FREE ARTICLES FROM SARAH LEWIS

A treasure trove of practical advice either written by Sarah herself, based on her experience garnered from over 20 years of helping organisations to change themselves, or by a carefully selected guest author.

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Why We Should Cultivate Gratitude In Our Leaders – Particularly In Difficult Times

One might have thought that the expression of gratitude was for the benefit of the recipient, to feel acknowledged and affirmed in their generous act: possibly so. However the experience of gratitude also brings great benefit to the donor, and some of those benefits can be seen to act as an inoculation against the dangerous seductions of privilege, power and position.

One might have thought that the expression of gratitude was for the benefit of the recipient, to feel acknowledged and affirmed in their generous act: possibly so. However the experience of gratitude also brings great benefit to the donor, and some of those benefits can be seen to act as an inoculation against the dangerous seductions of privilege, power and position.

 Gratitude is an acknowledgement that we have received something of benefit from others. The grateful person reacts to the goodness of others in a benevolent and receptive fashion. Classically it was considered to be the greatest of the virtues. However, like all virtues, it needs to be cultivated. Resentment at the good fortune of others and a sense of personal entitlement seem to come more easily to us. So why bother to cultivate a sense of gratitude? What are the benefits? And why might it be especially beneficial to leaders to experience gratitude?

 

1. Gratitude enhances resilience and coping abilities

Counting one’s blessings in time of stress is a well-known coping mechanism. Such behaviour works by helping to facilitate a switch of attention from the negative and depressing in any situation to the positive and encouraging. It helps people switch into a more positive mental state, which in turn makes it more likely they will be able to adopt a pro-active adaptive coping mode following some set-back.

Specifically feeling gratitude makes it more likely that someone will be able to seek social support from others and that they will be able to positively reframe the situation (finding the silver linings). Gratitude has been found to be a key component of promoting post-traumatic growth rather than post-traumatic stress. And it plays a key part in determining transplant surgery post-operative quality of life. Experiencing gratitude was a key component affecting resilience and post-trauma coping for American students in the aftermath of the shock and horror of 9/11. All in all the evidence is fairly strong that the experience of gratitude promotes adaptive coping and personal growth following setbacks or trauma.

Leadership can be a stressful process: a degree of resilience is a requisite for the job these days. Cultivating a sense of gratitude for the good things going on and the benefits others bring will promote greater resilience, better coping, better mental and physical health and personal growth and renewal.

 

2. Gratitude builds and strengthens relationships

Feeling grateful encourages people to consider ways to reciprocate the goodness or kindness they have received. Such reciprocal behaviour builds social bonds, creating a mutually reinforcing positive cycle of expression and acknowledgement of interdependency. It enhances trust. In addition grateful people are attractive to others; being found to be extraverted, agreeable, empathic, emotionally stable, forgiving, trusting and generous. Gratitude is associated with empathy, forgiveness and a willingness to help others. These things inspire loyalty and commitment amongst other things. Gratitude is a vital interpersonal emotion, the absence of which undermines social harmony.

Leaders can’t do it on their own whatever the myth of hero leadership might suggest. Healthy relationships are key to organizational success. Leaders get things done through other people. Leaders need enthusiastic, committed, loyal and responsive team members and followers. Being grateful, recognising other’s benevolence, and reciprocating in kind help to build these essential social bonds and enhance organizational social capital.

 

3. Gratitude helps develop flourishing organizations

Cameron discovered that an emphasis on, and prevalence of, virtuous behaviour is a defining feature of flourishing organizations and positive leadership. Gratitude acts to motivate virtuous behaviour, that is, action taken to benefit others. Gratitude acts as a benefit detector making it more likely that opportunities to express appreciation and gratefulness will be spotted. Expressing gratitude reinforces pro-social behaviour while feeling grateful motivates pro-social behaviour. In this way gratitude is a motivating and energising emotion, not just a passive pleasant feeling. The benefits of gratitude can be far reaching. Acts of gratitude can stimulate virtuous circles of generous and grateful behaviour as the recipient of benefit is inclined to pass it on i.e. to do someone else a favour.

Leadership is all about cultivating and creating productive working environments. Virtuous circles of self re-enforcing beneficial behaviour that smooth organizational life and facilitate the effective transfer of skills and resources through acts of helping, the exercise of patience and forgiveness, and the expression of gratitude help to increase organizational capability without increasing hard cost.

 

4. Gratitude increases goal attainment

Interestingly gratitude appears to enhance goal achievement. Often the assumption is that a state of gratitude might induce passivity and complacency. However the limited research evidence available suggests that gratitude enhances effortful goal striving. One would imagine this is a product of the well-researched benefits of positive emotions in general: greater creativity, sociality, tenacity and so on.

Leadership is, amongst other things, about goal attainment. It seems that cultivating an attitude of gratitude in the process of goal striving, rather than giving into emotions of frustration and blame, aids goal achievement.

 

5. Gratitude increases personal wellbeing

Gratitude acts as a vaccination against envy. Envy is a negative emotional state characterized by resentment, a sense of inferiority, longing and frustration. It creates unhappiness and mental distress. Gratitude directs attention away from material goods more towards social goods. Grateful people appreciate positive qualities in others and are able to feel happy over their good fortune. They are also less likely to compare themselves unfavourably with people of a higher status. By encouraging a focus on the positive and beneficial in the present moment, gratitude also seems to protect against the damaging effects of regret.

Grateful people are concerned with the wellbeing of others, both in particular and in general. This focus helps them fulfil the basic needs for personal growth i.e. relationships and community.  They are less likely to define success in material terms. Materialism is damaging to subjective wellbeing and it is correlated with many things unhelpful to leadership such as less relatedness, less autonomy, and less competence.

 Leaders often compete in a world where advancement and success are measured by the trappings of material possession: salary, office space, houses and cars. Given our straitened times and the shift in many sectors from a sense of abundance to one of scarcity – less promotion, less bonus payments, less corporate benefits – cultivating increased gratitude may help inoculate against the corrosive emotions of entitlement, resentment and envy.

Gratitude is the mindful awareness of benefits in one’s life. It seems that counting one’s blessings on a regular basis really does help with overcoming the vicissitudes of life and with maintaining optimal personal functioning. For those in leadership positions the benefits can expand to increase organizational functioning. Feeling gratitude doesn’t come easily to many of us, but the evidence is mounting that the benefits it brings are worth the effort it takes to cultivate a grateful outlook on things.

 

Further reading

Emmons R and Mishra A (2011) ‘Why gratitude enhances wellbeing: what we know, what we need to know’, in Sheldon K, Kashdan T, Steger M (eds) Designing positive Psychology.

Other Resources

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

See more about Positive Emotions 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 LeadershipCulture change and with employee Engagement.

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

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Why We Should Make Decisions In Our Organizations Like Brains Not Computers

Cognitive research illuminates how our brains make decisions, and how they are different from computers. Compared to computers our brains are slow, noisy and imprecise. And, paradoxically perhaps, this makes them much more efficient than computers,

Proof that brains are more efficient than computers

Cognitive research illuminates how our brains make decisions, and how they are different from computers. Compared to computers our brains are slow, noisy and imprecise. And, paradoxically perhaps, this makes them much more efficient than computers, but only because brains have one big advantage over computers: they have goals.

 

 The importance of goals to decision-making

Essentially life consists of billions of choice points. Choice is about value: what do we value over what? Having goals makes choice a lot easier: it makes it possible to assign values to options, as some have more value in terms of our goals than others. If I am trying to get to London, and have come across a signpost labeled Dublin one way and London the other, one sign has much more value to me than the other.  So we make choices based on those values. Goals allow us, in times of uncertainty to act efficiently and not waste energy.

 

Brains are oddly efficient

Brains possess all the characteristics of highly efficient computational machines. Efficient computational devices, like brains, follow four principles

  •  Drain batteries slowly
  •  Save space
  •  Save bandwidth
  •  Have goals

It is the enactment of these principles that make them (relative to fast, quiet, precise yet goalless and energy guzzling, wasteful computers) slow, noisy, imprecise and yet highly efficient.

 

How do these principles translate into organizations?

 Drain batteries slowly

This means avoid high-energy spikes in decision-making by using slow and soft processes that use minimal energy. The implication for organizational life would be to aim for soft, slow decision-making (a pattern of small groups of people making small decisions frequently) rather than patterns of spiky decision-making (infrequent decisions involving everyone).

 

Save space

This dictum suggests that our computational device should have as few (message or information carrying) wires as possible, and those should be shorter rather than longer. This suggests understanding organizational communication as network rather than pyramid based. So communication (and decision-making is based on short, local messages rather than lots of long ‘wires’ to get the same message from the top to the bottom of the organization and tight ‘knots’ where decisions get made.

 

Save bandwidth

The dictums here are: stay off the line, don’t repeat yourself and be as noisy (as in random) as possible! This suggests to me that the centralized bombardment communication process of constant repetition of ‘the message’, broadcast across the organization, offering exact and precise instructions, at regular and predictable intervals, is highly inefficient. Instead information needs to be offered in local contexts in different ways, when appropriate.

 

Have goals

In efficiency terms this means: having a view of the destination but being imprecise about how to reach it; creating mental models; and making ongoing adjustments. In organizations this could mean creating rich mental models of the goals and using local guidance and expertise to achieve them, making ongoing adjustments. This describes an emergent change approach.

 

Message for leaders

  • Create goals to act as a valuation system for decision-making
  • Create rich mental pictures of goals
  • Leave goal achievement processes imprecise, work with local knowledge, adjusting plans as options emerge
  •  Devolve decision making to the lowest level
  • Encourage frequent, small-scale local decision-making and innovation
  • Spread the message locally, contextually, and opportunistically; don’t waste energy broadcasting to the nation
  •  Use the emergent approach to manage, lead or ride change

Other Resources

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

See more Thought Provoking articles in the  Knowledge Warehouse.

Appreciating Change Can Help

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

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

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Positive Org Culture Jem Smith Positive Org Culture Jem Smith

Thank You Makes A Difference

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

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

Gratitude motivates reciprocal aid giving

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

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

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

Gratitude motivates reciprocal aid giving

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

 

As an emotion

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

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

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

 

As a personality characteristic

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

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

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

 

As an aid to social relations

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

Other Resources

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

See more about Positive Organisational Culture in the  Knowledge Warehouse.

Appreciating Change Can Help

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

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

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How To Improve Compliance In Organizations

When people don’t comply with legal requirements organizations can face penalties and fines running into the thousands. To take just a few recent examples

 

In November last year a Greater London pizza manufacturer was fined £15,000 after failing to respond to warnings about an unsafe doorway. 

 

Also in November Hertfordshire County Council accidentally faxed details of two cases it was dealing with to a member of the public and was fined £100,000 for breaching the Data Protection Act.

When people don’t comply with legal requirements organizations can face penalties and fines running into the thousands. To take just a few recent examples:

In November last year a Greater London pizza manufacturer was fined £15,000 after failing to respond to warnings about an unsafe doorway.

Also in November Hertfordshire County Council accidentally faxed details of two cases it was dealing with to a member of the public and was fined £100,000 for breaching the Data Protection Act.

Sheffield-based A4e was similarly fined £60,000 for losing an unencrypted laptop with the details of thousands of people.

While in December Osem UK, a kosher food company owned by Nestle, was fined £27,372 for not complying with the packaging waste regulations.

And in January this year The UK’s biofuels watchdog fined three companies a total of £60,000 for failures to comply with environmental legislation designed to reduce carbon emissions from the transport sector.

Many compliance breaches occur in HR and at present the compensation limit for Unfair Dismissal is £65,300 while the compensation limit for Breach of Contract is £25,000. Over 20% of all UK business are fined due to non-compliance issues. Non-compliance can be a costly business.

To avoid these penalties organizations put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that people comply with regulations and requirements however many psychological factors work against them.

 

1. The overwhelming attractiveness of short-term goals in an immediate context

Faced with the choice between achieving an immediate, positive outcome now against incurring a probable negative outcome some time in the future, people are drawn to the short-term immediate outcome. Smoking is a classic example. We know full well that at some time in the future it may have a negative consequence, but right now we really want that nicotine hit. Similarly in organisational terms we know that taking a shortcut through the length process of getting rid of someone in the organisation opens us up to the risk of a possible financial penalty, but the short term attraction of solving our problem right now can be overwhelming.

 

2. The belief that success recognition depends on goal achievement

We usually congratulate people on the achievement of a goal, getting that job, getting promoted, making that sales figure etc. We are not overly practiced at recognising process towards a goal, except when we know we are in a teaching situation, for instance when helping our children learn to read. Here we offer praise and celebration at every possible point; if we waited until they were fluent readers before we offered a word of praise or encouragement they would long since have given up.

If we set a goal of perfect compliance, and offer no reward or encouragement or celebration of success until it is achieved, we are unlikely to reach the goal.

 

3. A lack of alignment of organisational objectives

All too often in a particular context within the organization it can appear as if choices have to be made between being compliant and ‘getting things done’. These two organisational demands appear to people to pull in different directions: some classics are: filling the job quickly by ‘just appointing someone’ and going through a proper recruitment and selection process; keeping production going and taking downtime for regular machine maintenaince checks; and, dutifully recording every contact with a client, however short, and getting on with the next task. Given these conflicting priorities, people usually consider ‘getting the job done’ by far the most important.

 

4. Actions speak louder than words

It is a truism that what people do, or how they behave, is a clearer indication of their belief system than what they say. People in organizations watch who actually gets recognised, praised, promoted and rewarded, and assume their behaviour to be that which the organization truly values. So if an organization preaches adherence to standards of practice, but rewards those who achieve goals by any means, then people will see little value in being the mug who adheres to standards and gets left behind in the race to the top.

 

5. People are strongly influenced by local culture norms of behaviour

The classic recent example here was the MPs expenses scandal. Spoken more or less loudly by everyone involved was the fact that ‘everyone was doing it’. In practice it was highly condoned by the organization. It was a well accepted ‘bending of the rules’ to correct a perceived injustice over MP’s pay. It is highly likely that there was an underlying message of ‘you’re a fool to yourself if you don’t’. It is a highly principled person who can clearly see the wood for the trees here.

This sort of situation exists in many organizations where the left hand doesn’t allow itself to see what the right hand is doing. So one part of the organization can say ‘hand on heart’ we are complying, while another part is busy bending rules to produce outcomes.

 

What can be done?

 

1) Strengthen weak feedback loops

In essence the negative effects of non-compliance need to be brought nearer to the action of non-compliance. Many organizations do understand this and have internal mechanism for coming down heavily and immediately on breaches of compliance. However too much of this can create a very coercive environment, which ultimately leads to people hiding breaches, errors, mistakes etc.

So, in addition, the positive consequences of compliance need to be brought much more strongly into view. To take our smoking example, helping people visualize a healthy older age, still able to play sports, play with their grandchildren, clean lungs, more money to help their children, well flowing blood, breathing easy etc. brings the long term benefits of healthy living now more clearly into view. As we can see it also connects to their values, in this example family.

In the work setting it is likely to be: being able to feel proud of where you work, knowing you are helping the environment, that work is fair, reputation, prizes and recognition.

 

2) Reward effort and progress as well as achievement

Again some organizations already do this. Have charts that demonstrate levels of compliance in different areas, congratulate people who come to ask how to do it right, publicise best enquiry of the week. Essentially celebrate when things get better and when they go right. Highlight the benefits of doing it right at every opportunity.

 

3) Move from either/or to both/ and

Help people understand the highest priority is, for example, creating a sustainable business, and that compliance and task achievement are both important for this overarching goal. Therefore their challenge is always to be thinking how can we do what we need to do - right?

 

4) Model what you want

The lead has to come from the top otherwise your compliance officers have a thankless task. If senior management don’t truly believe that compliance is an important investment in a sustainable future that affects everyone, and not just a bureaucratic inconvenience, then why should anyone else?

For leaders it can be very tempting to pull rank to bypass procedures. Just remember that people take their cue about what is important from what you do more than what you say. If you are aligned in word and deed, then the message is very powerful.

 

5) Build the culture to support your objectives

You want to create a culture where people do the right thing when no one is watching. For this to happen there needs to be good alignment between organisational values and practices. And people need to know what is required of them, and how to spot when they are being asked or being led into being mis-aligned, and what to do about it.

Sarah spoke at the inaugural conference of Governance, Risk and Compliance and  found there was a lot of interest in this topic of the psychology of compliance. 

 

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 LeadershipCulture change and with employee Engagement.

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

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The Hidden Costs Of Rudeness

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Reduced performance

Poorer problem solving

Rigidity of thinking

Less ‘citizenship’ behaviour e.g. general helpfulness

Reduced creativity

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

Heighten tendencies to aggressive words or even actions

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

 

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

 

Politeness pays

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

5. Taking bullying seriously

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

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

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

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

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

 

Further resources

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

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

Lewis S (2011) Positive Psychology at Work. Wiley

 

Other Resources

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

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

Appreciating Change Can Help

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

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

 

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How ‘Change Management’ Can Be A Hindrance To Achieving Organizational Change

Given this is it surprising the extent to which organizations struggle with the concept of change in organizations. Myths abound. Working with organizations I constantly hear the refrain ‘people don’t like change’ and ‘change is hard’. Neither of these statements are necessarily true, as we see below. What is true is that the way we understand organizations, understand change, and go about achieving change can make the job much harder than it need be.

 

We are constantly told that, in today’s world, change is a permanent feature of organizational life. Given this is it surprising the extent to which organizations struggle with the concept of change in organizations. Myths abound. Working with organizations I constantly hear the refrain ‘people don’t like change’ and ‘change is hard’. Neither of these statements are necessarily true, as we see below. What is true is that the way we understand organizations, understand change, and go about achieving change can make the job much harder than it need be.

Part of the problem is that our ideas in this area are outdated. We think and act as if the organization is a perfectly designed and aligned machine that we can plan to reconfigure, and then just systemically and mechanically set about reconfiguring. The organization is not a machine; it is a living system of people with its own internal logic and ways of behaving. We need to work with the dynamic, inventive, thoughtful nature of our organizations, not against it. In the same vein, our views of leadership can be a hindrance to achieving fast, responsive and adaptive change. We act sometimes as if we expect our leaders to be all seeing, all knowing, all powerful. They’re not. However they are increasingly expected to introduce changes in work practices, routines and structures as part of their leadership role. Unknowingly they have often picked up some unhelpful ‘rules of thumb’ about implementing change at work. Here we expose the fallacious thinking behind five of them.

 

You can’t implement the change until you have thought through every step and have every possible question answered.

Not True. In many situations it is sufficient to have a sense of the end goal, or key question, along with some shared guiding principles about how the change will unfold. For example ‘We need to produce our goods more efficiently’, or, ‘How can we cut our process times?’ With these in place leaders can call on the collective intelligence of the organization as it embarks on learning by doing: taking the first steps, reviewing progress, learning from experience and involving those who know the detail in their areas.

This ‘all-seeing’ belief leads to exhaustive energy going into detailed forecasting and analysis of every possible impact and consequence of possibilities often leading to paralysis by analysis. It slows things down, allows rumours to fill the information vacuum, and creates feelings of disempowerment. Worse of all it disregards the huge knowledge base that is the organization; wasting organizational assets.

 

You can control the communication within the organization about change

Impossible! People are sense-making creatures who constantly work to make sense of what is happening around them. This means it is not possible to control communication in this way. By withholding information we convey something, usually distrust or secrecy. But more than this, in this day and age with so many communication channels instantly available to people, there is no chance of being aware of everything that is being said about the change. Instead leaders need to focus on making sure they get to hear what sense is being made of what is going on so that they can contribute a different or corrective perspective.

This ‘control’ belief leads to embargoes on information sharing, ‘until we have decided everything’ (see above) and much investment in finding ‘the right words’ to convey the story of the change. Meanwhile people are free to make their own sense of what is happening uninhibited by any corrective input from management. And when the carefully chosen words are finally broadcast, leadership is often dismayed to discover that they don’t work to create a shared sense of the meaning of the change.

 

To communicate about change is to engage people with the change

Not necessarily. People start to engage with the change when they start working out what it means for them, what it ‘looks like’, where the benefits or advantages might be, how they can navigate it, what resources are there to help them. They find out through exploration and discovery. They become more engaged when they are asked questions. “How can we implement this here?’ ‘What is the best way of achieving that?’ ‘What needs to be different for us to be able to…?’ People have to use their imaginations and creativity to start visualizing what their bit of the world will be like when ‘the change’ has happened. Everyone needs the opportunity to create rich pictures of what the words and ideas in the change mean in their context. The answer to the question ‘What might it mean for us?’ is jointly constructed and evolves as new information emerges.

The belief that communication alone equals engagement leads to an over-emphasis on communicating about ‘the change’. Staff hear managers talking endlessly about how important this change is, how big it is, how transformational it will be, yet no one seems to know what the change actually means for people. To be part of this scenario is to suffer a confused sense of ‘but what are we talking about?’ This in itself is usually symptomatic of the fact that at this point there is only a fuzzy picture of what this much-heralded change will mean for people: much better to get people involved in finding out.

 

 

That planning makes things happen

Sadly no! How much simpler life would be if it did. Creating plans can be an extremely helpful activity as long as we realize that what they do is create accounts and stories of how the future can be. Until people translate the plans into activity on the ground, the plans are just plans. For example I might develop a really detailed plan about emigrating to Australia, including shipping and packing and visas and job prospects and everything you can think of, but until I do something that impacts on my possibilities in the world, for instance by applying for a visa, then planning is all I have done. Plans are an expression of intention. Things start to happen when intention is enacted.

This belief in ‘plan as action’ fuels a plethora of projects and roadmaps and spreadsheets of interconnection, key milestones, tasks, measures and so on. People can invest time and energy in this fondly believing that they are ‘doing change’. A much more energizing alternative is to bring people together to start exploring ‘the change’ and generating ideas for action, and then to write documents that create a coherent account of the actions people are taking.

 

That change is always disliked and resisted

No. If this were true none of us would emerge from babyhood. Our life is a story of change and growth, of expansion and adaptation, of discovery and adjustment. Do you wish you had never learnt to ride a bike? That was a change. Had never had a haircut? That was a change. What is true is that change takes energy, and people don’t necessarily always have the energy or inclination to engage with change. It is not change itself that is the issue, it is the effect imposed change can have on things that are important to us: autonomy, choice, power, desire, satisfaction, self-management, sense of competency, group status, sense of identity and so on. If we attend carefully to enhancing these within the change process then there is a much greater chance that it will be experienced as life-enhancing growth like so many other changes in our lives.

This much repeated and highly prevalent belief leads to a defensive and fearful approach to organizational change, inducing much girding of loins by managers before going out to face the wrath of those affected by the change.

 

So, what is the alternative? Once we give up the idea of the leader or leadership team as all knowing, of change as a linear and logical process of compliance, and of people as passive recipients of information, we can start to work in a much more organization friendly way with change. Many new approaches that focus on achieving collaborative transformation are emerging such as Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space and World Café. These approaches recognize organizational change as a collective effort, as a social process that can be inspiring and dynamic with leaps of understanding as well as being messy and confusing at times. They work with the best of the human condition – the importance to us of our relationships, our imagination, our ability to care and to feel and to create meaning in life. In this way they release managers and leaders from the impossible responsibility of foreseeing all possibilities and instead liberate the organization to find productive ways forward in an ever-changing organization landscape, together.

Other Resources

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

See more about change 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

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Forget Carrot Or Stick – Try Nudging

In any organisation there is always a variety of tools available to managers to influence staff towards desired behaviour. This has traditionally been seen as a choice between two general approaches: incentives and coercion, or, the carrot or stick approach.

 

 

Now there is a new alternative

This third method utilises the natural inertia of most people when confronted with the choice of accepting the status quo or changing things

 

 

In any organisation there is always a variety of tools available to managers to influence staff towards desired behaviour. This has traditionally been seen as a choice between two general approaches: incentives and coercion, or, the carrot or stick approach.

 

 

Now there is a new alternative

This third method utilises the natural inertia of most people when confronted with the choice of accepting the status quo or changing things. Generally they accept the status quo unless the difference between the two in terms of their perception of their own welfare is very large.

 

By making the desired state of affairs the norm, but allowing employees the freedom to change this if individually they wish, organisations can gain the benefits of the majority of the workforce behaving in the easy ‘default’ way.  While at the same time, through providing choice, they avoid the resentment and active opposition of the few who summon the energy to choose an alternative.

 

Interestingly this approach, known as ‘choice architecture’, or more colloquially as ‘nudging’, is credited to an economist working at Schipol International Airport in Amsterdam who reduced ‘spillage’ by men in the airport’s urinals by having a picture of a black housefly etched onto the bowl. Spillage declined by 80% as most men are unable to resist aiming at the image, located in the centre of the bowl. Thus he achieved his objective without hectoring passengers with notices or fines or expensive material incentives.

 

A weightier concrete example of this kind of approach, which also illustrates the kind of situation where it is most appropriate, was the Turner Review’s recommendations on reform of the pensions system for the government. It recommended that the most cost-effective method for providing for old age was for people to save for their own retirement by enrolling in a government-sponsored scheme. In order to realise the economies of scale which would make this cost-effective, however, a large portion of the population would have to be involved. To avoid making this compulsory he recommended simply enrolling workers in the scheme automatically while leaving them the option to opt out if they wished.

 

Is nudging the right option for your desired behaviour change?

To answer this question you need to consider whether:

   The behaviour requires the participation of most, but not all, of the organisation to be effective

   If a significant number of people opt out, it will render the change invalid

This approach offers advantages over more traditional approaches. For examples dictates (stick) might seem petty to some, or cash incentives (carrot) crude and insensitive to others.

 

Considering these factors should give you an idea of whether choice architecture might be suitable for enabling a change of behaviour in your organisation.

  

with thanks to Jem Smith, BA., Msc.

 

Other Resources

More on using  positive psychology techniques to encourage change at work can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

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

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‘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?

 

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 LeadershipCulture change and with employee Engagement.

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

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Performance Management Jem Smith Performance Management Jem Smith

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?

 

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 LeadershipCulture change and with employee Engagement.

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

Read More
Leadership, Thought Provoking Jem Smith Leadership, Thought Provoking Jem Smith

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:

 

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 LeadershipCulture change and with employee Engagement.

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

Read More
Leadership, Performance Management Jem Smith Leadership, Performance Management Jem Smith

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).

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 LeadershipCulture change and with employee Engagement.

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

Read More

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.

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


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

 

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

 

First Off - Don't Panic Or Feel Trapped

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Other Resources

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

See more 'How To' in the  Knowledge Warehouse.

Appreciating Change Can Help

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

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

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Ten Top Tips For Courageous Conversations At Work

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

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

 

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Ten Reasons Why Now Is The Time For Appreciative Inquiry

1. Change is changing

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

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

 

1. Change is changing

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

 

2. Feeling good is good for business

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

 

3. The future exists only in our imagination

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

 

4. The best organizations positively flourish

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

 

5. Social capital is a source of sustainability

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

 

6. Speed is of the essence

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

 

7. Resistance costs too much

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

 

8. Change is not a commodity to be bought

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

 

9. We need to use our intelligence

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

 

10. Strengths are a source of competitive advantage

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

 

Other Resources

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

See more articles from the Knowledge Warehouse on Appreciative Inquiry.

Appreciating Change Can Help

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

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

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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.

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

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Appreciative Inquiry, How To Articles Jem Smith Appreciative Inquiry, How To Articles Jem Smith

Five ways to foster innovation using Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to organisational change and development. Based on five key principles of practice, Appreciative Inquiry helps teams or organizations generate both positive energy and innovative ideas for change.

First Off, What's Appreciative Inquiry?

Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to organisational change and development. Based on five key principles of practice, Appreciative Inquiry helps teams or organizations generate both positive energy and innovative ideas for change.

Appreciative Inquiry is a participative process, and the ideas that emerge from the process have the weight of the group behind them. This active co-creative process means that resistance to change and the need to achieve buy-in are much reduced if not completely eliminated. The action ideas that are generated and agreed are implemented by the very same people who created them.

 

Here are five ways Appreciative Inquiry can be used with teams or organisations to generate innovative ideas and action

 

1. Learn about what stimulates innovation in your context

Discovery interviews are an appreciative process that highlights the best of the past. By exploring past pinnacle experiences of innovation, creativity and inspiring change you can discover the group’s existing resources, skills and knowledge about when, and how, creative and innovative things happen.

Using discovery interviews you can learn about situations, contexts or questions that have been associated with particularly fruitful experiences in the past and actively work to re-create them in the present. In addition people’s current creativity is stimulated by the discussions that follow the questions, and they are likely to feel their creative juices starting to flow.

 

2. Use stories to jump start imagination

Discovery interviews tend to generate a lot of interesting, and often previously untold, stories about the topic under discussion. Sharing these stories acts as a spring-board to creativity. You can also bring in stories from other contexts that you find inspiring and think might add as a prompt to new thinking.

One way to use stories gathered during a round of discovery interviews is to share the story and then spend time brainstorming what ideas it has stimulated about the particular current context you are working in. Just leave them, or record them, as possibilities and move on to the next story.

 

3. Ask generative questions

Questions can produce new conversation and insights or they can stimulate old patterns of conversation. Questions that produce new thoughts, connections and ideas, in other words that are likely to generate innovative insights and ideas for action, tend to have certain characteristics.

  • Element of novelty and surprise - They have an element of novelty and surprise; they are questions that people haven’t considered before and may well be surprised to be asked. Many positively framed questions are of this nature. However imagination based questions, or questions that ask people to combine two seemingly opposed ideas can also have this effect of producing new thought.
  • Relationship building - They act to build relationships as people discover new things about each other: positive, inspiring and attractive things. They start to develop good feelings about each other and to develop mutual positive connection. Connections to others are key for change efforts. People need to feel needed, supported and valued to want to engage with the many challenges of working with others to achieve things.
  • They are meaningful - Good discovery questions connect to things that are deeply meaningful to the participants. These are questions about important things – my work, my values, my experience. By asking about what matters to people and giving express permission to answer with reference to feelings, they act to ensure that people are psychologically engaged with the question, answer and process, not just rationally engaged.
  • They cause a shift in understanding of ‘reality’ - Good generative questions act to reframe reality for individuals and the group. They do this by focussing on aspects of the context that are overlooked or ignored. In the simplest terms this means asking about positive things when ‘the reality’ is perceived to be wholly negative. The answers reveal many more positive things going on than people believed was the case, so their reality shifts.

Designing questions that have all these characteristics takes thought.

 

4. Dream together

An important part of the Appreciative Inquiry process is ‘dreaming’. This process involves using our imagination to leap out of the present, over the many current obvious problems and barriers to change, to a time in the future where we have achieved our aspirations to be better.

A good dreaming process acts to fire up the imagination and stimulates people to create attractive and hopeful images of the future. Usually a number of different groups create their own dreams and then the sharing of the dreams is another source of inspiration for individuals and the group as a whole.

In the same way that good science fiction creates impossible ideas that inspire later scientists to create what they saw on star-trek as a child, so good dreaming sessions expand the group’s sense of the possible. The creative horizon expands.

 

5. Improvise destiny

And finally Appreciative Inquiry is attuned to the improvisational nature of creative efforts. At the end of an AI workshop the group as a whole should have a shared sense of where they want to be heading, and the kind of futures they want to be creating With this shared sense acting as the ‘roadmap’ people need to be given permission to get on with making it happen, to be enabled to take voluntary and visible action. While the leader’s role becomes that of creating coherence and connection.

 

Other Resources

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

See more articles from the Knowledge Warehouse on Appreciative Inquiry and 'How To' guides.

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 Engagement and Culture change.

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

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Thought Provoking Jem Smith Thought Provoking Jem Smith

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

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?’

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

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Team Development Jem Smith Team Development Jem Smith

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.

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

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Ten Top Tips For Creating Positive And Flourishing Organisations

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

  1. Play to everyone’s strengths

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

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

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

  1. Play to everyone’s strengths

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

  2. Recruit for attitude

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

 3. Encourage positive deviation

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

4. Create a workplace that feels good

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

 5. Build social capital

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

6. Be an authentic leader

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

7. Create the conditions for change

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

8. Create reward-rich environments

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

9. Make sense together

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

10. Be appreciative

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

 

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

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

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

 

Appreciating Change Can Help

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

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

Read More