The Sandwich Rule

Writing about unicorns and positive psychology, I would be remiss not to mention Martin Seligman, who is considered to be the father of Positive Psychology, and his latest book “Flourish.” While not an easy read, the book still offers some golden nuggets and practical tools for anyone seeking self-care or to help others increase their well-being at work and in life.

Positive psychology has important applications to the workplace. We’ve been presented with good hard evidence that people are far more engaged, productive, and successful when their mindsets are positive. But one study Seligman cites is important for every leader to remember – the Losada Ratio. Barbara Frederickson, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina, studied 60 companies and transcribed their business meetings coding comments for positive and negative words. Her team then took a simple ratio of the positive-to-negative statements. They discovered that the companies with the greatest financial performance had a better than 2.9:1 ratio for positive communications. They also found that a ratio of 6:1 was characteristic of teams with consistently extraordinary achievement. Below that ratio, companies did not do well financially. However, a ratio above 13:1 is equally detrimental. Group think and the desire for harmony result in loss of critical thinking and evaluation and lead to poor decision-making. For a business to thrive, it must cultivate positive relationships yet provide regular constructive feedback for people to improve and grow.

Some practical considerations for leaders:

1. Monitor the ratio of positive to negative comments in the team
2. Recognize and reward team members’ strengths
3. Provide pro-active timely constructive feedback

How? Remember the sandwich/hamburger rule:

Follow the sandwich rule when giving feedback. Start with a constructive positive comment about what the person does well. Continue with the meat of the matter, a constructive comment about the area/s for improvement. End with an encouraging comment.

John Gottman, founder of the “Love Lab” at the University of Washington, computed the same ratio for married couples. He found that couples with a ratio of 2.9:1 negative to positive comments were headed for divorce and couples with a 5:1 positive to negative ratio had a strong foundation for a healthy and loving marriage. He also found this ratio to hold true for child-parent relationships.

So as long as we strive to keep five times as many positive interactions as there are negative ones, we are likely to have strong and healthy relationships. Let’s choose our words wisely.

Unicorns

Today seems like a good day to talk about Unicorns. Hmmm, not the $1 billion ones, or for our Canadian friends, this post is not about narwhals. It’s about the other kind of unicorns, the ones that go with rainbows, sugar and spice and everything nice; a very special unicorn named Amy.

Sorry. You need to watch psychologist Shawn Anchor’s TED talk to get it. Actually, you've got to watch it! Not only is Anchor hilarious, the message is relevant to every working professional: our happiness has a huge impact on our success.

https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?language=en

So what can we learn from the story of 5 year old Amy transcending injuries (a new broken leg to complement the broken arm from a previous week) sustained while playing with her overly imaginative older brother? First, of course, to supervise our children because apparently an overactive imagination can hurt. But the real lesson here is that when we face challenges, whether physical or emotional, we can use our internal resources to either embrace the pain and misery or use them to create a new reality. At the tender age of 7, Anchor has discovered positive psychology.

According to Anchor, hope comes before happiness. Based on his research, happiness starts with realizing that we have choices. We can focus our brain on what’s wrong and painful or on new possibilities. Happiness is more than just being a Pollyanna believing that everything is great and always looking on the bright side. At the core, being happy is believing that change is possible. It is about the joy we feel when we make great efforts to achieve our full potential. The premise is that instead of working hard to achieve happiness, we need to start with being happy and then everything else will fall into place. It’s all about the power of positivity and retraining our brain to look at things from a different perspective.

Anchor also confirms that there are those lucky few who are genetically disposed toward happiness as opposed to those who have a hard time finding the silver lining. However, our genetics determine only 10% of our long-term happiness; the remaining 90% of our long-term happiness is determined by choosing positive responses to situational factors. And when we choose positivity and happiness, it gives us a competitive advantage, especially during difficult times. He maintains that happiness drives success, and not vice versa. Happy people are more productive and more successful.

Decades of research point to evidence that with adopting daily positive habits we can rewire our brains to change our happiness baseline. Apparently it really is the little things in life that can make us happy, according to Anchor. He proposes “happiness hygiene” techniques in just 2 minutes a day to change our perspective and change our well-being. For example, think about 3 things you are grateful for, journaling about something positive, meditating, etc.

And for those who no longer keep notebooks and pens around, there are now many positive psychology apps to choose from. Here are 2 that I recommend:

• Your Happiness Journal App - https://personaljournalapp.com/
• Your Happy app - Happify - http://www.happify.com/

More about the above principles in Shawn Anchor’s books “The Happiness Advantage” and “Before Happiness.”

Amazon Prime Day

It’s Christmas/Hanukkah in July….

Amazon has given us a new holiday. This is a special holiday celebrated by all faiths and across 10 countries. Amazon started Prime Day Sale last year to celebrate the company’s 20th birthday. Happy 21th Birthday Dear Amazon!

Let’s celebrate the feast of the shopping cart and offer praise and thanks in all of our purchases.

Or seek urgent intervention.

I might need one, I checked out the list of 100,000 deals, and it seems I have most everything in Devices, Electronics, and Shoes and Apparel. Yes, I even own a couple pairs of crocs. Sorry kids. But is it an addiction when I actually need and use everything? Oh wait, I am good on Home & Kitchen, nothing on that list for me. Well, if we spend carefully and wisely, shopping can be good for the economy and the soul. Did anyone say Retail Therapy? It’s like that famous bumper sticker; “anyone who tells you money can’t buy happiness doesn’t know where to shop.”

But all kidding aside, Amazon provides a great example of the theme of my latest blog posts about innovation. Here’s how they do it: delivering great service! We often associate innovation with introducing something new and original, but it can simply mean developing extraordinary capabilities and being highly reliable. Amazon is definitely “logistically” innovative being available in 10 countries (welcome Belgium), offering unlimited free same day/one-day/two-day shipping (very convenient for those of us looking for a last minute Halloween costume), and having just the best products at best prices (and no, this is not a sponsored ad.)

And of course, there’s Alexa.

Not sure if I am getting stupider, or Alexa is getting smarter. Forget about asking questions, she sure has all the answers.

Alexa, what should be my next blog post?

Want to read more about Innovation? I highly recommend Gary Pisano’s HBR article “You Need an Innovation Strategy.”

https://hbr.org/2015/06/you-need-an-innovation-strategy

Change Management at Home

I am a career coach. My specialty is helping professionals navigate through difficult career decisions. I provide my clients the tools and support to set and achieve their professional goals.

But coaching has a positive effect beyond career development and success. Over the years, many clients have reported that improving their leadership and influence at work helped them better manage other relationships in their life; especially the skills learned in managing change. The experience of going through change at work has changed their parenting approach and practices for the better.

Now I do not coach children, but I am happy to share my clients’ insights on helping their children manage change and innovation.

• Implementing the Innovation 70-20-10 rule at home: Innovative companies encourage their employees to spend 70% of their time and resources on the company’s core business, 20% on related ideas, and 10% on new business ideas.
  

This rule can certainly apply to children’s planned activities. For some career-minded people, being achievement focused and having a “time-is-money” mindset has created a sense of urgency to make every moment count not only in their professional life but also in grooming their children for success. Keeping up with the Joneses has been taken to a whole new level of unnecessary competition scheduling a constant round of activities for their offsprings. Many have reported being afraid of doing less than the other parents in preparing their children to get into a good college and giving them every possible advantage. They found themselves schlepping their kids around after work hours and over the weekends to endless lessons, sports and resume enhancing activities. However, realizing how important it is to have unstructured time to explore and create has led them to rethink this approach. In the words of one such client: “free time is the greatest gift I have given my daughters.”

• Recognizing and rewarding Innovation: To make Innovation stick employers need to recognize and reward new behaviors so that they become new habits. Incentive programs play a key role in driving innovative behaviors, and thus the Recognition space is growing exponentially.

This workplace practice of providing incentives for employees to suggest or try new ideas, led some of my clients to think more deeply about how to prepare their children to thrive in a fast-pace and complex world. The answer lies in being able to think independently and handle new challenges with confidence, enthusiasm, and creativity. But how do we teach our children theses skills? First, we need to let them do their own work. Many parents joke about the grades they got for a child’s homework or school project. Without addressing the moral implications here, the level of parental involvement is directly correlated to the development of these skills; the more the parents take over homework assignments and school projects, the less confident and creative the kids become about learning. When we do their work for them, we undermine their experience of accomplishment and success. We send the message that we don’t believe they are capable. So parents, please give your kids credit for being able to do their own work. And come up with your own reward and recognition program to ensure these behaviors become lifelong learning habits. One client was so worried about his son’s future academic success; he sat with him for hours every night to help him get through his homework and 5th grade. He says the hardest decision of his life was to butt out and trust his son to step up but that it was also one of the best decisions that he has ever made.

• Rewarding Failure: The greatest challenge to leaders trying to encourage innovation is giving employees permission to fail as they take on new challenges. Every failed initiative results in new insights. Each mistake teaches us something new.

One of the hardest things we have to do as parents is sit back and allow our children to make their own choices and possibly make a mistake. As hard as it is, we must let our children experience failure. It is a big part of life and can teach them something very valuable. The lessons learned can help them regain their creativity and achieve success in the future. Let’s not forget that while Babe Ruth set the record for home runs in a single baseball season, he also led the league in strikeouts. Thomas Edison tried thousands light-bulb filaments before finding the right one. As parents we need to fight the urge to protect our children to allow them to develop resiliency and creativity. Let’s stop jumping in to rescue our children when they mess up. Consequences can teach them who they are and to find new ways to own their success. And sometimes when we think our children are making a terrible mistake it can turn out it’s the best thing that ever happened to them. And I’ll share a personal story. Our public school had to create mixed-grade combination classes. When my older son was placed in a 4th/5th combo class I was not concerned. The class consisted of a large majority of fifth-graders with only a few fourth-graders, and I knew most of the kids and the families. I felt confident my son would get the curriculum and everything he needed. However, when my daughter was placed in a 3rd/4th combo class consisting of a majority of third graders with only her and 7 other fourth-graders, I was ready to run to the principal’s office to ask that she be moved to another class. My daughter, on the other hand, had a different perspective. She loved the teacher who was her teacher in third-grade, and she liked the chosen few fourth-graders. She felt it would be a great year for her. I was skeptical. My gut was telling my otherwise. But I got over myself and trusted my daughter to make the decision. Turned out she was right. This was by far her most joyful year at school. She really came into her own academically and socially.

Behind every successful person, there’s someone who helped them become great. Let’s help our children find out what they are good at and teach them the life skills needed to pursue and achieve lifelong learning and success.

Zebras on Bikes

Change is constant. I’ve written a lot about embracing change and new possibilities, and in my endless quest for inspiration I came across this gem of a book: “When Zebras Discover Motorbikes” by Jonathan Frost. Although the book is aimed at leaders and managers who want to improve team performance, I feel it’s applicable to every aspect of life whether at work or at home. Change is a constant part of modern life, and the techniques in the book can be used to enhance both our management and parenting practices to help our employees and children deal with challenges and changes.

The book is a fable about the day the Zebras have discovered the motorcycles and how the lions tried to adjust to the change.

The zebras need to be fast, but the lions only have to be as fast as the slowest zebras. But it all changed when the zebras learned to ride the big bikes. The Lions’ approaches are very familiar to anyone who has ever dealt in organizational changes. The lions’ first three attempts to cope didn’t yield any success:

1. Waiting for the problem to solve itself and for things to go back to “normal.”
2. Working more, longer and harder. The lions organized extra hunting parties and worked around the clock.
3. Redefining success, changing targets. The hunting party met with the king and requested him to “reduce the Zebra budget.”

However, these strategies didn’t work, and the pride remained hungry.

Until the day the lions dug deeper and thought harder to come up with an innovative strategy to beat the zebras. They blocked all the gas stations, and the zebras’ competitive advantage was lost.

The lesson to be learned is that when our world is turned upside down, we should take the opportunity to look at the world form a new perspective and find new ways to live right side up. Change is a process, which many thought leaders claim is not unlike the process of cooking. But since I can't cook to save my life, I’ll use hiking as an analogy for the change process.

The four parts to the hiking process are:

1. Planning
2. Gearing-up
3. Hiking
4. Recovery

Planning means researching and gathering information about the trail such as landscape, climate, weather, length, and elevation gain, etc.

Gearing-up means getting the right clothing and equipment for the trail and avoiding carrying any unnecessary baggage.

Hiking means more than just putting one foot in front of the other. It requires keen observation of the path and focus on the terrain. The joy of hiking is that there’s always something new to discover.

Recovery means knowing how to relieve aches and pains of those sore muscles and aching joints to be able to go on more challenging hikes and more epic adventures.

Dealing with change is like hiking.

Planning for change means researching and gathering information and facts about anything you may need for the road ahead.

Gearing-up for change means getting the right resources and support and leaving behind any unnecessary emotional baggage.

Making the change requires focus on the goal and a keen observation of the path ahead while being open to new paths and possibilities along the way.

Recovery means giving yourself the time to recover emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially to then keep moving forward and making future changes.

And like in hiking, navigating change along the journey of life, it’s all about the company we keep. Choose wisely.