most hardened of New Yorkers that a hug--or anything that jump-starts our brains' love circuitry--is a powerful thing. Applied to business, it means that when people really connect with those they work with, they'll feel more committed to the ideas that they're making happen together, Zak says. To prove his point, he greets me by sweeping me up with a hug so strong that it almost hurts.

"There's a science behind creating a world that is happier and more profitable," says Zak, a Claremont Graduate University professor who takes his research team go-cart racing and holds beer parties in his lab. "It's can be as simple as eight hugs a day."

More thoroughly explained, oxytocin has been popularized as the love-molecule that gets people empathetic and generous. It's the chemical that motivates mothers to care for their children, or inspires two strangers to connect. Oxytocin release is a virtuous cycle: The more of this cuddle-molecule your brain pumps out, the more your brain is triggered to release it. A hug is one way to start this oxytocin loop, says Zak.

Another way is to create an environment where people know it's all right to be connecting. Google does this by establishing ping-pong tables and snack areas in its offices. After all, happier people tend to be more invested in their projects and customers, the thinking goes. "As much as it is intuitively obvious that there are effects from how you design your work environment, there's a science behind it," Zak says, "That includes whether there's beer in the fridge in the office."

In a corner at the Guggenheim lab this Friday night, 50 people are arguing about how to build the ideal city. They're playing Urbanology, a game in which they have to resolve and vote on real-world urban dilemmas. Some of the topics being debated: Should a city have dog-free zones? Should lawmakers be allowed to debate whether gay people should be banned from kissing in public? A couple of people jump in with some lively Detroit-bashing. After an algorithm calculates the net effect of everyone's decisions, it turns out that they've collectively built a city with "the lifestyle of Abu Dhabi, the sustainability of Johannesburg, and the transportation of Mexico City." But deeper into the night, as more people get oxytocin-high from all the hugging, the cities they build are a little kinder and greener.

In the garden, a psychologist is making pairs of strangers to walk toward each other till they get almost too close for comfort. He's also attached cuffs to their hands to measure activity in their sweat glands and determine their states of arousal. Each time a pair gets into one another's face, their arousal spikes, indicating they're feeling more alive and responsive.

In another corner, a large screen is projecting hopes and fears people have anonymously jotted down and dropped into a box. The desires are startlingly basic, and similar. Why is everyone saying they hope to find love, or that they want to make it in New York City? Maybe it's something about living in a city that pulses with so much life, and yet can be so indifferent. Part of this exercise is to show that it's cathartic to be able to share our thoughts freely with one another. And that's food for thought on how to build a workplace. "There are real chemical effects that are measurable and which you can manipulate," says Zak. By the end of the night, he's dispensed 100 hugs. "Completely wiped out," he says.

Ten years ago, Zak wouldn't have been comfortable brandishing the L-word so freely. Oxytocin was a hormone known mostly just in ob-gyn circles. After years of measuring blood samples and churning out peer-reviewed research, he's more at ease with proselytizing about the love-drug. But neuroeconomics, which studies the interplay between economic decisions and our brain's mechanisms, still remains a young field. It's difficult to study people outside a controlled lab setting--or convince the whole academic community that this isn't the stuff of pop-science.

Emanuele Castano, a New School social psychology professor who tried to carry out experiments on Love Night, knows that field tests are no cakewalk. For fun, he's testing whether people are more likely to trust strangers when they're holding a warm rather than a cold drink. The hypothesis: Those who feel the warmth from cups of hot cocoas in their hands will score higher on trust, and agree to fill out a survey given out by a stranger. There was just one problem: His control group was skewed. "Everyone was just too trusting from all the hugging," he sighs.


[Image: Matthew Stanton]

Dawn Lim has reported about tech for Dow Jones MarketWatch, Wired, and NextGov. You can find Dawn on Twitter at: Twitter.com/dawnmlim.

Access Source And Its Great Content: http://www.fastcompany.com/1784836/paul-zak-guggenheim-lab?partner=rss

Bosses Don’t Listen, Study Finds - ABC News

By Christina Ng
Sep 19, 2011

12:00pm

Bosses Don’t Listen, Study Finds
 

A new study seems to confirm what some disgruntled employees have long-suspected: bosses don’t listen.

The study, in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, claims that the more power an individual has in the workplace, the less likely they are to take advice from others. And on top of not listening, these inflated decision makers are often wrong in their decisions.

“There’s a tendency for power to make you confident, which is a good thing because we want our leaders to be confident, but there’s a dark side to that confidence,” said Elizabeth Morrison, one of the study’s authors and a professor of management and organizations at New York University.  ”You can be over-confident and less open to input from others.”

The researchers collected data from over 200 managers as well as their coworkers. In addition to the real-life bosses, experiments were conducted where students were assigned different levels of power and asked to make various decisions.
Those in higher positions of power had the tendency to make decisions on their own without seeking or taking input from others.
Morrison said that the researchers were surprised to find that people in higher positions of power felt an overall confidence that lead them to make decisions on their own both in areas where they were experts and in areas that were not part of their expertise, simply because they were powerful.
The researchers noted that the decision-maker and his or her underlings see things differently. Often times, the employees in positions of greater power had “internalized role expectations” that powerful people are supposed to be confident in their decisions and that taking advice from others is a sign of weakness.
However, employees working under these decision-makers believed that bosses who take advice and input are better leaders.
The managers who made the decisions on their own were found to be the least accurate. Their over-confidence and inflated sense of their own judgment often led them to the wrong decisions.
The experiments also found that women were more likely to take advice than men.
Morrison believes that the study has real-life implications for the workplace. “If you feel you have the answer, recognize that there may be a tendency to be off in that judgment and force yourself to listen to other people,” she said.
The study was titled “The Detrimental Effects of Power on Confidence, Advice Taking, and Accuracy” and conducted by Morrison, Kelly See, Naomi Rothman of Lehigh University and Jack Soll of Duke University. It will be published in November.
Access Source And Its Great Content: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/09/bosses-dont-listen-study-finds/

The Cure for Horrible Bosses - Harvard Business Review

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

FEATURED PRODUCTS

Harvard Business Review on Building Better Teams

by Harvard Business Review     $22.00      Buy it now »

HBR's 10 Must Reads: The Essentials

by Clayton Christensen, Thomas Davenport, Peter Drucker, et al.     $24.95      Buy it now »

Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value

by Tobias Fredberg, Flemming Norrgren, Russell Eisenstat, et al.     $29.95       Buy it now »

In the recent film comedy Horrible Bosses, three truly dreadful managers make their employees’ lives miserable. The first is a cruel executive who dangles a promotion in front of a subordinate as bait, only to snatch it away once his stupid demands have been met. The second is a mean cokehead who inherits the family business from his kindly deceased father. The third is an orthodontist who sexually harasses her assistant, threatening to tell his fiancée that it’s his fault.
The victims in the movie can’t quit. They need the jobs. Instead, they compose elaborate, farcical plots to eliminate the bosses.

In real life, horrible bosses are the stuff of tragedy, not comedy. Workplace discontent is no joke. Some surveys show that as many as half of American workers feel low levels of work engagement, stemming in part from poor management.

It’s not insults that cause the greatest harm, but rather callousness about people’s time. Horrible bosses want control. They expect subordinates to be on call 24/7 and to hit unrealistic deadlines with limited resources. When the work product is delivered, horrible bosses may ignore it for long intervals, making it clear that the deadline was artificial and the stress unnecessary.

To minimize the impact of horrible bosses, companies can ensure that performance reviews are based on objective measures, not subjective ones. They can examine tasks and workloads for relevance and fairness. They can offer training to teach respectful behavior. They can police sexual harassment and make flexibility a right. But formal processes go only so far. Employees sometimes find themselves worse off when they use official complaint mechanisms.

The best cure for horrible bosses is alternative relationships and collaboration. Organizations that foster strong, multidimensional relationships among colleagues weaken the control of a single autocratic boss. They make it more likely that the sins of horrible bosses will be exposed to others who can stop them.

Groups caught in a horror show can end the misery by banding together to focus on goals and show compassion for one another. Jane Dutton of the University of Michigan, a leader in the positive psychology movement, has shown that simple gestures of caring can humanize the workplace and raise levels of performance.

Another good way to neutralize horrible bosses is to focus on the mission and help others around you succeed. A manager I’ll call Pierre was sent by his company to lead a turnaround, as COO, of a low-performing subsidiary in a developing country. The country CEO was imperialistic and antagonistic. He gave Pierre a basement office with no staff and proceeded to ignore him. Pierre’s corporate bosses told him to work it out. After a few days of feeling depressed, Pierre decided to move into the tiny office next to the CEO and find his own assistant from outside the company, someone with no history with or allegiance to the CEO.

Then he forged ahead with relationship-building. He identified the best performers in the unit who he thought would be the most independent of the CEO’s power. He met with them in small groups and provided abundant performance data and ideas for growing the business. Soon they were leading their peers in making changes. The horrible boss couldn’t control Pierre and couldn’t stop the momentum. The boss became impotent in his irrelevance—and later was fired for corruption.

In the movie, the three friends help one another, and the horrible bosses fall on their own swords. Real life is not as dramatic or entertaining. Still, an underlying truth holds: The best cure for horrible bosses is wonderful colleagues. 

Access Contet Source And Its Great Stuff: http://hbr.org/2011/10/the-cure-for-horrible-bosses/ar/1