Working with the Organisation’s Shadowside: Helping organisations discuss the undiscussable?

At the recent EU AI network meeting some colleagues and I fell into a conversation about working with the organisational shadowside. I thought it was interesting enough to share.

What is the organisational shadowside?

While discussion our work, we identified a common experience, when working with faith organisations, of encountering such a strong surface ‘story’ about what it meant to be a good person of this faith that it was impossible for the organisation to talk about actions and feelings in the organisation that didn’t fit that story. In one example it was the hurt, anger, betrayal, resentment and other difficult feelings following a round of redundancies that had taken place the previous year that was unmentionable. In another it was the difficulty of working and living within the constraints of monastic vows that was pushed under the carpet. The challenge we encountered wasn’t the stories themselves, it was the sense that we were being drawn into a secret or ‘shadow’ conversation that couldn’t be fitted into the accepted organisational story.

Another colleague expanded the conversation by added her experience working with ‘vocational’ organisations like charities, noting how she had found that an excess of ‘passion’ about the work or the clients was used to excuse bullying behaviour. Of course, we noted, all organisations have topics and parts of their history that are difficult to address, but these types of organisations seemed to have an extra factor of difficulty in acknowledging and owning organisational imperfections.

What is particular about these organizations?

Reflecting on this led us to the observation that these organisations could all be described as striving towards a greater good. In a way the organizations didn’t just want to do good, they needed to be good. This purity of spirit allowed little room for imperfections of spirit. But the organizations were full of people, and people have plenty of imperfections. It was this, we postulated, that made it hard for the organisation and the people in it to bring their stories together. The lived experience of troubling feelings and actions was pushed into the shadow.

So as Appreciative Practitioners, our challenge was, how to bring these two conversations into the same space in a fruitful and appreciative way? We needed to be able to have a conversation that acknowledged and owned people’s experience of the difficulties that come with being human that also honoured the organisation’s story of itself as essentially ‘good’. Somehow, within the container of a specific safe space, we needed it become permissible to name and share the challenging parts of life in this group while upholding the values and beliefs of the organisation about its purpose and its ‘spirit’ of being. The organisation, and the people, needed to be able to own the whole.

We felt that this idea of permission, permission to tell the untellable stories and of being heard, was key to joining the two conversations together. We discussed and shared different approaches and techniques we had used, recognising that what worked in one context wouldn’t necessarily have the same impact in another; that we needed, in all situations, to enact situational sensitivity.

Some of the approaches we identified that we had found helpful in the past were

• Validating but not amplifying. One of us had found that creating an opportunity for people to share difficult stories in individual interviews meant that they could tell their story of the ‘bad things’ going on before the group event. This meant that the story/ experience could be heard and acknowledged, without being amplified within a group setting. It was also noted that the sense of having ‘deposited ‘the story with the facilitator beforehand seemed to act to reduce the anxiety and so likelihood of someone being driven to just blurt something out. Instead, the facilitator could create opportunities for people to choose to share difficult material within a generally appreciative and positive oriented event, at an appropriate time.

• Problem and Solution Tree. One of us had also worked with a ‘problem tree’ and ‘solution tree’ process, drawing on the work of David Shaked, which worked to bring both problem and aspiration visibly into the same space in relation to each other.

• Working with hopes and fears. The allowed the fears (of getting together to have a tricky conversation for example) to be named. It was found that allowing them to be named worked, in the specific context described, to lessen their strength and their impact. Naming and recording these hopes and fears also allowed for regularly monitoring of changes in group concerns and helped appreciation that hopes were being realised and fears ameliorated.

In addition,

• We noted in these situations it can be helpful to work in small groups a lot, and of course, to always be focused on creating questions that move the discussion and conversation towards connection, creation and compassion.

• We also reminded ourselves of the value, frequently, in checking assumptions underlying conversational contributions and people’s mental maps

• And we noted the importance of exercising contextual intelligence. That is, recognising that the story is bigger than the people in the room and systems, for example, often mirror the tensions in the bigger system.

Since our conversation I have been reminded of how story is the key resource with which we are so often working. The question often is how we can help the group move from its current story or stories towards something that is inclusive of a wider experience. One that recognises forces at play beyond those in front of us, or that recognises good intentions can be behind bad actions.

I find this an interesting topic, and I hope this has been interesting for you too.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Positive Organisational Culture’ 

Highlights from ABP conference

At the ABP conference on the 10th and 11th of November, I was struck by the professionalism of the presenters and the high standard of their content. I wanted to share a few of the ‘nuggets’ I picked up with you.

The ‘know it all’ and ‘learn it all’ culture difference

Matthew Syed introduced these two terms, the first reflecting a fixed mindset. The ‘know it all’ mindset can have some adverse effects:

• Everyone wants to look like the smartest person in the room, it’s all about showing off what you know, not being interested in what others might know.

• The competitive attitude undermines psychological safety.

• The need to be right can lead to ‘blame the customers’ mindset.

• And, as very often ‘people like us’ sound more intelligent, this attitude can lead to a monoculture in the organization.

Not great then!

The ‘learn it all ‘culture, more like a growth mindset, is much more interested in a diversity of knowledge and resources in the room, including the tactic knowledge that is part and parcel of different life experiences. It is this that enhances the ‘granular capacity’ of a group or organization to understand the diverse world of their customers and other stakeholders. In essence, we need a growth mindset and diversity to solve complex interdisciplinary problems. I thought these two terms very useful to summarise the difference.

Some fascinating takeaways

The 2-for-the-price-of-1 employee

Andrew Whyatt- Sames, introduced this concept of an employee which I hadn’t come across before. With a 2-4-1 employee, the employer gets the unpaid services of the partner at home doing all the domestic work enabling the employee to work ‘as if’ he or she had no other responsibilities. An arrangement which, not only takes us back to the 1950s, but, of course, also disadvantages all those employees who have to carry their own load at home.

‘Be nice to them or they’ll leave’

Summed up the message to bosses trying to revert to the good old pre-covid days of 7/5 office attendance. That ship has sailed.

Poor mental health on average costs employers £1652 per employee per annum

So asserted Maria Gardener while also sharing that Deloittes found a 5:1 return on investment in well being in their 2020 research. However, it depends how you spend the money. One size does not fit all, and an over reliance on sticky plasters and panic stations has little long-term benefit. Wellbeing needs to extend to financial wellbeing. You can offer your employees resilience workshops and mindfulness apps until they are coming out of their ears, but if you don’t pay them enough to make ends meet, then all a bit beside the point.

Ghost Meetings

These are non-existent meetings that desperate people book just for just to give themselves space to recharge in overpacked office days.

How to hack happiness

Amanda Potter from Betalent’s took us on a deep dive into the neurophysiology of both happiness and stress, with great suggestions for how to ‘hack’ happiness. I was delighted to see I was already using so many

• Snacking on nuts and seeds supports acetylcholine production, a rebalancing chemical

• Celebrating little wins produces dopamine. Yeah, I did it, I changed the filters on the hoover!

• Chocolate. Okay, so my go to is a Lint Easter Bunny rather than worthy dark chocolate but I’m sure its just as good for the serotonin

• And I’ve recently discovered Epsom salts in a hot bath – it was on the list,  honest!

The decisive amongst us are 12 times more likely to be high performing than those plagued by procastrination.

Psychological safety

Amanda and her team undertook some research identifying the characteristics of psychologically safe teams or spaces, which include such things such as

• Feeling personally connected,

• Feeling included,

• Appreciating and being appreciated.

While in psychologically unsafe teams or spaces people want to please, feel they have to be nice all the time, defer to leadership, are consensus driven, and seek consistency. All of which leads us back round to our opening idea of the ‘know it all culture’ with its premium on people who think like us and a lack of dissent.

 My thanks to everyone. It was a great event, really one of the better conferences out there.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Thought Provoking’ 

Optimism

At some point or another in life, we all face hardships, encounter adversity, and have to deal with difficult situations. However, it’s how we view and talk about these adversities that influences our wellbeing and outlook on life - a bad experience for one person may be a learning experience for another. Positive psychologist Martin Seligman explains how it is possible to cultivate positive perspectives in his book Learned Optimism (1990).

Whether we are optimists or pessimists can be determined by the way that we talk about our experiences and the events that happen in our life, particularly adversities. Seligman describes this as our explanatory style, of which there are 3 aspects, permanence, pervasiveness and personalization. These are known as the 3 Ps.

The three P’s

Permanence relates to how long you believe any given situation will last. Those with a more pessimistic view in life will tend to describe bad situations as permanent and believe they will last forever. They will also typically describe good fortune as a fluke that won’t hang around. However, optimists will view setbacks as temporary, which enables the ability to accept situations for what they are and to adapt for the future instead of dwelling upon the past.

Pervasiveness is all about how widespread you perceive a situation to be. Pessimists will believe that bad experiences will affect all aspects of their life but that good things only happen in isolation. On the other hand, optimists will look at negative experiences as just one minor inconvenience instead of projecting it to all aspects of their life.

The personalization aspect of explanatory styles refers to the degree in which an individual attributes the cause of an event to internal or external factors. Optimists will consider external factors outside of their control when things go wrong and take credit for their personal achievements. Whereas a pessimist will look internally when things go wrong and believe the good times must be down to luck.

The benefits of being optimistic

There are many known benefits for looking on the bright side of life and being optimistic. Optimists are known to have higher levels of motivation and attainment, have better health and live longer than those who tend to see life through a more pessimistic lens. Studies into optimism and the perceived health benefits show that higher levels of optimism can be related to higher levels of engagement, less avoidance, better coping skills, and taking proactive steps to maintain a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, pessimism has been related to health-damaging behaviours such as trying to avoid the reality of the situation (Segerstrom et al., 2010). In times of ill health, those of us who are optimistic may therefore take a more practical approach to recovery, rather than trying to avoid the situation or withdraw from those around them who may want to support us or be able to help. Optimists are also better able to put a positive spin on negative situations and experiences.

In the workplace optimism has been linked to higher levels of intrinsic motivation, goal focused behaviours, and a better ability to endure stressful situations. Optimistic persistence in pursuing goals may have beneficial consequences such as protection against negative effects and a greater likelihood of goal attainment (Solberg & Segerstrom, 2006).

So, the benefits of being optimistic seem clear, but what can we do ourselves to try and view things in a more positive light?

Can we learn to be more optimistic?

Being optimistic is not a fixed trait, individuals may have different levels of optimism at different points in their lives. It is also something that anyone can cultivate and change when they start to notice their automatic negative thoughts and begin to challenge them. People can work on changing their explanatory style once they teach themselves to become aware of the relationship between how they explain situations in their lives and how this affects the outcome of those situations.

Seligman’s adaptation of the ABC technique is a method which can be used to help cultivate optimism. The ABC technique stands for Adversity, Belief, and Consequence, and it is a way of breaking down our experiences in order to focus on how you get from adversity to belief. This stage of how you get from A to B is known as your explanatory style, and it is this that directly impacts how we react to situations. When we become aware of our pessimistic explanatory style, we can confront it and replace it with more optimistic thoughts.

For example, say you are struggling to complete a task at work because you believe it’s too complicated, this is the adversity. This adversity may lead you to the belief that you must be stupid because you can’t do it. Therefore, the consequence is that you stop trying to complete the task and your self-confidence may have taken a bit of a hit.

Sometimes it can be hard to break out of these negative thought cycles because they seem to happen without much conscious thought. However, there are some tips and tricks you can use to try and reframe how you think about those setbacks in life to work towards a more optimistic explanatory style.

1.     See setbacks as temporary

2.     Don’t over-generalize

3.     Shift your focus from things you can’t change to things you can.

4.     Take a balanced approach – there are always things you do well and always things you can change.

5.     Acknowledge your own contribution

It is possible for everyone to reap the benefits of thinking more optimistically by acknowledging pessimistic thought patterns and adjusting their mindset. Once we are able to reflect on how our negative thoughts influence the consequences we experience, we can teach ourselves to think more positively about ourselves, our abilities and the situation when we encounter adversity. It is these positive beliefs that will lead to positive consequences, making way for a more positive outlook on life.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Positive Psychology’ 

How a dose of humility helps leaders succeed

In our narcissistic world the idea that being humble can help us succeed sounds counter-intuitive. Isn’t being successful based on making sure our achievements get noticed?

Well yes, but humility, it turns out, brings some useful things to the party. Let’s start with a definition. A humble leader neither over-estimates nor under-estimates his or her ability to relate to other team members, holding instead a ‘just right’ view of themselves. This fits with lots of research supporting the importance of self-knowledge to successful leadership: we need to know, acknowledge and take responsibility for our towering strengths and our yawing weaknesses.

Creates space for others to develop

Humility shows itself in a focus on others rather than self, through interpersonal modesty, through teachability, and through a willingness to express appreciation of others. This relates humility to other research showing the power of appreciation to help others grow. And supports the idea that a good leader knows how and when to get themselves (or their ego!) ‘out of the way’ to allow others to thrive and grow.

Increases team resources

We assess someone’s degree of humility when we see how they handle conflict, negotiate ideas, deal with power differentials, use wealth, receive honour and engage with cultural differences. I think we can all imagine the kind of person we would rather be around when these situations arise. Demonstrating a degree of humility in these situations makes it easier for the other person, helping them to be at their best in a challenging situation. In this way a leader who is able to show humility increases the resources in their system by allowing others to find their voice and develop confidence, indeed to shine.

Supports good team relationships

Humility, it has been established, is an important relational nutrient that helps people work better together by helping to repair bonds when relationships have become strained. Eating humble pie is an important part of maintaining good relationships with other people and is strongly related with eliciting forgiveness and building trust and commitment. 

Enhances team performance

When a leader leads through example, but exhibiting appropriate humility, it encourages the whole team to relate to each other in a different, more humble way. They become more willing to evaluate themselves accurately, appreciate the strengths of other team members, and to learn from each other. All this in turn encourages enhanced team performance.

Complements leadership drive

Now here is the really interesting bit, research found that exceptional leaders who guide their companies into periods of productive growth and also successfully set them up to continue thriving after their departure, exhibit both drive and humility. What does humility add to drive to produce these exceptional results?

Enhances resilience

One theory is that humility helps to buffer some of the effects of competitiveness and drive, an excess of which is thought to contribute to the high rates of divorce, depression and burnout amongst successful leaders. Bringing humility into the mix allows for a balance of both competition and cooperation which enhances resilience. The humbleness acts to soften interpersonal relationships in such a way that the leader can engage in a highly competitive way without incurring the usual wear and tear on relationships. They are more supported and less isolated.

So, what does this mean for you?

As a leader

·      If you already have the strengths of humility recognize it as an asset, not an obstacle, to successful, resilience leadership

·      If you don’t yet have this as a strength, it may well be one to nurture

·      Learn to use it in appropriate situations

o   To strength the team

o   To repair any damage to relationships

o   To improve team performance

o   To help others be their best

o   To create virtuous circles of cooperation, ‘we’ not ‘I’ thinking that boosts team cohesiveness

As a consultant or coach

·      Recognize this as a potential leadership strength

·      Help your client become skilled in identifying situations that call for humility

·      Assist them in learning how to exercise humility skilfully

Our strengths packs the Langley Group VIA Cards and Positran Strengths cards both include further information on this strength, how to work with it and how to develop it further, as does Ryan Niemiec’s book Character Strength Interventions.

Much of the material in this article was drawn from Davis, Hook DeBlaere and Placeres (2017) in Oades, Steger, Delle Fave and Passmore: The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of The Psychology of Positivity and Strengths-Based Aproaches to Work. 

 Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Leadership’

Evaluation from an Appreciative perspective

People who are interested in the Appreciative Inquiry approach sometimes struggle to understand how they can apply it to the challenge of assessment or evaluation.

How does evaluation work?

To engage with this question, we need first to consider the nature of evaluation. There are two key ways of understanding evaluation. The first sees it as a measurement of change in something real. This suggests that any change to be measured exists independently of the measurer and is an impersonal fact of the world; that ‘knowledge’ exists independently of the knower. 

We might note that were this actually the case then medical research would not so value the double-blind protocol where neither the subject nor the experimenter knows who got the active drug and who the placebo. This design is the gold standard in medical research because of a recognition that a researcher’s knowledge can influence their measurement, albeit unconsciously. So while it is often useful to act ‘as if’ change can be understood in this ‘separate from the actors’ way, it is a convenient fiction not an undeniable truth.

Alternatively, we can recognise change as socially constructed. We can recognise that the change we see is dependent on who is looking and how they are looking. We can recognise that the relationship between the context and the actor is systemic: each affects the other. What we choose to search for affects what we find; what we find affects how we behave in the future. In this understanding awareness of change becomes something that we create through our ways of looking; and we make choices about our ways of looking.

We can further understand assessment and evaluation across two dimensions, creating 4 quadrants. 

We have choices about whether we are mainly focussed on the past or the future; and on assessment or development. We could also consider whether we are mainly interested in learning or control.

Different models of evaluation for different situations - the test isn’t everything!

This useful model allows us to consider different evaluation approaches for different situations. For example, if we are assessing against clear standards, such as assessing someone taking a driving test, then our focus will be on the bottom left quadrant: past/ assessment.

Since much of our assessment, evaluation experience is located in this quadrant, for example exams, tests, and, sad to say, even performance appraisals, many people are unaware that it is only one of at least four ways of thinking about assessment.

On the other hand I am currently involved in helping a group create a ‘strengths-based’ peer review process. This is a conscious decision to create a different evaluation experience.

The model above allows us to see that if the main point of our review is to improve the service in the future then the focus of our process lies in identifying development for the future; and is at the learning end of the control/learning spectrum.

For further information on how to create a systemic appreciative review you are referred to

Appreciative Peer Review: A procedure in the November 2017 Blog of the International Journal of Appreciative Inquiry, translated from the original Dutch article by Wick van der Vaart. https://aipractitioner.com/2017/11/09/appreciative-peer-review-procedure/

Embedded Evaluation by Mette Jacobsgaard and Irene Norlund in the August 2011 edition of aipractitioner. https://aipractitioner.com/product/embedded-evaluation/

This article is also indebted to Systemic Appreciative Evaluation by Malene Slov Dinesen in the Aug 2009 edition of aipratitioner https://aipractitioner.com/product/ai-practitioner-august-2009/

Did you know? Build in Wellbeing from the beginning

Lots of people feel instinctively that happiness and wellbeing at work must be important. But are they a business necessity or a ‘nice to have’. Surely it makes more sense to ensure your business is profitable and thriving before you start worrying about how people feel?

Increasingly research suggests that investing in employee wellbeing by ensuring positive work relationships, an emphasis on strengths-based development, and worker happiness has productivity pay-offs. So why delay, start promoting positive psychology practices at work today!

Our happiness and wellbeing is at least partly within our control - and it matters!

Here is a selection of evidence-based support for the promotion of positive psychology e.g. happiness and wellbeing at work. It is clear from the evidence that a large component of the happiness we feel is within our control, and that many, more than 50% of the population, are functioning at a less than optimal state. And that our emotional state affects our performance and productivity at work:

1)    40% of the variation we experience in our sense of happiness, compared to others, is within our control. 10% is due to circumstances beyond our control and 50% due to our genetic make-up and inheritance which dictates our set point of happiness. Our 40% is influenced by ‘intentional activity’. In other words we can affect the happiness of ourselves and others. The research behind this assertion is based on twin studies (the genetic component) and the long-lasting effect of changing circumstances on happiness levels (the circumstances) leaving 40% of the variation due to individual actions.

2)    54% of Americans are ‘moderately mentally healthy’ meaning they aren’t mentally ill but they lack great enthusiasm for life and are not actively and productively engaged with the world. 11% languish – just above clinical depression.

3)    Exercise can be as effective at treating clinical depression as medication, and have an effect for longer.

4)    People whose managers focus on their strengths as 2.5x more likely to be engaged at work than those whose managers focus on their weaknesses.

5)    Highly engaged employees take, on average, 3 sick days per annum, actively disengaged employees , 6+ per year.

6)    The least happy employees average 6 days absence a year, the most happy 1.5, in the UK and USA. Liking your colleagues produces the same absence correlation.

7)    Engaged employees give 57% more discretionary effort at work.

8)    Doctors in a positive mood before making a diagnosis make the correct diagnosis 19% faster than those who were in a neutral state.

9)    In a major fast food company an intervention to reduce management turnover (the retention of managers being a major problem for this sector) the approach using AI led to a retention rate 30% higher than when problem-solving techniques were used.

10) The happiest people at work are 180% more energised than the unhappiest, they contribute 25% more and achieve their goals 30% more. They are 47% more productive meaning they are contributing a day and a quarter more than their least happy colleagues per week.

11) The most happy are 50% more motivated than the least happy. 

12) People who are happier are 25% more effective and efficient than those who are least happy.

13) Feelings and behaviour are contagious: negative behaviour has a ripple effect to two degrees, but positive behaviour can reach to three degrees.

14) The more you want recognition, the less you want money in its place.

15) We lose 40% of our productivity flip-flopping between tasks – three lost hours in a typical 8-hour day.

Sources

These findings are collated from various sources, including particularly the work of Pryce-Jones and Lyubomirsky.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

See more Engagement, Leadership Skills, Performance Management and Positive Psychology articles articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books

Where Next With Positive Psychology

Earlier this month I attended the Global Strengthscope Practitioner Conference in London. A wonderful and inspiring conference where completely unexpectedly I was presented with the 2017 conference ‘Outstanding Contribution to Positive Work Practices Award.’ I was delighted and honoured and it got me thinking about what we have achieved so far in bringing positive work practices into the workplace and what we have yet to achieve.

There are some specific practices that stem from positive psychology that have and are definitely making their way into the workplace. Strengths awareness is one. Thanks to the work of Strengths Partnership and others the language of strengths, and, the ability to identify and measure strengths is an established work practice in many organizations. The need to help people work to their strengths is making headway in organizations. Only the other day I received an inquiry from someone in a large manufacturing automobile organization for a strengths framework to replace their competency framework. They wanted a ready to go, large scale complete strengths based process to support development from recruitment onwards. I was able to introduce them to BeTalent who have developed a fantastic, online strengths and related behaviour assessment and development process, suitable for use at scale, that is exactly what the inquirer was looking for. This ‘work practice’ is on the edge of mainstream practice.

The importance of mood or positivity to work culture and performance is making headway although still regarded by many as something to concentrate on after doing the difficult thing not as a way of doing the difficult thing. Positivity is central to Appreciative Inquiry, a methodology for change that can usefully be regarded as an operationalization of positive psychology for the workplace, which itself is definitely more widely known and practiced in the UK than it was when I started practicing in this way in the late 1990s. It is taught as an approach in our management colleges and these days people are more likely to approach me specifically asking for an Appreciative Inquiry intervention.

Wellbeing has long been a workplace concern, and the emphasis of positive psychology on flourishing and positive health has had an impact on workplace practices in this area. Nic Marks, previously of the National Economics Foundation and presently CEO of Happiness Works has been a pioneer in developing organisational ‘happiness’ or wellbeing measurement tools built from positive psychology principles. The development of organization-wide measurement processes allows positive work practices to be implemented at scale.

For myself, as a sole practitioner, my contribution has been more on a ‘bits and pieces’ basis. I bring the positive psychology perspective to bear on every assignment one way or another, and increasingly find myself an educator both in business and academia on positive psychology and its implementation in the workplace. I am able to run Appreciative Inquiry informed events, or run sessions on strengths, or help develop positive and appreciative leadership skills. And of course I have tried to spread the work through my writing. And I am not alone, there is a growing band of UK based positive psychology practitioners, thanks not least to the Positive Psychology Masters established at the University of East London by Dr Ilona Boniwell.

For the future my ambition and vision is for this to become a movement.

To this end I am already talking to people about establishing something akin to an Institute for Flourishing Organizations. I see such an organisation acting as a central hub for those attempting to create flourishing organizations in the UK, those seeking to work in such organizations and those with skills to help. In my mind it will be a home for those interested in this growing movement so they can find other like-minded people. I want it to act to bring the positive psychology and the Appreciative Inquiry field together around their shared ambition of creating flourishing at work.

My vision at present for such an organisation is that it would promote positive psychology practice in organizations; offer measurement and assessment processes, possibly a badge of accreditation; act as guidance for job seekers looking for organizations that ‘got this’; offer a resource for academics seeking research possibilities; bring together positive psychology and Appreciative Inquiry. This organisation would be where my friend who asked if I knew of organizations that worked in a strengths-based way so he could apply to them, and my colleague seeking a strengths-based alternative to competencies, could come to find answers.

I firmly believe we have enough knowledge and well developed practice now that we can offer a full organisational service that has something to offer or say to every aspect of organisational life from recruitment to strategy to downsizing. We know we can help organizations adopt more flourishing work practices on a piece by piece transactional basis, and I believe we know enough now to be able to develop a truly transformational way of organisational life fit for the challenges of twenty-first century life.

I can’t think of a more fitting way to build on the honour of the award and to create a lasting legacy of my nearly thirty years of contributing to positive workplace practices.

I’d love to hear any initial thoughts in response to this piece, and if you want to be involved in the conversation as it develops please let me know.

Energy state transformation is the key to Appreciative Inquiry effectiveness

I have recently come across a great paper about human energy, it is referenced at the end of this piece. It set me thinking about what it was saying in relation to Appreciative Inquiry. These are my thoughts.

What is 'energy' in an organisaitonal setting?

Energy can be a transforming resource. When people become ‘energised’ they are transformed before our eyes. We talk about how people become ‘fired up’ or are ‘on fire’. We see increased animation, people seem more dynamic; quiet wallflowers are suddenly able to hold a room’s attention because they are talking about something that really matters to them. The generation of this energy transforms potential futures as while un-energised people are disinclined to ‘spend’ any energy or to exert any energy to get something done, energised people are a force for movement.

We know from earlier theorists that we can conceptualise energy as non-activated, that is, latent, or, as activated, that is, ‘in motion’. We understand human energy to be made up of different elements e.g. to have affective, cognitive and behavioural dimensions.  Human energy can be characterised as being positive or negative in intent or direction.

Organisational energy, while clearly related to individual energy, can also be thought of separately as a resource of a collective unit. Four different collective or organisational energy states have been identified: productive energy, comfortable energy, resigned inertia, and corrosive energy. These names have great face validity with me: armed with this language I can see I am in the business, frequently, of transforming resigned inertia or corrosive organisational energy into productive organisational energy that is going to work to move things forward.

These four states can be seen as lying across two dimensions: intensity and quality. Intensity as a dimension ranges from high (activated energy) to low (non-activated energy). While quality ranges from positive to negative reflecting how the energy is constructive or destructive of the organizations goals.

Productive (high positive) organisational energy can be characterized as a collective temporary emergent state. Temporary of course means not permanent, collective means involving everyone. The idea of an ‘emergent’ phenomena comes from the theory of complex adaptive systems and suggests that the phenomena of productive (high positive) organisational energy ‘emerges’ from the behaviour of individual actors in the system. The behaviour of these individual actors that help to create collective high positive organisational energy include individual interactions in settings of mutual dependence; the creation of shared interpretations of shared events; and by the generation of shared emotional or cognitive states.

A language for Appreciuative Inquiry interventions

It was at this point of my reading that I sat up and took notice. This is exactly the area in which Appreciative Inquiry and other dialogic, co-creative change methodologies create their magic. It is precisely by actively working with the interactions in situations of mutual dependency (a whole system), by creating shared interpretations of shared experiences (the process we take people through to create ‘account’ of past, present and future) and by the deliberate generation and expansion of positive emotions (Appreciative Inquiry particularly) that we are able to have an effect on the energy of a group or an organization and so the potential for action and change. I find this articulation of the phenomena of organisational energy and how it relates to the processes of Appreciative Inquiry very exciting.

In this paper energy is described as a resource that allows actors to generate new cognitive frameworks to organise their understanding of a situation. In other words, as we have different experiences together, so we see things differently together, and therefore we can act differently, together. As the paper explains, once a group starts to experience a shared enthusiasm, shared cognitive activation (brain or thought activity) and shared sense of working for joint goals, so the situation begins to feel more one of mutuality and less one of antagonisms. As the sense of mutuality (we’re all in this together) grows, so people are more likely to get involved helping to create meaning, direction setting, deciding, motivating others and in general taking on such leadership tasks in some area or other. The leadership capacity of the system expands. Leadership capacity and leadership enactment becomes less a property of a job title and more a property of the social system.  It is this shift in the leadership capacity and pattern in the group, as well as the emergent productive energy that allows change to happen. Again this describes exactly what, as a practitioner, I see as the Appreciative Inquiry process unfolds.

And so I suggest that as we look to help organizations adapt and grow in changing conditions we need to attend to the phenomena of organisational energy. Thanks to researchers and theorists we have a language in which to describe what we see in organisations and to help us understand what underlies the effectiveness of these ‘positive energy, whole system, dialogic’ change methodologies such as Appreciative Inquiry. By giving us words and a framework they help people articulate something they instinctively know i.e. difference between the energy of resigned inertia and productive energy. They make it possible to explain what Appreciative Inquiry does and how: namely that it transforms the energy of resigned inertia or corrosive energy into productive energy by working with the collective phenomena from which the temporary phenomena of productive energy emerges. By so doing it creates a shift in energy state and an increase in leadership capacity allowing for effective organisational action.

I am highly, if not wholly, indebted in this article to the paper ‘Experiencing Human Energy as a Catalyst for Developing Leadership Capacity’ by Bernard Vogel published in Developing Leaders for Positive Organising: a 21st Century Repertoire for Leading in Extraordinary Times, of the which I have here only scratched the surface.

Sarah Lewis

The Distinctive Nature of Co-creative Change

How is it different, why is it better?

Co-creative approaches to organisational change such as Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, and World Café have some very distinctive features that differentiate them from more familiar top-down planned approaches to change.

1. Change is a many-to-many rather than one-to-many process

In co-creative change a lot can happen in a short space of time as conversation (and change) takes place simultaneously amongst people in various groups rather than relying on a linear transmission from top to bottom. It can feel messier and less controlled but the benefits of active engagement, participation and commitment far outweigh these concerns.

2. They work on the understanding that the world is socially constructed

By allowing that we live in social worlds that are constructed by interactions in relationship, these approaches recognise that beliefs, and so the potential for action, can be affected by processes or events. The co-creative change processes allow people to experience each other, and the world, differently and so adjust their mental maps of their social world, creating the potential for change.

3. Conversation is a dynamic process

Co-creative approaches to organisational change recognize that conversations and events take place in a dynamic context of mutual and reflexive influence. I act and speak in the context of what you are doing and saying and vice versa. This means that conversation is not a passive process for conveying information but is rather an active process for creation, and so holds the potential to create change.

4. Organisations are about patterns so changing organizations is about changing patterns

All of the above culminates in the understanding that organisational habits, culture, ways of being are held in place by the habitual patterns of conversation and interaction. Change these and you change the organization.

5. Change can occur at many levels simultaneously

Rather than being focused on rolling out a pre-designed planned change, these approaches are much more focused on growing change from the ground up. A useful metaphor to convey this is that of by encouraging of lots of different plants to flourish on the forest floor by changing the bigger context, such as clearing part of the canopy to allow in more light.

6. They connect to values to gain commitment

These approaches connect to people’s values as well as their analytic abilities. Appreciative Inquiry discovery interviews, for instance, quickly reveal people’s deep values about their organization and allow people with divergent surface views to form a meaningful connection at a deeper level that aids the negotiation of difference.

7. They create hope and other positive emotions

Appreciative Inquiry by design, and the other approaches by intention, focus on creating positive emotional states in the participants, particularly hope. Hope is a tremendously motivating emotion and is key source of energy for engaging with the disruption of change. By building hope in the group that the situation can be improved, these processes create great energy for the journey ahead.

8. They encourage high-quality connections and the formation of high-energy networks

These are two concepts from positive psychology and increasingly research is demonstrating that they have a positive effect on creativity, problem-solving and performance. The co-creation change methodologies are highly relational and facilitate the development of meaningful relationships particularly across silo or functional boundaries, increasing the ability of the whole organization to change in synchronisation with itself.

9. They allow people to feel heard

The very essence of the co-creative approaches is the emphasis on voice and dialogue as key components of change. As people are engaged with and have an opportunity to input to discussions about the need for change from the very beginning, and are also able to influence the design of change, they feel their voices and needs are being heard by the organization as the change unfolds. This greatly lessens the challenges of overcoming resistance or getting buy-in.

Appreciating Change specialises in helping organizations achieve positive, rapid and sustainable change.

Other Resources

Much more about the features of co-creative change, guidance on how to do it, and practical information about on the key methodologies mentioned here can be found in Sarah’ new book Positive Psychology and Change

See more Thought Provoking articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Positive Psychology and Change: Evidence Based Practice

We now have enough theory, research and practice from work in Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Psychology to know how and why these interventions work. We can also work out how to combine them to create robust, effective approaches to change that are suitable for organizations grappling with the challenges of the twenty first century.

Why it works

Research in positive psychology over the last 15 years and earlier has given us a robust set of data about what flourishing organizations, organizational practices and people look like and how to create them.

How to do it

Appreciative Inquiry has extended its methodology from the original 5D summit model to include the SOAR approach to strategic development, Appreciative coaching, positive performance processes and many more appreciative practices to tell us how to do it.

In addition other co-creative methodologies such as Open Space, World Café and SimuReal offer clear processes for applying positive psychology to organisational change challenges

How it works

An increasing awareness of the psychology of group and human behaviour, and the influencing factors on that behaviour means that we know that these co-creative methods work through psychological processes such as the creation of new narratives and the reconfiguring of patterns of relationship. The influence on behaviour of dynamics such as imagination, metaphor, and identity are positively affected by positively applied co-creative change approaches.

What you get

From the application of science through the co-creative processes influencing group dynamics what you get is higher-level organisational transformation. Change at the level of highly energised shared aspiration, shared hope, keen interdependency understanding, community level thinking, energy-less synchronicity, and future oriented action. Such transformation pulls people over obstacles and set backs towards a better future.

Appreciating Change specialises in helping organizations achieve positive, rapid and sustainable change.

Other Resources

Sarah’s new book Positive Psychology and Change explains all this and more. Available now from Amazon and Wiley-Blackwell.

See more articles on Positive Psychology in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

The Economic Value Of Social Capital To Organizations

The Economic Value Of Social Capital To Organizations

What Is Social Capital?

Positive psychology understands social capital as a group or social phenomena that adds value by increasing trust and information flow around an organisation, however it can also be understood from an economic perspective.

From this perspective it can be defined as a combination of the number of relationships some one has, the economic usefulness to them of those relationships and the quality of them: effectively, how well known someone is, in what circles, and with what degree of affection. It is the social capital in an organisation that means that we care about the effect our work will have on the next part of the production chain, rather than slinging substandard work over the functional line saying, ‘done my bit, their problem now’.

Why Is It Important In Organisations?            

It is the social capital of an organisation that influences the return gained on the value of the financial and intellectual assets. It is what makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. It is social capital that releases organisational good citizen behaviour, high-level motivation and that ‘good feeling’ about work. Social capital is the antidote to the ubiquitous silo mentality that permeates most larger organizations: the tribal mentality that can act against the fullest realisation of the potential value of the organisational assets.

An organisation can purposefully invest in this valuable source of capital like any other. And as with any other investment, it is possible to identify the areas of investment likely to create the greatest return, and therefore carefully target investment activity. For instance it is probably not going to boost an organisations’ social capital if it invests in helping the canteen staff to get to know the board as much as it would to invest in building social capital within the board (which isn’t to say that the first option doesn’t have some value, and in some situations might have the greater value).

Why Don’t Organisations Invest More In Social Capital?

Often leaders can intuitively see the value of social capital, however an inability to quantify this capital, and the return on their investment, prevents them from taking the risk of investing in it. Interestingly intellectual capital, a similarly non-physical form of capital, does show financial returns that can be directly attributed to it on the balance sheet e.g. licensing revenue and royalties; these returns can be used by leaders to justify the initial investment they made in developing intellectual capital. At present no such mechanism exists for capturing and measuring the return on social capital investment.

Measuring the Economic Value of Social Capital

It is tempting to conclude from this that social capital can never exist in the financial sense in the way that machines, buildings and patents do; that it is not worth leaders making the additional effort to try and identify its effect on the balance sheet. Recent developments in economics suggests such thinking can be challenged. Social capital not only exists as a factor in economics, but exists to such a real and definable extent that it is now used by banks as collateral for loans, particularly micro-loans.

The Micro-Finance Story

Billions of dollars have been lent to (and repaid by) tens of millions of people in areas of the world where social capital is the only form of capital available, and not just in the third world: if you’re reading this in London, Manchester, Birmingham or Glasgow, to name but a few places, this is probably happening within a few miles of you.

Social capital is the basis of micro-finance, the practice of lending very small amounts of money to the very poor. It has already revolutionised development policy across the world. The problem, identified by Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh in the 1970s, was that the poor couldn’t borrow money from commercial sources not because they couldn’t pay it back but that they had no incentive to do so. This was because they had no collateral that could be repossessed if they defaulted. As a consequence no private lenders were prepared to lend them money.  Yunus’s experience with the Grameen Bank, and that of other micro-finance institutions, is that the poor, properly incentivised, have the highest repayment rates in the world when lent small amounts, almost 97%.

Yunus incentivised individuals by making possible future loans to others in the village conditional on the repayment of the loan by each borrower. In other words, he secured the loan against each villager’s social capital. If she defaulted, none of her friends or neighbours would get loans and she (the vast majority of micro-finance customers are women) would be persona non grata in the village. This suggests thatfor a particular individual her stock of social capital must be worth more to her than the value of the loan or she would not repay it. A Bangladeshi villager making the decision to repay a $20 loan is making a sophisticated calculation about the value of an intangible asset: her social capital. This clear behavioural indicator of choice suggests that a financial value can be put on an individual’s social capital.

Can Social Capital Be Measured In Organisations?

The micro-finance experience suggests that social capital can be measured.  The question is how can organisational leaders find a way of making such calculations for the stock of social capital in their organisations?

There is not a yet a clear answer on this. We can begin to recognise the social capital in organisations by reflecting it in our ways of talking about our organisation. For example referring the member of staff who takes time to contact colleagues to check out their needs and expectations, or who takes the time to let others know something has changed so they don’t waste their time, as invaluable, doesn’t help us recognise the value she adds. On the other hand saying she, and her actions, are valuable, starts to lead us to ask the right questions about ‘How valuable?’, and ‘How can we measure that?’ and ‘How much value does that behaviour add?’

How Can We Build Social Capital In Organisations?

We may not yet know how to measure social capital in organisations with any financial precision, but we do know how to invest in it and build it. Organisational development activities developed over the last few years, based on an understanding of the organisation as a living human system, act to increase social capital. Appreciating Change is an expert in these social capital investment activities.

Article by Sarah Lewis and Jem Smith

Other Resources

More on using Appreciative Inquiry and other positive psychology techniques at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more Thought Provoking articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Women Make Groups Cleverer! (Evidence for collective intelligence)

Fascinating research on group performance suggests two key things:

1. That the collective intelligence of a group is more than the sum of its parts
2. That the presence of women in a group is key to high collective intelligence

How do we know this?

Researchers worked with 699 people, divided them into groups of 3-5 people and set them various tasks. The wide range of these tasks was designed to measure all sorts of different aspects of intelligence. These included visual puzzles, brainstorming, making collective moral judgments, and negotiating over limited resources. They also measured the individual intelligence of everyone. They then tried to see how the individual intelligence scores related to the team performance scores. 

When they did a factor analysis of the group performance scores and the intelligence measures, they found one factor that accounted for 43% of the variance and that was not related to either average intelligence of group members nor the maximum intelligence score. It seemed to be something over and above a simple aggregate of intelligence. They consider this factor to represent a measure of the group’s collective intelligence, with collective intelligence defined as ‘the general ability of the group to perform a wide variety of tasks’. The suggestion is that collective intelligence is an emergent group phenomenon that is a product of more than just existing intelligence in the group.

They ran three different studies of this type and compared results. The findings held. On each occasion collective intelligence was found to better account for group performance than measures of individual member intelligence.

So if individual intelligence doesn’t account for group intelligence, what does? The researchers moved on to examine a number of group and individual factors that might be predictors of collective intelligence. Interestingly many of the factors that are thought to be associated with group performance, such as group cohesion, motivation and satisfaction, didn’t predict group performance.

The Findings

Instead they found:

• That there is a group factor of collective intelligence, conceptually similar to the idea of the individual factor of general intelligence, that has a global effect on performance on many different tasks, and accounts for 43% of the variance in performance. It also is strongly predictive of performance.
• That collective intelligence is not strongly correlated with the average or maximum intelligence in the group.
• That collective intelligence is strongly correlated with the average social sensitivity of the group members. This is the strongest predictive factor of group collective intelligence, which, in turn, is a strong predictor of group task performance on a wide range of tasks.
• That collective intelligence is strongly correlated with the equality of distribution of turn taking.
• That collective intelligence is strongly correlated with the proportion of women in the group.
• It is suspected that the last correlation is related to the others e.g. that the presence of women tends to increase the social sensitivity and the equality of turn-taking in the group.

What to do to improve or enhance the collective intelligence of your project or work groups?

• Help the group recognize that collective intelligence in group decision making and performance is an emergent phenomena of group interaction patterns.
• Help the group recognize that the emotional life of the group is as important as its intellectual life.
• Ensure their discussion processes allow all voices to be heard, and that people take turns to talk, and to listen.
• Ensure that the group is mixed by gender.

For further information see Woolley A W Charbis, C F, Pentland A, Hashmi N, Malone T W (2010) Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science Express. www.scienceexpress.org/30 September 2010

Other Resources

More on using Appreciative Inquiry and other positive psychology techniques at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more Thought Provoking articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Leadership Gratitude Exercise

I used this recently with a group of managers as part of a workshop on positive and appreciative leadership. It is an effective way into the virtuous practices aspect of flourishing organizations and into the topic of authentic leadership. It could just as well be used as an exercise in individual executive coaching or development.

Objective

The brief moment of reflection on blessings that the exercise invites helped these leaders remember that they are connected to, and dependent on, many others. Some left resolved to make their (previously somewhat hidden?) sense of gratitude and appreciation more obvious. This exercise could be built on with individuals with the suggestion of the keeping of a gratitude journal. (The clue is in the title, it’s a journal in which you write down things you are grateful for everyday. This exercise is proven to lift mood in a short space of time).

The Exercise

Form people into groups of 4-6 people and invite them to introduce themselves. Then invite them each to share three things they feel grateful for

1) To their colleagues (individual or collective)

2) To their organization as a whole, or the leadership of their organization

3) And finally offer them a free choice (anything or anyone of their choice to whom or for which they feel grateful or gratitude)

Suggest they might like to start their sentences:

 ‘I want to express thanks..’

or

‘I’m very grateful that/for…’

And encourage them to enlarge on what difference the thing they are grateful for, or person they are grateful to, has made to their lives.

Once everyone has been around and shared their stories encourage the group to reflect on the experience of the exercise and, as ever, their learning from it.

Feedback from the recent workshop included the observation that it was easy to overlook the things that one is grateful for amongst the hurly-burly, frustrations and challenges of organizational life and that to reflect on reasons to be grateful was both a pleasant and a humbling experience.

In addition people commented on the value of taking time to experience gratitude, noticing that this led, in some cases, to a resolve to say something to someone. In a coaching session one could build on this to suggest that they write the person a gratitude letter, and then arrange a time to read it to them. This again is proven to be an excellent mood boosting exercise.

When to use

It worked well as an opener to a session exploring what leadership is and means. It could also be used:

• As an exploration of virtuous practices in flourishing organizations
• In workshops focused on authentic, ethical and moral leadership
• As part of individual or executive coaching

Other Resources

More on using Positive Psychology techniques at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more articles about positive psychology and leadership in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Thank You Makes A Difference

We are all taught that it is polite to be grateful, but does it make any other difference? Recent research suggests yes, including in the workplace.

Most people feel gratitude a lot and it makes them feel good to feel grateful

Gratitude motivates reciprocal aid giving

It can be considered as an emotion, a behaviour and a personality trait

As an emotion

As an emotion, it acts as a moral barometer, drawing attention to help received; it can encourage a behavioural response (offering help) and the expression of gratitude can act as an effective positive reinforcer to the behaviour for which it is expressed.

How likely we are to feel grateful also seems to relate to our estimates of the value of the help, how costly it was too provide and whether it was altruistically intended.

Expressing sincere gratitude can raise happiness levels for up to a month. Conscious cultivation of feelings of gratitude by identifying three good things about your life each evening is very self-reinforcing and increases happiness levels. The effects seem very durable.

As a personality characteristic

As a personality characteristic it seems that some people feel much more gratitude than others.

People who express extensive gratitude are more likely to have higher levels of happiness and lower levels of depression and stress

It has one of the strongest links with mental health of any personality variable

As an aid to social relations

Gratitude is uniquely important in social relationships, contributing to an upward spiral of helping and mutual support.

People who do not experience gratitude may not notice they have been helped and may not reciprocate, thus decreasing the likelihood that they will receive help in future.

Grateful people are seen as more empathetic, agreeable and extroverted. They are more likely to be seen as helpful and unselfish with others.

Those who express gratitude are more likely to see the world as friendly and hospitable

So the moral of the story for managers is…..

1. Be grateful.
2. Encourage others to be grateful and to directly express their gratitude sincerely to anyone to whom they feel grateful.
3. Encourage people to notice when they have been helpful and to express their appreciation of the help.
4. Offer help to others to encourage the creation and maintenance of mutual reciprocity.

To learn more about positively reinforcing behaviour through effective use of rewards, such as gratitude and appreciation see more information on our website.

Other Resources

More on using Appreciative Inquiry and other positive psychology techniques at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more about Positive Organisational Culture in the  Knowledge Warehouse.

Appreciating Change Can Help

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

The Hidden Costs Of Rudeness

We all know rudeness is an unpleasant aspect of life, did you also know it has a cost attached? Two researchers, Porath and Erez (2011), have spent years exploring the effect of rudeness on people at work, this is what they have found:

Between 1998 and 2005 the percentage of employees who reported experiencing rudeness once or more in a week doubled from almost 25% to almost 50%. Indeed in 2005 25% of employees reported experiencing rudeness at least once a day.

Surveys reveal that after experiencing rudeness most people lose time and focus, make efforts to avoid the person, work less and slack off more, and think more about leaving the organization.

Experiments by Porath and Erez have demonstrated direct adverse effects of experiencing or even just observing rudeness on cognitive performance e.g. problem-solving, flexibility of thinking, creativity and helpfulness. Experiencing rudeness also increases a propensity to aggressive and violent thoughts and actions.

In addition 94% of people get even with the rude person, or with their organization (88%)

It seems that ‘processing’ the rude encounter engages brain resources so that less is available for attention and memory, making us temporarily ‘less clever’.

These affects occur even in a culture of habitual rudeness, in other words even if a level of rudeness or incivility is normal in your organization it doesn’t mean people are inured against the effects.

Rudeness has a contagion effect: it makes us less likely to help people not even involved in the incident, and to be ruder and more aggressive than we might have been.

So, a culture of rudeness in an organization has hidden costs of:

Reduced performance

Poorer problem solving

Rigidity of thinking

Less ‘citizenship’ behaviour e.g. general helpfulness

Reduced creativity

People avoiding contact with certain others (who might have information they need)

Heighten tendencies to aggressive words or even actions

‘vendettas’ of getting even being played out in the organization

The effect of this on suppliers and customer relationships, as well as internal relations, is not hard to imagine.

Politeness pays

Interestingly Kim Cameron and others at the University of Michigan have been examining the effect of ‘virtuous behaviour’ on employees and organizations. They have found a similar but polar opposite effect, that is, the more people experience virtuous behaviour from others – helpfulness, forgiveness, generosity, courage, honesty support etc. – or indeed just witness it, the more likely they are to demonstrate such behaviour themselves. Such behaviour also has the effect of raising levels of ‘feeling good’ which is strongly associated with flexible and complex thinking, creativity, good team work and so on.

How much are poor manners costing your organization? And what can you do about it?

1. Create a culture of civility and politeness, led right from the top

2. Treat ‘manner’ of management as a performance issue, as well as outcomes

3. Keep stress levels down for people – stressed people are more likely to ‘lash out’ at others

4. Have a code of conduct that makes it clear that people have a right to be treated in a civil manner, and act on complaints

5. Taking bullying seriously

6. Help those who have a hot head to develop compensatory tactics, particularly the ability to eat humble pie and to seek forgiveness after an uncontrolled outburst

7. Encourage managers to recognise power as a privilege, not a stick with which to beat others

8. Beware those who are deferential to those above them and demonic to those below

9. Emphasis that difficult issues can be tackled without resorting to shouting or belittling, and model how

10. Beware of the hidden costs of the ‘high performer’ who is also known to be consistently aggressive and rude to his or her staff: the cost of the means might actually outweigh the benefits of the ends

Further resources

Christine L Porath and Amir Erez (2011) How rudeness takes it toll. The Psychologist Vol 24, No 7

Cameron K (2008) Positive Leadership: strategies for extraordinary performance. Berrett-Koehler. San Franciso

Lewis S (2011) Positive Psychology at Work. Wiley

Other Resources

More on using Appreciative Inquiry and other positive psychology techniques at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more about Leadership and Performance Management in the  Knowledge Warehouse.

Appreciating Change Can Help

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Ten Top Tips For Weathering The Storm With Strengths Enhancing Appreciative Leadership

First Off - Don't Panic Or Feel Trapped

When disaster strikes, under the intense pressure to do something fast, it is very easy for leaders to make quick, isolated obvious decisions i.e. to have a round of redundancies. Very few people like to have to do this, but often feel they have no alternative. However alternatives are available, what they demand is a willingness to go beyond simple and obvious solutions and to call upon the wisdom and goodwill of the workforce. A leader who is willing to work appreciatively with his or her workforce in finding ways to survive and thrive in these challenging trading times will reap the benefit now and later.

Here are ten top tips for showing appreciative leadership to weather the storm

1. Stay creative. Don’t get drawn into ‘there is no alternative’ solutions or decisions. There are always alternatives; sometimes they are harder to see than the obvious solutions.

2. Work with choice over compulsion. If you need to cut the wages bill consider ways other than compulsory redundancies. Clearly voluntary redundancy and early retirement are good first places to go. Ask if anyone is interested in unpaid leave or working part-time for a while. Then spread the pain and include yourself. For instance you could reduce everyone’s working week and pay by 20%, including your own. Fix a date for review. Yes this is likely to introduce a scheduling challenge. What are your managers for? Make it clear that people have choices to work with you or to choose to leave if they think they can do better elsewhere.

3. Don’t cancel Christmas! Just do it differently. For many people it’s a huge job perk. And it’s effectively a reward for their work and loyalty over the year. Cancelling the Christmas party will be experienced as a punishment (the withdrawal of something nice in the environment) by many people. Instead get creative. How can you still provide a party for your staff on a less extravagant scale? Involve them in this question. Make it clear you still want to create the opportunity for an organizational celebratory gathering but the budget has, understandably, contracted, what ideas do they have for creating a cheap, fun event? Call on your people’s strengths, who is the natural party animal, who will be motivated to find a way to make it happen? Delegate and empower, you have other things to worry about.

4. Create and spread messages of hope not doom and gloom. Such messages might be around the themes that you have faith in your people, that this too will pass, that this slack time creates opportunities for investing in refining and improving processes, that the organization can emerge stronger and so on.

5. Use the intelligence, creativity, and resourcefulness of the whole organization. Don’t feel, because you are the well-paid leader, that you have to do it all yourself. People will be as keen as you that the organization survive. They won’t be as aware of you of the immediate dangers because they don’t have access to, nor do they focus on, the forecast figures. So, you will need to create and provide structures and processes to allow people collectively to understand, contribute and influence. Sending out a memo asking for ideas is unlikely to be sufficient. There are many existing methodologies that can help with this: Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space Technology, Workout and other large group techniques.

6. Welcome volunteerism. You may only be able to pay for 4 working days but in the interests of the organization’s survival some people may be willing to work more. Welcome, appreciate and put to good use such offers, don’t assume or take for granted such support. Don’t penalize those who, for whatever reason, can’t do more. Ask and appreciate, don’t demand and expect.

7. Welcome flexibility. Put your people on the most important task. This may not be their usual task. ‘All hands to the pumps’ is a call people recognize and understand. Play to their strengths. If the most important task is talking to customers and potential customers then maybe some of your people could team up with a sales person to do their admin so they can spend more time actually talking to customers. Who has ‘informal’ relationships with your customers and could be called into play? Identify natural strengths, train in anything else needed.

8. Talk to your people. Share your knowledge in a carefully framed way. This is a time for inspirational leadership. It is also a time for humbleness and honesty. You need to combine an awareness of the scale of the challenge and of the hopefulness of success. You can’t make all the changes necessary to adapt quickly to new circumstances on your own or by diktat. To coin a phrase, it really helps if people want to change. Work to motivate them through hope and a belief in the future, not fear and despair about the present.

9. Be visible. Spread faith and confidence by your presence. Talk to people; be available for people to talk to. Resist the temptation to lock yourself away solving the problem. Ensure that your management team is out getting the best from their people, not locked away obsessing over spreadsheets.

10. Above all don’t panic, don’t allow others to panic, and don’t be panicked by the anxiety of others. People in a panic are rarely able to think creatively or flexibly, or to create confidence in others. Stay calm, create choice, involve others, offer affirming and appreciative leadership and find some support for yourself to enable you to do this.

To behave like this when all around you are going for the quick win of shedding longstanding and loyal staff is not easy. This is the time to recognise your organization as a collection of people of whom you have the privilege to lead. Recognise them as honoured followers, call out the best in them. Make it everyone’s challenge and not just yours to find ways to survive and thrive that are as good for the people, the organization, the present and the future as they can be.

Other Resources

More on using Appreciative Inquiry and other positive psychology techniques to boost engagement at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more 'How To' in the  Knowledge Warehouse.

Appreciating Change Can Help

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership change.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Ten Reasons Why Now Is The Time For Appreciative Inquiry

If you've heard about Appreciative Inquiry and know, or have an inkling, of what it can do and the difference it can make but can't face trying to change mindsets in your organisation or with your clients, here are some talking points to use to marshall your arguments!

1. Change is changing

Traditional, top-down, designed then implemented change takes too long and is too hard to push through an organization. The plan is out of date almost as soon as it’s made. People resist. Change needs to be fast, flexible and proactive and focused on maximising tomorrow’s possibilities rather than rehashing yesterday’s mistakes. Change needs to take everyone with it. Appreciative Inquiry is a change methodology for our changing times.

2. Feeling good is good for business

Positive psychology research shows that positive workplaces, where people feel hopeful, encouraged and appreciated, reap many benefits. People are likely to be more creative, more generative, share information better, grow and learn better, be more energized, be bolder and braver about innovating, be able to deal with more complex information, and respond better to change. Appreciative inquiry builds positive energy. Appreciative inquiry helps people feel good in the hardest of circumstances

3. The future exists only in our imagination

Imagination is more powerful than forecasting in an unpredictable world. The past does not predict the future: it suggests possible trajectories. Using our imagination we can create other, more attractive, more creative, more inspiring trajectories, to inspiring and attractive futures. Collective imagining has the power to create dreams that pull people to work together to achieve them. We can use our analytic powers to analyse data, we can use our creative powers to imagine pictures of the future that pull us towards it. Appreciative Inquiry uses the power of imagination

4. The best organizations positively flourish

Interestingly research shows that being good and doing well go together. The organisations that focus on creating positive cultures, and leading with values, where people thrive, where the organisation flourishes, where there is a bias towards the positive, where there is a sense of abundance, often also do very well commercially. Timberland, Merek Corporation, Cascade, Synovus Financial Corporation, Fedex Freight, Southwest Airlines and the Marine Corp are all a testament to the possibility of doing the right thing and doing well. Appreciative inquiry is a values based change approach that focuses on doing right and doing well.

5. Social capital is a source of sustainability

Relational reserves are what see organizations through difficult times as much as financial reserves. Relational reserves is the goodwill your people feel towards you, the trust they have in what you say, the willingness they demonstrate to forgive leadership errors, or accept bad luck, and work with you to put things right. It is built over time through building social capital.  Appreciative Inquiry builds social capital

6. Speed is of the essence

The world is constantly changing, organizations need to be nimble and flexible, able to recast themselves to meet new challenges; and quickly. Cascading change takes too long. Change needs to happen simultaneously from top to bottom. Appreciative inquiry works with the whole system simultaneously, so the need for change is experienced, absorbed, understood from top to bottom. And ideas for change are designed and tested for impact by, and on, those they affect before the money is spent.

7. Resistance costs too much

Planned change frequently induces resistance. Resistance slows down change and diverts managerial energy and attention. It also frequently illuminates unforeseen problems and obstacles to the change that cost money to put right at this late stage in the change process. Resistance to change costs both negatively (wasting time and energy) and positively (helping the organization make necessary corrections). Appreciative inquiry works positively with all reactions to change to co-create a sustainable, valued, endorsed and appreciated approach to change. Resistance is no longer part of the change conversation.

8. Change is not a commodity to be bought

Organizations put a lot of energy into getting ‘buy-in’ to their plans for the future. This activity comes after the plans have been made when other people have to be persuaded of the rightness of the plans. Appreciative inquiry involves those affected by change from the start. Helping to co-design it, bringing their expertise to bear at an early stage, being heard, being valued, having a role in shaping their destiny, co-creating a future that holds attraction for them, means that people have built it themselves and don’t need to be sold it. Appreciative Inquiry achieves this.

9. We need to use our intelligence

The world is more interconnected that ever before. Everything affects everything else. We need all the intelligence we can get to keep up and get ahead. Treating most of the organization as ‘hired hands’ and only the top echelons as the brains of the business wastes a huge amount of organizational intelligence. Appreciative Inquiry brings all brains, and experience, and skill, and knowledge, in the system to bear on the challenges of keeping up, getting ahead, doing right, doing well and flourishing.

10. Strengths are a source of competitive advantage

Organizations spend too much time trying to fill gaps in people’s profiles, adapt people’s personalities, and helping them become better at things they aren’t good at. And not enough time on building on strengths and abilities. Positive psychology research demonstrates that the more time spent working to their strengths, the more productive, fulfilled and energized people are likely to be. Building on the strengths of individuals, and building on the strengths of the organization creates a strength-based organization. Such an organization has a competitive advantage. Appreciative inquiry is a strengths-based approach.

Other Resources

More on using Appreciative Inquiry and other positive psychology techniques to boost engagement at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more articles from the Knowledge Warehouse on Appreciative Inquiry.

Appreciating Change Can Help

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with bringing Appreciative Inquiry and other positive psychology techniques to your workplace.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Five Tips For Getting Started With Positive Psychology At Work

Positive psychology is the new domain of psychology that burst upon the world when Martin Seligman coined the phrase at his inaugural speech as the President of the American Psychological Association in 1998.

He issued a rallying call for research into human success. He wanted us to know more about what helps us excel, in health, in sport, in achievement. His work, and that of others who responded to the call, has been picked up by institutions as varied as the American Military and the education system. We know more now than we ever did about how to help people live happy and successful lives. The ideas have spread to Governments, with our own deciding to take regular measures of national wellbeing as well as national wealth.

Positive psychology can be applied in the workplace. Its successful application will help you develop an engaged, productive, healthy workforce, and to create a great place to work. Here are some direct and practical ideas of how to apply the best of the results of the research into positive psychology to your workplace.

Losada and Heaphy in 2004 demonstrated that feeling good is good for us. In their research the teams that offered each other at least three times more praise than criticism were the most successful. Since then Fredrickson has made a study of what good emotions do for us, and Shawn Achor has brought all the research together in his great book ‘the happiness advantage’ also available on youtube as a Tedx talk. The result is conclusive: happiness leads to success. So, how can you help your people feel good?

Feelin' Good

1. Start meetings with a round of success stories.

Before you get into the meat of the meeting, usually a litany of problems and challenges, start by giving people the opportunity to share the best of their week.

2. Build the sharing of great stories about the achievements and success of the organization into your induction programme.

Get the owners of the stories to share their best moments of working for your company. Even better, equip your new recruits with appreciative questions about when people have been most proud to be part of the organization, or their greatest achievement at work, and send them off to interview people. This will leaven the dough of getting to grips with the staff handbook and inspire your new recruits.

3. Educate your managers about this research.

Too many managers are quick to offer critical feedback and slow to offer praise, hoarding it as a scarce resource. Explain that they need to keep the ratio of positive to negative comments and experiences above 3:1 and preferable 6:1 if they want to get the best from people.

4. Give them the tools to do this. 

Particularly, introduce the concept of diamond feedback and train people in its use. Diamond feedback is when you both report the behaviour you saw that you thought was good, and give the praise. E.g. ‘ I listened to how you handled that customer call. The way you admitted our errors and thanked her for letting us know was really good. I could hear that you saved a customer we might have lost. That’s worth a lot of money to us. Well done, that was great work.’

5. Help people use their natural strengths

Another finding coming through from the positive psychology research is that helping people understand what their natural strengths are and how to use them aids performance. Using strengths is energising and engaging for people. This means they find work that calls on their particular and unique strengths profile motivating. The more you can help people find ways to use their strengths at work, the more likely it is that they will become self-motivated in their work. But first they need to know them.

How You Can Do This

There are a number of strengths identifying tools around, particular the StrengthScope psychometric, which also has a great set of support cards. However in a low tech way we can just ask people ‘When are you at your most energised at work?’’ What feels really easy and enjoyable for you that others sometimes struggle with?’ and most interesting of all ‘what can you almost not, not do?’

Once you know your own strengths, find ways to use them more at work and, equally important, ways to do less of the work that drains you of energy. Find someone to delegate it to for whom it plays to their strengths. We’re not all detail people, but some of us love combing through data with a fine tooth-comb. Reconfigure how you achieve the objective so it plays to your strengths. Pair up with someone whose strengths complement yours. Allocate tasks in your team by strengths rather than by role and delegate by volunteer rather than imposition when possible.

Make sure other people know your strengths, so that they can call on you for opportunities that play to your strengths.

Positivity and strengths are probably two of the headline findings from the positive psychology research that are easily applicable to the workplace setting. However there are also other emerging findings that are of interest. For example, did you know that how you respond to someone’s good news is as important for relationship building as how you respond to their bad news? Apparently so. To encourage positive relationships at work, help people to be actively positive in their response to other people’s good news. This means not just saying ‘that’s great’, but actively inquiring into how they did it, how they feel and how they hope to build on it.

And finally, you may have noticed how some people are just people that other people like to have around. They give people around them a general good feeling. People are attracted to them. The research confirms the existence of such people at the centre of networks of positive energy. They have the knack of giving people little boosts of good feeling in their conversations or interactions with them, and they leave feeling better than when they arrived. These people are gold dust in terms of organisational motivation and performance. Notice who they are, place them strategically in projects and initiatives to which you want to attract other people, for example.

Futher Reading

This article has barely scratched the surface of the interesting research and ideas emanating from this field. The book ‘Positive Psychology At Work’ explains these and other ideas in more detail. For these with an aversion to books, we also have a set of development cards that offer bite-sized explanations of twenty core positive psychology concepts, with questions to help understand them and suggestions of how to integrate the concept at work.

Other Resources

More on using Appreciative Inquiry and other positive psychology techniques to boost engagement at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more 'How To' guides in the Knowledge Warehouse.

Appreciating Change Can Help

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership , Engagement and Culture change.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Ten Top Tips For Creating Positive And Flourishing Organisations

This blog article has an accompanying article on positive culture, and an accompanying case study on culture change

Having recently extensively studied the literature, Appreciating Change can exclusively reveal the ten things that you can do that can make your organisation an even more inspiring and positive workplace.

  1. Play to everyone’s strengths

People playing to their strengths are effective, successful, engaged and energised. Their productivity is at its best. Those dutifully struggling with weaknesses are slow, ineffective and demoralised. Their productivity is poor.

  2. Recruit for attitude

People have ‘a good attitude’ when they are using their natural talents, the thing they love to do. Find out people’s natural talents and inclinations because these are the basis of strengths. Recruit for a fit with the core task of the job and to build it into a real strength.

 3. Encourage positive deviation

Encourage performance that exceeds the standard expected in a positive direction. Build an abundant organisation, one that can take pride in excellence. Achieving this takes positive leadership: encouraging, recognising, appreciative, and forgiving. Affirm what is good in the organisation to help it grow and develop.

4. Create a workplace that feels good

Positive emotions are really good for the workplace. They aid creativity, working together, problem-solving, communication and information-sharing, just for starters. Make your workplace somewhere people enjoy being because it makes them feel good.

 5. Build social capital

Invest in the relationships between people. It is through these relationships that information and resource flow to where they are needed. It is these relationships that allow organisations to be responsive to change and to bounce back quickly from trauma.

6. Be an authentic leader

Authentic leaders know their own strengths and how to use them well. They help others develop theirs. They have a strong moral compass and they treat people right. They learn from success as well as mistakes. They admit mistakes, and encourage others to do so too.

7. Create the conditions for change

Directive planned change is ineffective: the evidence is overwhelming. Effective change leaders create the conditions for change to emerge. They work with the emerging process of change. They engage the whole organisation in discovering how to go forward.

8. Create reward-rich environments

People work for many rewards: success, approval, flow experiences, recognition, feelings of satisfaction, thanks, completion, or being with others, for example. The more rewards available to people in their work environment, they more motivated and engaged they will be at work.

9. Make sense together

In this fast-paced, complex world, it is more effective to involve others in a continuous process of making sense than trying to make definitive decisions that will hold for years. Build periods of mindfulness and reflection into your schedule, to help people notice the early signs of a changing world.

10. Be appreciative

Develop an appreciative, eye, ear and tongue. This will help you recognise and grow the organisational strengths and resources. Our appreciative faculties are usually very weak compared to our critical ones; they need positive attention to thrive.

This blog article has an accompanying article on positive culture, and an accompanying case study on culture change

More on these and related topics can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more articles from the Knowledge Warehouse on this topic here.

Appreciating Change Can Help

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership and Culture change.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Positive Deviance: Learning from, and creating, exceptional performance

This blog article has an accompanying article on positive culture, and an accompanying case study on culture change

What is positive deviance and why is it a good thing?

Positive Deviance is an exciting methodology emerging from an understanding of organisations as complex adaptive systems. It helps organisations learn from those who manage to achieve better than normal outcomes from within the same resource constraints as their colleagues.

It is one of Kim Cameron’s distinguishing features for flourishing organizations: they both learn from and create positive deviance. Flourishing organizations are interested in exceptionally good performance and they learn from it. Some of the earliest examples of how learning from positive deviance can make a real difference comes from community work.

For example... 

For instance an early example of positive deviance was in a poor Vietnamese community. In this community there were many starving children yet some families were doing better than others in feeding their children. A positive deviance investigation by the villagers themselves revealed that the more successful families were taking shrimps and crabs from the rice fields i.e. had realised an additional source of protein. Some others were spreading their rice ration out over 24 hours, which is better for young children. These were things that theoretically everyone could do but not everyone did. These are positive deviance strategies. Of course there were also other factors such a having a rich relative who sent supplies. However these strategies are not available to others and so are known as true but useless (TBU) strategies. A key factor for the success of the intervention (i.e. achieving behaviour change) was they got the villagers themselves to do the investigation.

Positive Deviance investigations are being used very successfully to reduce super-bug infection rates in some hospitals. 

It is a very effective way of ‘growing’ a better culture. By recognising that small variations in performance always exist and by focussing on and amplifying the variations in a positive direction the whole organization can be encouraged to move in the direction of the best.

Appreciative inquiry as a methodology works on the same principle of identifying  positive deviance, learning from it, and increasing its presence in the organization.

When might investigating positive deviance be the way forward in an organisation?

With thanks to Lisa Kimball from Plexus

When…

• There is some existing deviance e.g. some people are doing better than others in a similar situation (performance variation across team or division)
• It’s a really intractable problem
• It involves behaviour change
• Everyone knows what to do, they are just not doing it
• The situation is bathed in data. It really helps if the groups can keep track of the changes they are making and their impact
• There is top leadership support. This means top leadership support the process through releasing resource, being responsive to early efforts and initiatives, and tracking, recording and amplifying results.

How to do positive deviance

1. Ask about success
2. Compare best to near best to tease out small differences that make a difference
3. Encourage peer to peer inquiry (and analysis) into success
4. Identify strategies for success (discounting TBU factors)
5. Support with behaviour change strategies
6. Support with top leadership resources: interest, budget, encouragement, action

This blog article has an accompanying article on positive culture, and an accompanying case study on culture change

More on these and related topics can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more articles from the Knowledge Warehouse on this topic here.

Appreciating Change Can Help

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership and Culture change.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715