‘Houston, we have a problem’ – What Does It Mean To Have A Problem?

At the 2012 World Appreciative Inquiry conference I fell into conversation with Stefan Cantore. Stefan was busy thinking about ‘our love affair with problems’ in preparation for writing a chapter for a forthcoming publication (details at end). We had a great discussion about this that stayed with me and caused me further thought.

How do we know when we encounter a problem? While completing a personality profile questionnaire recently I noticed that I have a problem with the word problem. As the questionnaire asked me variations on how I deal with problems, I struggled to answer: the questions just didn’t connect. It would seem that I just don’t think in terms of problems and problem-solving: I don’t notice when I encounter them.

Trying to answer the questions I found it very hard to think of instances of recent problem-solving to help me. Did this mean I led a problem-free life? All became clear a few days later when I was working out how to fix something that had broken. I was going through a process in my mind of possible alternatives, seeking the resources and trying the solution out. Yes, you’ve guessed it, I was problem-solving only the word problem never entered my mind as a name for the activity I was involved in, and probably wouldn’t have occurred to me at all if not for my recent struggle with the questionnaire.

Problems and ‘Problems’

Talking to Stefan, and thinking about this, I wondered if we have problems and Problems. That is, things we sort out all the time, almost without noticing – ‘problems’ – and some other challenges that are similar but different – ‘Problems’. This led me to ask, what happens when we label something ‘Problem’. What is the purpose, impact and outcome of naming some particular thing a Problem. ‘Houston, we have a problem’ came to mind as one of the greatest examples of this act of labeling. What did it do? I suggest:

1. It called attention to something. In this case the world’s attention
2. It suggested this something was beyond the capacity of those so far involved
3. It extended the system around the situation
4. In this way it attracts resources to a situation
5. It caused creativity – the creativity of the Apollo community in this instance is the stuff of legend.
6. It acted to focus attention – I’m guessing many other activities at the Apollo base station were put on temporary hold!

So when someone in an organization calls ‘Problem’ we might argue that they are attempting to get focus, attention, resources and creativity applied to a situation to move it forward. They are also implicitly stating it is beyond the capacity of the existing system to move forward; that they need to connect to a bigger system. It’s an acceptable way of asking for help.

Problems from Heaven

David Cooperrider suggested that those who bring Problems are a gift, because they also bring a Dream. By labeling something a Problem and so asking for help the problem-bringer or namer is implicitly suggesting that there is still hope that things can be better, with the help of the wider system. So naming something a Problem also creates the possibility of hope.

So where does that leave us? I think we need a different word for the small stuff that we do everyday that gets caught up under the umbrella of ‘problem-solving’ making it look as if problems are everywhere.

I think Problem, used wisely, can act as a clarion call for resource and action. I think it needs to be recognized as a call for wider system involvement. The Apollo astronauts couldn’t resolve the situation developing on their spacecraft with their resources, they knew that and called the developing situation a Problem. The wider system responded. They responded emotionally and experimentally. They tried things out and then they tried other things out. They involved everyone with all their different skills to find a way forward that would allow the astronauts to live. People may have used their rational skills, but they were motivated by their emotional connection to the whole project and to the individuals in danger.

Problem gets a bad name in organizations because it is not recognized as a call for an emotional and relational response. Rather it is seem as a call for a rational analysis, devoid of emotional content.  Appreciative Inquiry as an approach is tailor made for helping organizations create a response to the clarion call of a Problem that is emotional and relational while utilizing all the rational abilities of the organization as appropriate. There is nothing wrong with calling Problem when the circumstances warrant it, only in our response.

Stefan contributed to the Handbook of the psychology of organizational development, leadership and change (Wiley-Blackwell) published in 2012

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 and more about Appreciative Inquiry 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

Does Happiness Contribute To Success? Reasons To Be Cheerful

While much research confirms that successful outcomes can foster happiness, it has tended to be seen as a one-way linear relationship: you have to be successful to be happy. But might it be more of a circular relationship? A virtuous circle where being happy makes it more likely you will succeed? In 2005 Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ed Diener and Laura King pulled together all the research they could find that addressed the question: does happiness contribute to success?

What does it mean to be happy?

Happy people are those who frequently experience positive emotions such as joy, interest and pride while they experience negative emotions such as sadness, anxiety and anger less frequently. It is this ratio of time spent in positive as opposed to negative moods that predicts those who define themselves as ‘happy people’. From other research we know that the ratio needs to be 3:1 or above to start to move us to describe ourselves as generally ‘happy’.

One suggestion is that happy people feel positive emotions more frequently because they are more sensitive to rewards in their environment. In other words, they find more reasons to be cheerful.

How might feeling happy help us succeed?

It seems that experiencing positive moods and emotions leads us to think, feel and act in ways that add to our resourcefulness and that helps us reach our goals. Positive emotions, it appears, are a signal to us that life is going well, that our goals are being met and our resources are adequate. Since all is going well, we feel we can spend time with friends, learn new skills, or relax and rebuild our energy reserves. We are also likely to seek out new goals, to plan a new project, or get started on booking that holiday for instance. We can compare this with when we are in a negative mood state, when our concern can become to protect our existing resources and to avoid being hurt or damaged in some way.

Lyubomirsky and colleagues reviewed 225 papers and found that feeling good is associated with things like, feeling confident and optimistic, feeling capable, sociability, seeing the best in others, activity and energy, helpfulness, immunity and physical wellbeing, effectively coping with challenge and stress and originality and flexibility. We can easily see how these would help with motivation and tenacity in achieving goals.

Some of their findings

1. Positive affect and job performance is bi-directional e.g. each affects the other
2. Happy people seem to be more successful at work, in their relationships and experience better health
3. Happy people set higher goals for themselves
4. Happy people are more willing to do things beyond the call of dut
5. Happy people are more successful across domains of marriage, friendship, income, work performance and health.

 So effectively yes, happiness does lead to success.

What does all this mean for us?

The key to happiness is frequent positive mood states that outweigh negative mood states by at least a 3:1 ratio. When we are happy good things are more likely to happen and we can generally cope with life better. To pro-actively manage our mood states is a good investment for us and our organizations.

Some questions to help you think how to use this information

How well do you know your mood boosters? How do you find reasons to be cheerful, and how do you help others to do that? How effectively do you build them into your daily, hourly-even life? How good are you at spotting when the ratio is slipping and finding a way to boost your mood?  How can you help others with this?

Lyubomirksy S, Diener E, and King L (2005) The Benefits of Positive Affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin Vol 131.No. 6. Pp 803-855

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 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 Classic New Broom Mistakes

The pressure on new leaders or senior appointments to make an impact, and quickly, is tremendous. The organization has spent time and money attracting, selecting and securing the chosen candidate, now they want to see the value they have bought. It’s a brave person who can hold fire while they take time to look and learn; take time to find out what works here, and how it does; to find out who the people are who really ensure the work gets done; to find out who is brave enough to deliver bad news. This knowledge is often hidden, while, to new eyes, what doesn’t work, who doesn’t look or behave like management behaviour, and who too often isn’t at the end of their phone or at their desk, is all too obvious. In their attempts both to improve things and make a mark quickly, New Brooms frequently commit one or all of these mistakes:

1.They Believe in Year Zero. New Brooms often act as if everything that happened before their arrival is irrelevant. They have no interest in why things are the way they are, they know only that they are wrong. The wholesale change that follows as they (re)create the organization in the image of their last organization, or a textbook organization, tramples over history, accidentally throwing out precious babies with the bath water.

2.They Create Tomorrow’s Problems. ‘Today’s problems are yesterday’s solutions.’ said Senge.  And it follows that today’s solutions are tomorrow’s problems. New Brooms, in their enthusiasm to create new solutions, often inadvertently create the foundations for the next set of problems, for the next new person to solve. The experience on the ground can be of repeated extreme pendulum swings.

3.They Create Ground Zero. This approach often accompanies the Year Zero mentality: since nothing created before I arrived is of value, nothing will be lost in its destruction. Creating ground zero usually starts with the drawing up of a new organizational chart followed by frenzied activity restructuring, firing and rehiring, redrawing all paper work (job descriptions etc.), and retraining to create the brave new world. All too often the map changes but the terrain remains the same

4.They Have The Answer. At last our leader is in a position of power where they can put this great new idea they have come across into practice: LEAN, Team-based working, BPR. The list of management fads from which to choose is endless. The trouble is that there is no one right way to organize. Organizations are full of irresolvable tensions, they are dynamic entities that flux and flow, seeking to resolve the irresolvable. In this way they can keep everything in play. Once there is only one answer, only one way, the benefits of equi-finality and fluidity are lost.

5.They Love Tidiness. This approach is often related to having the answer. To the newcomer the evolved solutions are messy. The organizational chart is not neat, things aren’t arranged logically, the rationales for the way things are done are idiosyncratic, it doesn’t seem equable, everything is an acceptable exception. Like Trinny and Susanna they tear through the mess, creating order, boxing things up, cloning and standardizing. Everyone must start at 8.30, no exceptions. Bang goes the best customer service girl we ever had, who can’t get in until 8.45. Tough!

6.They Cut Through The Gordian Knot. Our new broom doesn’t have the time or the inclination to engage with office politics, so pretends they don’t exist. As they set about finding out what’s what, they dismiss any notion of being manipulated by the players. It’s easier to take everything at face value and then apply their own superior 20/20 vision to get to the truth. Often the people who lose out are those who really don’t know how to play politics and who strive to deliver a truth, as everyone else angles to demonstrate their irreplaceable value

7.They Believe Context Is Irrelevant. Leaders who believe they are impervious to office politics often also believe that context is irrelevant. They have a plan for change. There will be winners and losers. It’s very cold out in the employment market at present. The leader is in a very powerful position, determining people’s futures. Without a lively awareness of this context, it is very easy to mistake people’s quest to retain job security with the expression of a heartfelt endorsement of the new leader’s genius and a real desire for change. From here it is all too easy to get rid of dissenting voices.

8.They Fire the Opposition. The new leader is insecure: they need to prove their worth. They don’t want to hear that their plan has flaws, that there are benefits to the current, irregular, way of doing things. Expression of such thoughts is heard as disloyalty, easier to label such dissenters as resistant to change.

9.They Devalue Social Capital. The new leader is seduced by the organizational chart and all the paperwork that dictates who must report to whom, how the job must be done. Focused on this they fail to notice the intricate and delicate relating patterns, communication, information flow, informal problem-solving, that facilitate effective working. Seeing such informal networks as essentially irrelevant to achieving the task, they (re)arrange people without regard to these informal relationships and communication. The social capital of the organization is reduced, its efficacy damaged.

10. They Disregard Sense-making As A Powerful Change Process. Too often a new broom is overly focused on the behaviour change they require, and they work hard to ‘make’ people do things differently. Failing to appreciate that our behaviour is related to how we make sense of the world, they invest little time in working to change people’s mental maps, their experience of reality. They work to drive new behaviour into people rather than to release it.

Want to do it differently?

Appreciating Change can help you discover the strengths of the existing organization, can help you see and appreciate the less tangible assets such as the social capital, before you tear into making wholesale changes.

We can help you work with existing complexity, realizing the value of the evolved equi-finality, flexibility, diversity and difference before you become overwhelmed and seek to simplify by standardizing, and reducing complexity.

We can help you ‘be active’ in your engagement with the organization in ways that build on the best of what exists, that help people actively and willingly engage with new realities, and that grow positive change, before you lose patience and decide to impose a brave new world order.

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 and more about 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

Charming Devils And The Mischief They Make

It is increasingly apparent that sometimes people with severe personality disorders (narcissistic, psychopathic, paranoid and schizoid) slip through the organizational selection net. The problem is they don’t appear in our midst with ‘trouble’ tattooed on their foreheads, instead they are often rather charming devils who do very well until they fall (and bring everyone else down with them).

How to reduce the chances of appointing a chancer, a megalomaniac, an egoist, a drama queen, or an obsessive, to your team

Beware that their failings come disguised as virtuous traits, as they bring almost an excess of a good thing. So the dimensions can look like this…

•    Work focused – workaholic – obsessive/compulsive

•    Team player – dependency on others – can’t make individual decisions

•    Action focused – decisive – rushed, rash and impulsive – dictatorial

•    Analytical – paralysed – unable to act

•    Integrity – strong values – rigidity/cult leader

•    Innovative – enthusiastic/ committed – unrealistic

Spotting trouble in your midst:

Someone who has the following characteristics…

Is all things to all people

About whom people hold deeply divided opinions (seen as saving angel by some and dangerous devil by others)

Who wields disproportionate power to their status

Can skillfully play individuals, telling them what they want to hear

Has an uncanny ability to make bad things, things that don’t work, and people in their way, disappear (Teflon man / woman)

Lies and cheats with impunity in the service of some greater goal, and

Demonstrates loyalty only to self

…just might be displaying strong psychopathic tendencies. As they advance up the organization and external control and non-deferential feedback lessens, the bigger the mess they can create.

How can you lessen the likelihood of this happening to your organization?

1. Be brave enough to let go of the problem people early
2. Select for optimal not maximal qualities
3. Do proper biographical tracking history on your top appointments
4. Beware of trading off weaknesses for some great strength
5. Use 360 degree feedback, and listen to what those of no current ‘use’ to the person have to say. The once seduced and now discarded may have a less enamoured view of the charmer
6. Give leaders a stable deputy and make sure they have adequate power to influence, control, veto leadership action i.e. make sure they don’t gain absolute power!
7. Offer support to help self-management such as coaches, mentors, therapists

Sarah Lewis and colleagues at Appreciating Change are accredited to use the Hogan suite of personality psychometrics including The Dark Side instrument. Such psychometrics can help identify those at risk of going seriously off the rails!

(Furnham 2007, The Icarus Syndrome, People and organizations @ work spring edition, Trickey, Talent, treachery and self destruction paper at ABP conference 2007)

Other Resources

Recommended read: Snakes in Suits, Bob Hare

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

Many Hands Make Light Work: Crowd-Sourcing Organizational Change Using Appreciative Inquiry

Barack Obama famously crowd-sourced the finance for his election campaign, a powerful example of the ability of new technology to create a great aggregate result out of lots of small voluntary actions. But this process is not as new as it seems: Sir James Murray used a similar approach to creating the Oxford English Dictionary back in 1897.

So while crowd-sourcing is a new and sexy concept, it really refers to the age-old process of recruiting groups to complete tasks that it would be difficult if not impossible for one person to complete alone.

Wikipedia, itself probably the most ubiquitous example of a crowd-sourced product, defines it thus: ‘Crowd-sourcing is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. This process can occur both online and offline. The difference between crowd-sourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that a task or problem is outsourced to an undefined public rather than a specific body, such as paid employees.’ But it also says ‘Crowd-sourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model.’ 

Volunteerism: In house crowd-sourcing

It seems to me that the crucial distinction is the voluntary nature of the participation rather than necessarily the paid/unpaid divide. In other words can crowd-sourcing be said to occur when people are not compelled to do the tasks by a job contract, but volunteer to be part of an organizational project. It is this volunteer element that makes me think Appreciative Inquiry can be seen as a form of in-house crowd-sourcing.

Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to organizational development that originated when David Cooperrider noticed how organizational growth and development can stem from understanding and building on past successes as well as on understanding and solving problems. As he and others experimented with focusing on learning from success and growing more of what you want in an organization, rather than concentrating solely on eliminating what you don’t want, they evolved a methodology based on clear principles of organizational life. One of these is the principle of positivity, which basically suggests that change takes energy, and that positive energy (feeling good) is a more sustainable source of energy for change than negative energy (feeling bad). When the field of positive psychology emerged at the end of the 1990s it fitted perfectly with Appreciative Inquiry’s emphasis on achieving excellence through focusing on what works.

I was fortunately enough to stumble upon Appreciative Inquiry as an approach to organizational change and development in the 1990s and have been incorporating it into my work ever since. And the more I work with Appreciative Inquiry, the clearer it becomes to me that the volunteer aspect of the model is crucial to its success. In this way I see a connection between crowd-sourcing and Appreciative Inquiry. The power of Appreciative Inquiry is based on the power of the volunteer model in the following ways.

• Voluntary attendance

Ideally people are invited to attend the Appreciative Inquiry event. The event topic, the nature of the event, and the invitation have to be sufficiently compelling that people prioritise being there of their own volition. When people make an active choice to invest their time in the event, they are keen to get a good return on that. When they are compelled to be there by management diktat, it can be a recipe for frustration, and even sabotage of the process.

• Voluntary participation

The voluntarism principle needs to extend to participation in any and every particular activity or discussion that is planned for the day. We never know what may be going on in people’s lives to make some topic of discussion unbearable. They may need, during the day, to prioritise their own need for some quiet time, or to make a timely phone call. It is my experience that when people are treated as adults constantly juggling competing priorities, trying to make good moment-to-moment decisions in complex contexts, they manage it very well, and with minimum disruption to the process.

• Voluntary contribution

One form of crowd-sourcing is the wisdom of the crowd. Again I quote from Wikipedia: ‘Wisdom of the crowd is another type of crowd-sourcing that collects large amounts of information and aggregates it to gain a complete and accurate picture of a topic, based on the idea that a group of people is often more intelligent than an individual.’ Calling on collective intelligence is a key feature of large group processes. However people are free to chose whether and what to contribute; so the event needs to create an atmosphere where people feel safe and trusting and so desire to share information and dreams and to build connection and intimacy. And of course the general principle doesn’t hold in every case, sometimes expert knowledge is more valuable and accurate than ‘the general view’.

• Voluntary further action

With most Appreciative Inquiry based events, at some point there is a shift from the process in the day to actions in the future. Often this involves forming project or work groups to progress activity. And the groups need members. Again group membership needs to be voluntary. The desire to contribute to changing things for the future needs to stem from the motivation and community built during the day. Forcing everyone to sign up to a post-event group activity, regardless of their energy, time or passion for the topic or project, just creates drag, and sometimes derails the whole process.

There are some of the ways in which I think Appreciative Inquiry can be seen as a form of in-house crowd-sourcing around the challenges of organizational change or adaptation. The ideal outcome of an Appreciative Inquiry event is that everyone is so affected by the event process, discussions, and aspirations that they are motivated to make small changes in their own behaviour on a day to day basis that will aggregate to a bigger shift, and even transformation within the organization as a whole. In addition they may volunteer to be part of specific groups working on specific projects. By definition these personal shifts in behaviour and the group project activity are above and beyond their job description: it is voluntary, discretionary behaviour. In this way, the voluntary basis of the Appreciative Inquiry approach qualifies it to be seen as a form of crowd-sourcing even though it is activity undertaken by paid members of an organization.

If you are interested in, or a convert to, the power of crowd-sourcing to get big things to happen with a small amount of effort from many people, then Appreciative Inquiry might be a way of bringing it into your organization.

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 about Appreciative Inquiry 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 Courageous Conversations At Work

What Not to Do

Many people at some point in their working lives have to have a difficult conversation with someone. It might be about a performance issues or something more personal. It can be with a peer, a subordinate or indeed a boss. Very often people are highly anxious, understandably so, about having this conversation. They then either avoid it for so long that when they do tackle it it comes as a complete shock to the other party, or they rush at it like a bull in a china shop just to get it over with. Here are some tips to help produce a good result.

Being Courageous

1.Be clear what you are trying to achieve

You need to be clear in your own mind why you are putting yourself through the trauma of having this conversation and what you hope to achieve. Is it an apology, an agreement about something, a change in behaviour in the future, some sort of restorative action or maybe a resubmission of a piece of work? Be clear what the successful outcome is and be listening for it.

2.Be clear what you are listening for

Being highly anxious can make us deaf. We become so focused on saying everything we have planned to say that we fail to hear the other person quietly saying ‘you’re right’ or ‘I know’ or even ‘you might have a point.’ ‘You bet I have!’ we say and then return to our carefully prepared speech. You need to stay alert to the first signs that you have made your point and be prepared to switch modes to ‘Ok what next’ even if you haven’t said everything you intended. Otherwise you run the risk of producing a new source of conflict as your conversational partner feels unfairly berated when they’ve made a concession. This can sabotage the chances of recovery.

3.Be clear what gives you the right to initiate this conversation

It really helps us reduce our anxiety if we can understand how the conversational intent aligns with our values. For instance you may have to tell someone that they didn’t get the promotion they were after, and give some hard feedback as to why. The clearer you are that giving this feedback is, for example, helpful behaviour(and it is important to you to help and develop others) then the easier say what needs to be said about the current shortfall in their experience, manner, etc. if they are to succeed in the future. Fobbing them off softly is easier but less helpful to them in the long run.

4.Give thought to how you set up the meeting

There are pros and cons to giving advance notice of wanting to have a difficult conversation with someone. The downside is there may well be a drop in productivity as they become distracted wondering what it about. There is also the danger that their anxiety will drive them to push you to ‘just say it now, let’s get it over and done with’. On the other hand, springing it on them unexpectedly can lead them to feel ambushed or tricked in some way. It’s a judgement call and depends on the situation and circumstances.

5.Look for the positive in the situation

Sometimes bad outcomes are the result of good intentions. Was the behaviour caused by a strength in overdrive? For instance maybe ‘too pushy’ can be reframed as a strength of will, zest or tenacity being used with greater force than was appropriate, or where negotiation strengths were needed. Was there an honourable intention behind the behaviour? Many mistakes start out as good ideas or intentions. Be alert to any good consequences that occurred in the situation you want to address as well as the problematic outcome. All of these give you a way to approach the behaviour that make it more likely the other person can owe it, still feel good about themselves, and be open to making changes.

6.Listen first

It is often a good idea, once you have outlined the area, topic, incident that you want to discuss to give the person a chance to give their view on the situation. Many a manager taking this approach has found the other person only too aware that there is a problem, or an issue, or something didn’t go right and that they have been making themselves miserable over it. Of course you’ll also have people who take the opportunity to ‘get their defence in first’ but at least you have the lie of the land before you say your piece, and indeed you may not need to say much at all.

7.Offer reassurance

There is an art to building and maintaining the relationship bridge while trying to convey information or a perspective that the other person might find hard to hear. Think about an opener such as ‘I feel this conversation may be difficult, but I am confident it will be to the benefit of both of us.’  Or ‘my sincere hope is that we come out of this conversation with a shared understanding of what happened and how we can make things better.’

8. Be honest about the effect on you

The more able you are to be honest about your motivation for having the conversation, the more likely you are to be acting and talking with integrity. Authenticity and integrity tend to produce better responses in others. So say something like ‘to be honest I felt really embarrassed when... and I like to feel proud of my team when... that’s why I want to...’ This isn’t about trying to ‘guilt trip’ anyone; its about being honest about your investment in this as well as the favour you are hoping to do them.

9. Use descriptive not evaluative language

Try to stick to an account that articulates what you saw and the consequences in a way that is factual and could be verified by any other observers. Steer away from evaluators like ‘aggressive’ and say instead something like, ‘you were speaking in a louder than a normal speaking voice, leaning in very close to B. Your face was going red and your forehand bulged. I also noticed B leant backwards and raised her hands. She didn’t speak for the rest of the meeting. Later B came to me and said she felt intimidated by you in that meeting.’ Here you can add your concern, ‘My concern is that if B feels like that we will lose her input to the discussion. I know you are very passionate about this topic. I need both your inputs. Let’s see if we can find a way where you both feel able to make your points.’

10. Look forward to solutions, not backwards to blame

The aim of the discussion, if possible, is to create a common agreement about the situation now without getting too lost in counter-arguments about blame in the past. It doesn’t have to be complete consensus, just enough to allow the conversation to move productively the next stage of finding ways forward that are acceptable to you both.

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 and Culture change.

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

What Does It Mean To Talk About 'An Economy Of Strengths?'

By Jem Smith and Sarah Lewis

These ideas were first presented at a World Appreciative Inquiry Conference in Ghent in 2013.

For the workshop we attempted first to explore the key concept of efficiency to economies, and then how markets work, and then to ask the question, ‘ So, what does it mean to talk about an economy of strengths?’

Our personal interest

As an organisational psychologist Sarah is fascinated by the unquestioned acceptance, in most organisations, of ‘efficiency’ as the highest organisational priority, while Jem is an economist by training. David Cooperrider introduced the concept of ‘an economy of strengths’ for organizations and business, which caught both our imaginations.

First we examine the effects of the continual drive for efficiency.

The pros and cons of an ‘efficiency mindset’

Economic ‘efficiency’ brings immense benefit at the macro (societal) and organisational level. It also brings some unintended consequences, particularly mindlessness, a lack of redundancy (in complexity terms e.g. overlap or slack – with the attendant space for flexibility, purposeless interaction, incidental learning etc.), and a lack of respect for the full nature of being human. Efficiency is located in the Tayloristic model of organisation as a problem to be solved. At a society level, through market efficiencies, it introduces division and separateness (you shop at Sainsbury’s, me at Lidl’s, so our paths don’t cross). In other words there is a cost in poor social connectedness.

Social Connections

Societies have found various ways to mitigate some of these effects. Here I want to focus on the mitigation of the division and separation caused by efficient societal organisation. For example in feudal times we had Noblesse Oblige, the idea that the nobility had an obligation to look after and protect those who lived on the land that God had granted them. This made them worthy stewards of their inheritance. For centuries religious beliefs (most include alms giving) supported care for your neighbours and in the UK for the 50-60 years after the Second World War, the social compact (Welfare State), saw this role taken over by national governments. All of these work to maintain collective responsibility and awareness. They are, in effect, relational agreements. No one is saying they worked perfectly or necessarily defending the systems that produced the necessity for them, but at least there was an accepted need to mitigate the effects of division

Today

Today, the fragile ‘balance’ of the free market economy with mitigating social processes is breaking down. The relational agreements are under considerable strain. Behaviour is not as constrained, for many, by religious expectations as it once was; and the social compact is being dishonoured and the welfare state dismantled. At the same time financial systems are malfunctioning: they are not efficiently ensuring maximum wealth production, and, they are increasing societal inequalities as the lack of available capital for investment is adversely affecting ‘the small people’. It is a great time to be attending purposefully to this ‘balance’ that gets the best of what the free market does (its strengths) and the best of what relational connectedness can offer.

Future

Is this an opportunity to forge a new balance of ‘free market economics’ and ‘relational agreements’? Can we tweak our understanding of efficiency to accommodate this? Does our increasing ability to measure happiness, wellbeing and maybe even societal interconnectedness allow us to include these things in ‘what is measureable’ so that we can track, monitor and calculate how ‘efficient’ the market is being in a different way to present?

Secondly we ask – What is an economy?

An economy is a system to turn resources (land, machines, people's labour, fossil fuels etc.) into goods and services and then to distribute these to people in the economy. The best economic system is the one that makes the people in it happiest.

However there is only a limited amount of goods and services that can be produced under any system but people always want more. Economics is said to be about ‘using limited resources to best satisfy unlimited wants’. Also, by producing goods and services by working people give up their leisure time, which makes them less happy.

Choices must therefore be made, the aim of which is ‘efficiency’.

Prices

Why is it so important in achieving efficiency to use prices? The basic answer is that, usually, prices don’t lie.  Thus while people may tell you that they are willing to trade more expensive coffee for better terms for coffee growers, i.e. that knowing fair trade is happening makes them happier than getting cheap coffee, it isn’t until they see the price of fair trade coffee compared to Nescafe and then buy the more expensive one that the economy really knows that they want to make that trade-off, and therefore that it will make them happier.

Efficiency

The aim of economics is efficiency. There are two types of efficiency: productive efficiency (where you are producing the most goods and services that you can) and allocative efficiency (where you are distributing the goods/services in the way that produces the most happiness (what economists call ‘utility’) in society).

These can be achieved without uniformity in ideological approach. Thus you can have a free-market capitalist system in the production of goods and services and a much more socialist one in their allocation and still achieve efficiency in both.

Theory and experience has show that productive efficiency necessitates a free-trade, market-based approach (except where there is clear market failure, e.g. Healthcare, Education, Pollution) whereas allocative efficiency can be achieved in many ways, basically because it is unknown if inequality in the allocation of goods/services affects the aggregate happiness of society.

Thus Sweden, with its high growth and equality, and the United States, with its high growth and high inequality, are from a strictly technical point of view both equally successful economic systems, whereas Soviet Russia, with its state control of production and so low growth, was not.

There was a lot of discussion and interaction in the session; this is the document we produced afterwards that is a summary of those discussions.

Summary of thoughts from Ghent session: ‘Moving towards an economy of interconnecting strengths’

Connections

The focus is on happiness but from different perspectives.

The economy is connections, between people and resources and production and sustainability.

There is a connection between resources, how they are used and the sources of those resources and how sustainable they are.

There is a connection, though an imperfect one, between prices and value in the economy.

What makes people happy today?

The Future

It is important to change the view of the economy from a variety of competing models(Socialist vs. Free market etc.) to one of a family, each member with different strengths and weaknesses but working for a shared interest.

Organisations within the economy need to move towards being allocatively efficient as well as productively efficient.

Within organisations we must become braver and more independent in our behaviour for the good of the organisation and wider society, despite the risk to our jobs and pensions.

We must learn to look at the economy not so much from a perspective of scarcity as from abundance, particularly in terms of human potential.

Technology will create greater openness and access to information to the members of the economy, giving them greater power to make decisions affecting their own happiness.

This will cause the economy to move from being driven by the invisible hand to the transparent/visible hand.

Group Thoughts

Sheet 1

How do decisions we make about our how to achieve our happiness affect the happiness of others, particularly the young, now and for future generations?

We can take this into the world by having the children’s fire burn in every boardroom and school and community organisation.

We must educate the young on the value of strength as well as on the value of material things.

Sheet 2

How can you connect to the abundancy of the unlimited?

What image do you have of the economy?

When were you most proud of your work?

What was the best office (?) publicity that you have seen?

Sheet 3

Are you willing to stop thinking about £ $ € adding value, and start thinking about value?

Are you prepared to fire all your employees, and start working with friends?

Sheet 4

How would it be to offer your competitors your help? To be combined better for your clients, employees etc.

Can you re-define happiness?

How can we encourage children to ‘discover’ what created happiness and ‘dream’ as soon as possible?

Sheet 5

How can we visualise the value of happiness?

What are the KPI’s of happiness?

It was a very exciting session that raised more questions than answers, but people left stimulated and in some cases inspired to take action in their own quests to achieve a greater ‘economy of strengths’. Many said that it helped them connect their concerns with the language of business efficiency in a way they found extremely helpful.

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

Using Positive Psychology to Produce High Performing Teams

What is positive psychology?

Coined as a phrase by Martin Seligman as President of the American Psychological Association in 1998, positive psychology is the psychology of exceptionally good living. It embraces areas of study such as happiness; human flourishing; exceptional wellbeing; energy and vitality, meaningfulness and achievement. The switch in focus from psychology’s traditional concern with when things go wrong for people (mental or physical ill-health, poor educational performance etc.) to when things go right for people has resulted in a burst of new streams of research and new knowledge about the psychology of high performance in people.

Three things that make a difference

Three key areas of positive psychology that are relevant to the challenge of team performance are; positivity, strengths and motivation.

Positivity

Research in this area can be seen as a quest to answer such questions as: ‘What good are good emotions? What purpose do they serve? Why do we have them?’ In 2004 Losada and Heaphy discovered that a high ratio of positive to negative comments amongst team members in meetings was a reliable predictor of high performance. They postulate that positive comments lead to positive emotional reactions and we know that positive emotional states are correlated with many group phenomena such as sociability and social bonding; openness to information, creativity, coping with complexity, tenacity and motivation, and virtuous behaviour (patience, generosity etc.).

All of this acts on the group dynamics in a way that enhances connectivity amongst group members, greater creative in thinking and an increased ability to act in harmony with other group members and group objectives even when not in direct contact with each other. They call this dynamic ‘synchronicity’. They found that for these effects to be produced, the ratio of positive to negative comments and experiences needs to be between 3:1 to 12:1 positive to negative. Beyond this ratio there is a danger of a lack of critical examination of ideas.

What does this mean?

This means that if we can develop the linguistic habits in our team meetings of: building on the best in the ideas of others rather than knocking them down wholesale; expressing appreciation of helpful comments or contributions; thanking people for pointing out flaws or problems with ideas; laughing together and so on, we can have a direct impact on the performance of the team over time.

Strengths

It has always been recognised that people vary in their innate abilities. However our emphasis in the workplace has often been on trying to help people develop greater skill in their weaker areas. More recently a school of thought has grown up suggesting that helping people become better at what they are already good at is a more effective investment. The argument is that a natural strength plus skill in using it becomes a talent. Helping people understand their particular strengths, and then developing their skill and judgement in using it is being revealed to positively affect: performance, wellbeing, goal attainment, energy levels, authenticity, morale, motivation, fulfilment at work and meaningfulness.

What does this mean?

This means that at least some of your development effort should be focused on helping people understand their strengths profile. That consideration should be given to fitting jobs to people’s strengths profiles rather than fitting people to rigid job profiles. That teams should distribute tasks by strengths rather than necessarily by role. It seems likely that the more people are able to use their natural skills at work – a process that people find satisfying and energizing – the more likely they are to deliver dedication and high performance.

Motivation

Motivation is a fascinating topic. Why are we motivated to do some things and not others? Why do we find doing some things so rewarding that we will do it for nothing, just for pleasure and other things you couldn’t pay us enough to do? The answers to these questions are many, but a key thought is that it is related to our own unique personality, physiology, history and context. In this way motivation can be understood as a relationship between people’s unique needs and values and the environments that satisfy them. Motivation is a response made to an environment that provides opportunities, invitations and incitements to do things that the individual finds motivating. It seems we are motivated to use our strengths and talents because doing so makes us feel ‘our best selves’: energised, motivated, good about our selves and so able to be at our best with others. If we can find opportunities to use our strengths and talents, we are likely to feel motivated.

What does this mean?

This highlights that motivation is an individual process. Teams have to somehow create opportunities for everyone to feel motivated. This means something in the team process, goal or environment must produce opportunities for people to achieve things desirable to them (their needs and values), and to engage their strengths (energised, committed, meaningful). Appreciative Inquiry as a process facilitates both of these aspects of team working. The discovery phase helps groups and individuals identify existing strengths. The dream phase allows all voices to contribute to the creation of desirable images of the future. While the destiny phase encourages people to volunteer to create movement and progress in areas or projects that are motivating to them.

So how can I use positive psychology to help my team deliver high performance?

·      Encourage a positive atmosphere with a good ratio of positive to negative comment

·      Help individuals identify their strengths and enable them to use them in the team endeavour

·      Use appreciative inquiry processes to help the team develop a co-created image of the future state towards which they are working, and enable them to contribute to its achievement by using their unique strengths.

Further reading

Lewis, S., Passmore, J. and Cantore, S., 2007. Appreciative Inquiry For Change Management: Using AI To Facilitate Organisational Development. Kogan Page. London

Lewis, S.,  2011 Positive Psychology at Work: How Positive Leadership and Appreciative Inquiry Create Inspiring Organizations. Wiley-Blackwell. Chichester UK

Losada, M. and Heaphy, E., 2004. The Role Of Positivity And Connectivity In The Performance Of Business Teams: A Nonlinear Model, American Behavioral Scientist, 47, pp. 740-765.

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