Strengths and the Imposter Syndrome: The generative power of world cafe

Last year I ran an evening event I called a Learning Network Event. The purpose of the evening was to provide a space for those interested in positive psychology to share and learn from each other in a gently facilitated way. We used a world café process to stimulate conversation and to ensure cross-pollination amongst those present.

During the event I had a really powerful experience of the cross-pollination potential of the world café process when I had a 'shiver down the spine' moment as I suddenly saw a link between two conversations in which I was involved. 

In the first one we were discussing 'imposter syndrome': one of our group was currently doing a Ph.D. investigation into this common yet disturbing workplace phenomena. It’s a very interesting topic which resonated with those present. 

A short while later I was part of a conversation talking about how knowing our strengths allows us to understand better how we can be a success at our jobs - especially when we don't fit the 'template' for the role. We realised that knowing our strengths allows us to construct an authentic story about how we are succeeding, that may stand in contrast to the dominant story of what is required to succeed in the role. 

During this conversation a story was shared of by one person who was involved in sales. She talked about how understanding her strengths helped her recognise it was her relational strengths that enabled her to be good at sales even though she didn't see herself as a 'typical salesperson'.

Around this point of the evening I had my brain tingling moment as I put two thoughts together. I swear I could almost feel the neurons firing as I realised that we can pull these two thoughts together and put forward an argument about how imposter syndrome might arise. 

Could it be that part of the reason we experience imposter syndrome is because we don't 'see ourselves' as being like the kind of person who usually succeeds in this role; that we have no understanding of how we might succeed and so see ourselves as 'imposters' - getting by on luck and chance? 

If so, then understanding our strengths and how they relate to our abilities in our role can help us construct a story about how it is possible for us to be 'good at this' or 'a success at this' that makes sense to us and feels authentic. Might knowing our strengths and understanding how they help us to succeed be an antidote to the debilitating, anxiety-inducing, vulnerability-creating experience of feeling like an imposter liable to be exposed for the fraud we are at any moment?

For me the event demonstrated the power of world café to produce genuinely generative conversation: I had a new thought and for me that is one of the best feelings in the world!

Guest Blog - Talent and determination get you there, but how do you get them? by Saira Iqbal of Zircon Management Consulting

Zircon Management Consulting is an award winning Business Psychology Company specialising in Talent Management

We know it's important, where does it come form?

One of the most successful men I know grew up in the roughest streets of Bristol, and shared a cramped bedroom with his five brothers until he could  leave the family home and ‘escape’ to his second choice university.  Now a multi-millionaire cabinet minister, each of his milestones made it more and more apparent that his success was no simple stroke of luck.

There were no useful networks that his working class parents were a part of, there was no private school education to teach social poise; but there was drive that came from great ambition and pure determination.

There is a lot of research to suggest that importance of ambition and determination to success (McCann, 2015; Meier, 2011; Rath & Conchie 2008), yet little evidence on how we can develop these attributes.

If ambition, and determination are core principles of success, then why do some people have it in droves, whilst others pay no attention to life’s opportunities?

Why do some have an immense hunger to pursue their aspirations, whilst others are satisfied with living in the moment and focusing on the day as it comes?

Our recent white paper, Winning Attitudes, addresses this very issue. Our interviewees often described adversity, loss, pain and rejection as being the core, pivotal moments that changed the way they viewed themselves and the world around them, helping create the drive they needed to succeed.

 “The loss created the drive.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

“The terrain to success is not a motorway, it is a swamp with ups and downs.” Jeremy Snape, Founder, Sporting Edge

“My father used to put me down, that drove me to prove myself. It gave me determination and focus.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

“You need to have survival mentality.” Adam Freeman-Pask, Olympian, Rowing

Is adversity a necessary prerequisite? 

Similar to the experiences our interviewees shared, the aforementioned cabinet minister, after facing adversity and financial issues in his childhood, often stated that ‘he had to find a way out’. He knew ‘there was more out there for him’. His drive came from a psychological desire to move away from his childhood experience.

Taking this even further, one may ask, ‘does there need to be some type of adversity in order for success to happen?’

McCann (2015) suggests that using adversity as a means for success is a ‘Move From’ mind-set, where the biggest driver is a fear of failure. Success factors such as Burning Ambition, Dogged Determination, Unwavering Belief and Maximising Opportunities, are often triggered from a moment in adversity – such as a disadvantaged childhood.

Whilst specific events can result in a fear of failure, it is the winning mind-set that keeps us going: The Winners among us never give up. They persist, and are determined and unwavering in the pursuit of their goals and their dreams. It is their response to these adverse circumstances that ultimately results in a positive outcome.

“You need to keep going in one direction and strive. If there is a bump in the road, go around it.” Nicola Murphy, CEO, The River Group

“I was determined not to be dependent or reliant on anyone.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. –Jimmy Dean on “Good Morning America,” ABC.

Some surrender.

Others gain a thirst to win.

You may need to battle your circumstances, but it is your attitude that determines whether you will allow your situation to make you kneel over and give up, or rise up through every blow, so you can win the war.

To read more about what makes up a Winning Attitude from the point of view of 42 business savvy corporate CEOs and edgy entrepreneurs, committed Olympic and sporting stars through to charismatic media personalities, please take a look at our White Paper.

Written by Saira Iqbal of Zircon

Guest Blog - Giving and gratitude, some ideas for a (scientifically) happier Christmas by Ilona Boniwell of Positran

Ilona is the head of Positran, experts in the psychology of positive transformations

Christmas past

I am dreaming of a lovely family Christmas, and I don’t mind if is white or grey. I do, nevertheless, mind whether it works out or not, as well as how humanly and psychologically messy it will end up being.

Last Christmas our teens decided to surprise us by setting up a casino in the living room, dressing up as croupiers, and getting the adults (that’s me, my husband, my husband’s ex and his best friend) to be the clients. As lavish, extravagant and original as that might sound, the enjoyment of the process was rather affected by the fact that in preparing the casino set-up, the teens did not check the rules of the proposed game and a few minutes into it started arguing over the way forward. In fact, at one point, the only way forward was to end the game.

The previous Christmas one of the teens made a fuss over receiving a “wrong” version of a GoPro camcorder for a present. This left a sour taste in the mouth, and almost erased all other magical moments of that year’s celebrations, including the memory of our one-and-a-half year old Theodore delivering presents to their rightful recipients, tumbling and falling over, rising up and toddling again…

Two Christmases ago Hugo went down with a virus and my husband spent most of the feast in his bedroom trying to bring the fever down. As Hugo started showing signs of recovery, we stepped out on the terrace wrapped in warm blankets sipping mulled wine and saw Flip, our dog, collapsing into the pond having seizures. Flip was gone before the festivities were over, diagnosed with incurable brain cancer.

You won’t be too surprised if I tell you that I feel a little weary of Christmas. And I suspect I am not alone. A friend of mine is already freaking out over her in-laws coming to stay for a week and I overhead a colleague complaining that she always ends up as the one cooking Christmas meals for her family of fifteen. And, as far as blended families are concerned, no wonder it gets messy dividing the Christmas between Mum and Dad who, in turn, are dividing it between their parents and in-laws.

Ideas

For me, the two Christmas secrets are “giving” and “gratitude”. Once the pillars of religion and spirituality, nowadays these acts are also amongst the best evidence-best interventions known to modern science.

How often do you go out of your way to help someone else, a friend, colleague or stranger perhaps? Take a few minutes to think about it. Maybe you ran an errand for your elderly neighbour, helped a busy mum carry her buggy up some steps or donated blood. Doing kind deeds frequently not only boosts your mood temporarily, it also leads to long-lasting happiness as well as making other people feel good too. So it’s a brilliant win-win activity, plus it needn’t cost you anything.

Researchers suggest a number of reasons why doing kind acts for others makes us happier. They make us feel more confident, in control and optimistic about our ability to make a difference. They may make us more positive about other people and enable us to connect with them better (a basic human need), which contributes to our happiness. What scientific studies also show is that acts of kindness have more impact on well-being if we do a variety of different things, rather than repeating the same activity.

“Wait a minute”, you might think, “this sounds nice, but when it comes to Christmas, it is pretty hard to think of acts of giving without putting a hefty price tag on them.” Well, allow me to disagree. What about home-made cakes and pies as Xmas presents for your neighbours? Or playing your kids’ favourite board game (even if it does bore you a little)? And as far as children and teenagers are concerned, I always insist that they do not buy presents for us. My favourite present from Jason one year was a voucher entitling us to twenty hours of help of any nature.

As a child you probably remember having to write thank-you letters to the friends and relatives who gave you birthday and Christmas presents. As an adult this is probably not something you do as frequently, if at all. It’s not that you’re not thankful for the things you have in life, just that you don’t often stop to think about it.

In fact, expressing your gratitude for something, or someone, whether in writing or verbally, is one of the simplest but most effective ways of increasing your happiness. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it, but there is overwhelming empirical evidence that people with a grateful disposition are more enthusiastic, joyful, attentive, determined, interested, helpful, optimistic and energetic than those who aren’t. Not only that, but grateful people have been shown to be less depressed, anxious, lonely, envious and materialistic. In an internet sample of over 5000 adults, gratitude was one of the top five character strengths consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction. So if you want a tried and tested method to increase your happiness, what are you waiting for? There are numerous ways to express your gratitude. One of the most famous positive psychology interventions, the Gratitude Visit advises you to” Think of a person you feel grateful to for something that they have done for you in the past. Write a letter to them, describing what they did and what effect it had on you and your life. Once you have finished, give this person a ring and arrange an appointment to see them, preferably in their house. When you meet, read your letter out loud to the recipient”. Researchers explain the effects of gratitude by the fact that it promotes the savouring of experiences and does not allow people to take the positive aspects of their existence for granted, thus counteracting hedonic adaptation.

This year, I might just drop the usual Christmas cards, replacing them with the dancing and singing Christmas emails and instead put a whole lot of empty cards by the Christmas tree for my family to write some thank you and appreciation messages to each other. The plan is to hang them on the tree and read them out loud when the time comes. Let’s just hope it all works out as expected…

And if this doesn’t work out? Well, I would have to take refuge in “three good things”, an iconic positive psychology technique that prompts us to focus and be grateful for the things that went well. Given that its positive effects last as long as six months, it might keep me going until the summer.

Ilona Boniwell

Read more on happiness boosting interventions in Ilona’s book “Positive psychology in a nutshell” (The Open University Press)

Browse: I’m sure you can think of lots of kind things to do once you put your mind to it, but in case you need some ideas, why not take a look at the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation website www.actsofkindness.org

Visit www.positran.co.uk and click on “strengths cards” if you are looking for an original present for your loved one.

Free excerpt from my new book 'Positive Psychology And Chnage': Features Of Co-Created Change

Co-created change differs in its process and effects from imposed change. Whole-system change methodologies such as Appreciative Inquiry and World Café facilitate co-created change.

This is an edited extract from my new book Positive Psychology and Change

Co-created change...

1. Calls on the organization’s collective intelligence

Participative co-creation involves, from the very beginning, those affected by the change, allowing them to apply their ‘local knowledge’ intelligence at the point at which it can save the organisation both time and money.

2. Creates active participation

Being an active participant engaged in understanding the situation, making sense of what is happened and able to influence decision-making positively affects people’s motivation to put ideas into action. Early involvement effectively bypasses or greatly reduces resistance to change and the need to get ‘buy-in’ at a later date.

3. Involves people actively in the decision-making

When people feel their views have been genuinely sought, appreciated and considered, and they have been party to the evolving discussions, they are much more likely to accept the outcome and to be able to see their influence on it. Having been actively involved, they experience a sense of ownership and commitment to the outcome.

4. Builds social capital

These co-creative methods bring people together across the system and so create greater social capital. Social capital facilitates information-flow, lower level decision-making and trust around the organization, all of which lower organisational cost and increase co-ordination during the disruption of change.

5. Builds on past and present strengths to create sustainable change

Co-creative approaches focus on identifying past and present organisational and individual strengths as resources for the change. Using our strengths is energizing and easier than using areas of non-strength. Being able to construct the change in a way that calls on our strengths can be highly motivating.

6. Understands strengths as the key to a new organizational economy

With an awareness of strengths, we can reconfigure our understanding of the organization as an ‘economy of strengths’. At its simplest this suggests that people can spend most of their time doing what they love doing, within a structure that allows them to easily find people with complementary strengths to their own.

7. Understands social networks as the heart of organizations

Understanding the organization as a social network directs our attention to the importance of relationships in change. It sounds obvious but the language of the organization as a ‘well oiled machine’ or ‘ a bureaucracy’ or ‘an org. chart’ can easily obscure this essential reality. A continual focus on people and their patterns of interaction and communication is a key focus of these approaches. 

8. Recognises the importance of dialogue as words create worlds

It matters both what people say to each other and how they say it. It is easy for people to fall into talking about change in a solely negative way. Creating an opportunity for those concerned to co-create more purposeful, forward oriented, positive accounts of what is happening and their role in the change and the future, and creating opportunities to broadcast this new narrative more widely, can be very beneficial.

9. Recognises the importance of narrative for sense making in action

The accounts we create of the world and what goes on it are our best guides to appropriate action. They are our reality. They aren’t immutable. A key factor in the success of these approaches in achieving change is that they facilitate connected, system-wide shifts in narrative, allowing the team or organization as a whole to create new accounts of ‘what is going on’ that allow new meanings to emerge, or sense to be made, which in turn liberates new possibilities for action.

10. Recognises the energizing and resilience boosting effects of positive emotions

Hope and courage are key to the process of change. It is easy for these to be damaged or reduced during change processes and a key focus of all these appreciative and positive methods is the re-ignition or re-generation of positive emotional states in general, and these in particular. Positive emotional states are a key component of resilience, also an attribute much in demand during times of change.

11. Utilises imagination as the pull for change

We can push people towards change or we can pull them towards change. The former can seem easier and quicker and leads to the desire to create, find or build ‘burning platforms’ for change. The latter is slower, and, since the imagined future is often less immediately available to the imagination than the all too real undesirable present, can be harder to access. However it creates a more sustainable energy for change. Appreciative Inquiry as a methodology is particularly alive to and focused on this.

12. Calls on the whole power of systems

Working with the whole system simultaneously is a key way to involve the power of the organization to achieve simultaneous, co-created change.

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 my new book Positive Psychology and Change

Other Resources

Much more about strengths and managerial techniques such as the ones mentioned here can be found in Sarah’s new book Positive Psychology and Change

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology for Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management', by Kogan Page, the second edition is out in September.

See more Change, Positive Psychology and Appreciative Inquiry 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. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

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