Tag Archives: positive psychology

Bring back nice!

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Bring back smiles

 

Being nasty costs a lot at work.

 Nice costs nothing and can in fact provide you with fantastic pay-offs. 

 The cost of nastiness

When I started researching this blog entry I was just looking for a bit of information about the impact of nastiness in the workplace to counterpoint what I was thinking about the impact of niceness.  What I found was research about the impact of bullying in the workplace that stunned me. 

A 2005 study found that the cost of one form of nastiness – sexual harassment – for Fortune 500 companies was more than $US 6 million per year.  http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/usa.htm

 A UK study indicated that the cost of bullying including loss of productivity is more than 32million pounds per year http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/typical.htm

 Yesterday Seth Godin talked in his blog about fear as the driver of bad behaviour.

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451b31569e20120a8d06726970b

 And cognitive neuroscience research tells us that when circumstances push us into flight or fight and fear, we need to be conscious, or mindful of what is happening to us. If not, we can become the person with the nasty attitude instead of the leader who is building a positive culture.

 Nastiness is often subtle and has a way of rippling through and crippling your team and organization.  But you can do something about it…. 

 Creating nice

Some practical things you can do as a leader are: 

  1. Reflect on what your own behaviour is saying to others: look in the mirror and seek feedback
  2. Have a zero-tolerance for poor behaviour and tell people about it
  3. When bad behaviour happens, challenge it – even if it’s coming from your most “valuable” performer
  4. Investigate rumours or concerns raised by staff because nastiness is often subtle
  5. Invest in anonymous post-leaving interviews to find patterns or individuals generating problems.

For more see the article by Christine M Pearson and Christine L Porath On the nature, consequences and remedies for workplace incivility: no time for “nice”? Think again Academy of Management Executive: 2005, Vol.19 No.1.

 Bring back your smile

Some simple things you can do to get your smile back are:

  • Make sure you say your hellos and goodbyes at work each day which connects you to the people you spend a lot of time with (see Siimon Reynolds’ book Why people fail for more)
  • Tell people what you appreciate about what they’re doing both in delivering tasks and in terms of behaviour (see Siimon Reynolds’ book Why people fail for more)
  • Smile –fake it even if you don’t feel like it – there’s some evidence from research into emotions that while the smile starts off as a fake, it soon becomes real. (see Stefan Klein’s Science of Happiness p7-21 for the secrets of smiling)

 “Unhappiness comes on its own, but we have to work for happiness.” Stefan Klein Science of Happiness p21.

 Your smile

What are you doing to bring your smile back?

3 ways to more effectively lead change

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3 ways to lead change and reduce helplessness

Icecream isn't always helpful

A few years ago I attended a 5-day workshop facilitated by a great man, Max Clayton.

Max’s facilitation process was wonderful, wise and at times incredibly confronting for me.  There was one space in between workshop sessions where Max, who at that time wasn’t well, was moving chairs around.

I offered to help.  Max said something like “helping is your problem, not mine”.  It doesn’t sound like much but it’s shaped my leadership and organizational change work since then.

Why helping doesn’t help

  1. Helping creates a power and control dynamic, the helper and the helpless
  2. The helpless don’t actually have to do anything, that’s the helper’s job
  3. Helplessness gets embedded through learned behaviour, thinking and organisational systems. Symptoms are:
  • people not stepping up as leaders because of the energy required to help everyone (in the education arena this was reflected in the number of school principal vacancies)
  • policies assuming the worst case scenario and try to cover all eventualities
  • new ideas generated by the leadership cohort, rather than being generated throughout the organization.

Shifting from helplessness

Martin Seligman has explored both learned helplessness and ways to address this through positive psychology.  The University of Pennsylvania website has some great tools etc to explore.

Positive psychology and its associated thinking tools which aim to build happiness are applicable to us as individuals, teams, organizations, and communities.

3 ways to be a better leader (and not helper)

  1. Find your own strengths and use them to create better engagement with those around you.  You should also celebrate your strengths and greatness – see Martin Seligman’s website at www.authentichappiness.org.
  2. Recognise and reward the strengths of the person you’re leading or coaching. It’s so easy to respond to the “F” results and “fix” them, rather than the “A’s” (See Chip and Dan Heath’s book Switch which I’m still reading – p47 – and yes I know I mentioned it yesterday but it’s really interesting).
  3. Be mindful of your assumptions. Before you start a leadership or coaching conversation, be aware of what you are assuming about the person you’re meeting with ie am I helping because I’m assuming this person is weak in this area? Write these assumptions down as a pre-meeting exercise.

Some References

Heath, C and Heath D (2010) Switch: how to change things when change is hard Broadway Books, Random House Group Limited, Chatham UK

Seligman, M.E.P. (1998). Learned Optimism. New York: Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster).
Gillham, J.E. (Ed). (2000). The Science of Optimism and Hope: Research Essays in Honor of Martin E. P. Seligman. Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.

Seligman, M.E.P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press.
Peterson, Christopher & Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues A Handbook and Classification. Washington, D.C.: APA Press and Oxford University Press.