Heightened sensitivity
Ah the joys of new awareness. I find that, since embarking on my MAPP (Masters in Applied Positive Psychology), I am now more aware of the
positive potential, and more sensitive when that is not embraced – or worse, when it is given lip-service but not followed through.
Three recent examples…
1. a meeting in which a client wished to “brainstorm” possibilities, and then shot down every idea that was raised immediately after it was voiced.
2. a class of college students that I’m teaching know all about their weaknesses, but no one has ever shown them their strengths (until my class)
3. a teacher’s “communication book” that comes home only when there is bad news to report on the child’s behaviour.
I’m learning – so slowly – how to balance between allowing the status quo and comfort zone, and moving myself and others forward into the brand new world of positive psychology.
I know, for example, that brainstorming can be a hugely positive and opening experience, but the first rule of true brainstorming is to defer judgement, allow off-beat ideas, and build on what’s been presented. You don’t get the full scope of possibilities otherwise. And if you want to shoot down ideas, that’s fine, but don’t expect creative solutions, don’t expect collaboration, and certainly don’t expect positive forthcomingness! (Yes, I just made up that word…)
I also realize that we are inclined to focus on the negatives. Whether that’s nature or nurture, I’m not sure – though I’m leaning towards nature – but it’s so sad to stand in front of a class of 40 college students, and ask “Who knows their strengths?” and see only 2 or 3 tentative hands rise. Yet when I ask, “Who knows their weaknesses?”, nearly every hand goes up, and most of them confidently with knowing nods. I am hoping to plant a few positive seeds and allow my students to acknowledge and apply their unique sets of strengths.
And finally, a personal quirk with teachers. I used to be one – I taught high school for seven years. I know that doesn’t exactly qualify me as an expert, but it was my first career, and it does provide me with some insight. I know how tough it is to stay positive, and how easy it is to spend 90% of your time on the handful of students who make life difficult. But I also know, from my own experience, how rewarding it is to focus on the positive, and to include the parents in shining that positive light on the students.
When the teacher sends home a notebook that is titled “Communications Book”, I honestly expect that to be used for parent-teacher communications. However, in reality, it is a “bad news book”. As I look back over the pages, the book has come home only about 4 times in the past 5 months, and each page has a bad news story on it – about something my child did wrong. I appreciate knowing that, and I want to know that so I can help set things right. But what’s even more compelling – and more important – is the other (majority of) days when the child has done something right. Another teacher understands this and sends home a mini report-card weekly, and my child enjoys getting “happy face” stickers on a regular basis.
So it’s a balancing act. As a college instructor, my role is clearer, but as a consultant and parent, there’s much more gray.
How do you manage it? How do you decide when to push for the positive, and when to settle for the status quo deficit-thinking? Or maybe you never settle… and how does that work for you? Looking forward to hearing what you have to share.
MAPP term 2
Celebrating having a few minutes to get back to this blog! Rather than lamenting the time that has passed and the busy-ness that has taken me away from it… I’m going for the positive approach! I find that I spend more time on Twitter (@LVSConsulting) and I enjoy posting snippits of articles that I’m reading, along with the bit.ly link. I’m able to get quite a few click-throughs that way, and I enjoy spreading the work that’s being done in Positive Psychology.
However, my mind right now is on two things: 1. an assignment I will be writing about character strengths in The Wizard of Oz (1939, starring Judy Garland) and 2. all the new books I have for this term on my new bookshelf.
Let me start with #2.
For the Spring MAPP term (for some reason, the University of Pennsylvania optimistically calls the Jan-April term “spring” term, even though it’s predominantly in winter, but perhaps that’s why I’m studying positive psychology there, and not at a “winter term” university?), I had to order quite a few new books – I have probably spent around $300, and that figure is lower than expected because I already owned some of the books. I’m also probably forgetting an online order or two…
Some of the books that I’m looking forward to:
Rath, T. & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths-based leadership. Gallup Press: New York. (ISBN: 978-1595620255) – This aligns very nicely with a course that I’m now teaching to third year college / university students on Organizational Leadership. The course is Wednesday nights for 3 hours at a stretch, and it turns out that while almost all of my students know their weaknesses, almost none of them know their strengths. This week, they are taking the StrengthsFinder assessment and this week’s course will make use of what they’ve discovered. Stay tuned….
Prilleltensky, I. & Prilleltensky, O. (2006). Promoting Well-Being: Linking Personal, Organizational and Community Change. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. (ISBN: 978-0471719267) – I haven’t had the time to really get into this tome yet, but the title is inspirational. Especially when one considered the newly-emerging theories of social contagion. Well, there’s a lot of potential here!
Reivich, K. & Shatte, A. (2002). The Resilience Factor: 7 Essential Skills for Overcoming Life’s Inevitable Obstacles. New York: Broadway Books (ISBN: 978-0767911900) – Dr. Karen Reivich is one of our professors this term, and she’s also leading the US Army resilience training program. A highly impressive individual, as well as a ground-breaking movement into resilience research and application. I do hope to become certified in the Penn Resiliency Program after my MAPP work is done. Great implications for children, families, parents, and, of course, in organizational life with leaders and employees.
Cooperrider, D. & Whitney, D. (2007). Appreciative Inquiry Handbook, 2nd Edition. Crown Custom Publishing. (ISBN: 978-1933403199) – As I’ve already mentioned, David Cooperrider came to lecture in our first MAPP class and it was amazing. I have some familiarity with Appreciative Inquiry, and I’m looking forward to deepening my understanding. This topic is of special interest because my service learning project involved helping to create (and possibly run) an AI Summit for organizational and community change. Completely thrilling and meaningful.
There are also several books that I bought “just because” – usually because a professor or classmate highly recommended it. I figure this puts my entire book-buying total for the MAPP program well over $1000, but it’s been well-spent! Although it might be 2011 before I get to read all of them…
As to #1 above, I’m writing a paper about character strengths as demonstrated in the movie The Wizard of Oz.
We know, for example, that the cowardly lion isn’t really cowardly, and that the TinMan really has a heart, and the Scarecrow is really quite intelligent – but what does this indicate for positive psychology? I’ll leave you to reflect on that yourself, or else here’s a list of PPND articles that might get your grey stuff going. PPND is the Positive Psychology News Daily, and if you’re at all interested in what’s on the cutting edge of Positive Psychology, I highly recommend an email subscription! I read every single one each day.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to ease on down the road (remember The Wiz? with Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow?) and put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and ponder character strengths and the Yellow Brick Road… Hope I don’t fall into the poppies!
2010 starts – and it’s back to the blog
Well I ended up taking quite a bit of a pause from this blog. The last time I wrote was about three weeks ago, and in that time I finished the final assignments of the Fall term of my MAPP (Masters in Applied Positive Psychology) program – which is both good and bad. Good to have assignments done (and my final grades are looking quite good, thank you very much!) and good to have one term done, but bad because it means I only have four months of this amazing experience left!
However, these four months are going to be great and this first class weekend back was a great start with David Cooperrider’s course on Positive Organizations.
If you follow me on Twitter (@LVSConsulting) then today you would have read a series of tweets of David Cooperrider quotes. Here’s a selection of some of my favourites:
All change begins in the imagination.
Simple face to face conversations can change the world.
Changing the envisioned image of the future can change the future.
What a gift it is to be around someone who sees you with an appreciative eye.
The vision of the future of an organization resides in its inner dialogue.
Positive change is in the art of the question. Unconditional positive questions.
when you focus on the good, a new richness of vocabulary emerges.
through an assumption of deficit-based change, we have created the model of organizations as problems to be solved. // but deficit-based change is exhausting, results in more hierarchy, fewer images of possibility, breakdowns in relations.
Why not study what you really want to see created in the organization? // study moments of great engagement instead of moments of low morale.
Human systems move in the direction of their inquiry.
Ask positive questions that SOAR: strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results.
Overall, it was a fabulous day and a half with an amazing man. The way he talks is inspirational, and although he can run Appreciative Inquiry summit with hundreds or thousands of people, he has a dynamically personal touch as he lectured to our class of 45.
The recent holidays were relaxing, and I was happy not to set an alarm for two weeks, but now I’m all positively energized again about my consulting and coaching work – and the positive change that can be created in the organizations around us.
Celebrate what’s right with your partner
A while ago, I read an article by Shelly Gable titled “Will you be there for me when things go right?” It’s a very interesting idea.
When we are in a close relationship with someone else, we expect them to be there for us when things go wrong. Our dog dies – we want our partner to comfort us. Our fridge breaks – we want our partner to console us and help us move the new one. The new car breaks down and the dealership won’t honour the warranty – we want our partner to get angry with us and march supportively with us all the way to the dealership, demanding retribution.
In other words, when things don’t go well, we want our partner there with us, supporting us, emotionally matching our state and aligning with our interests and needs.
Active constructive responding with your partner shares a positive event. In other words: celebrate the good stuff together!
But what about when things go well?
You pass a difficult exam – you want your partner to celebrate with you. You share a happy memory – you want your partner to revel in the savouring with you. You get a promotion – you want your partner to congratulate you and tell you how wonderful you are. Right?
When good things happen, people want to share that event with others and this process is called “capitalization”. The people we choose to capitalize with are usually close to us – like spouses, parents, siblings, roommates, partners, best friends. But sometimes those people we share with don’t respond in the way we wanted. What is the impact of this mismatch on the relationship? Gable and her co-researchers wanted to find out.
They worked with 79 dating couples and watched them share positive and negative events with each other, and measured how the listener responded – was it an emotional match? was the intensity matched? And the teller of the event was also asked if he/she felt validated.
Now there are many permutations of how this study was constructed to be as fair as possible – all couples were heterosexual (those are the ones who responded to the research request) and so sometimes the men went first with their story and sometimes the women went first. Sometimes it was a positive event shared first, and sometimes it was a negative event shared first. All couples were in exclusive relationships, and were considered stable over time. However, I’m not going to get into all those details, because the really interesting part is the conclusion, not the study design.
Eight weeks after the study, both members of each couple were independently sent follow-up questionnaires. By that time, four couples had broken up. Interestingly, men in the couples that broke up before the follow-up felt less understood, validated and cared for following their positive event discussion, but not following the negative event discussion. And outside raters agreed: the women in those couples that had broken up responded less actively and less constructively during the male partner’s positive event sharing.
And for women? Both positive and negative event responsiveness – that is, how their male partner responded to both negative and positive event disclosures – were important in the moment, but only positive event responsiveness predicted future relationship health.
Gable admits that these are preliminary results, given the small number of couples that broke up in the few weeks after the study, but it’s still fascinating. Supporting your partner in times of stress isn’t the same thing as supporting your partner in times of celebration. And if you want that relationship to work well and to last a long time, you had better pay attention to the good news stories that your partner shares, because if you aren’t there for your partner when things go well, your partner may not stick around.
Reference:
Gable, S. L., Gonzaga, G., & Strachman, A. (2006). Will you be there for me when things go right? Social Support for Positive Events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 904-917.
Reflections on running with the Olympic torch
I ran with the torch in Picton, Ontario, which is in lovely Prince Edward County. I arrived at the arena – the designated gathering spot for the torchbearers – and got briefed on what would happen. I marvel at the training that the torch hosts must receive. Everyone was gracious and generous and personable, and really knew how to forge a personal connection with each torchbearer. They were the professionals, and trained us up very quickly.
It was a fascinating lesson in positive psychology – sure there are a lot of little things to tend to, but this torch event is wonderfully organized. Our van host, Dave, commented that this is quite possibly the best job he ever could have. He’s met many torchbearers since starting on the East Coast, and every single one of them is cheerful and no one complains. Imagine working like that every day of your life. Meeting thousands of people – each of them passing through with a small but important task to do – and everyone smiles and enjoys it. Truly awe-inspiring.
While I waited at the side of the road, I was somewhat of a minor celebrity. Friendly strangers came up and talked with me, they had their pictures taken with me and my unlit torch, and they asked to hold the torch – which I let them do. It was a heartfelt community moment. I truly felt that I was part of something much bigger than myself.
The Olympic flame gets passed to my torch.
The flame got passed to me by a group – I believe there were about 20 people all sharing the 300 metre stretch before mine. They were a walking group, I believe (though send me an email if you know the actual name of the group) and they were in high spirits! They were a fabulous community and quite the sight to behold – all 20 people dressed in their white Olympic torch running suits and passing the torch from person to person every few metres, so that they would all have a chance to share. They encouraged each other and chanted their theme song – they were having a super great time!I received the flame from a young fellow who was practically dancing with the flame – he was having the time of his life! He passed the flame to my torch, and off I went!
For a few moments, I was carrying the Olympic flame.
Awe. Complete awe.
I was part of a relay that is spanning over 4000 km around and across Canada. It is the longest Olympic torch relay in the history of the Olympics. There are about 12,000 torch bearers and the torch is being transported by 40 different transportation methods. If this torch relay was stretched out into a straight line, it would go around the equator. It was truly something bigger than me.
Walking with the Olympic flame - brave enough to wave to the crowd
Of course, there is more than just the geography and numbers. Holding the flame, I really felt the Olympic spirit.
The flame has been passed on - my torch is warm and sooty.
