Learning from peer reviews
What are you really learning from a Peer Review?
I have spent the last few days coaching MBA teams and the individual members on interpreting results from their Peer Review Assessments, and creating action plans. Here are a few things that these teams and individuals found especially helpful:
1. Know the purpose of your team meeting
Teams meet often, and each meeting has a different purpose. Once we started parsing out what was a working session (with the goal of completing deliverables), what was a tutorial (with one expert sharing knowledge), what was a study group (with individuals working together without specific knowledge or deliverables) and what was an administrative meeting (with team members talking about how the team is functioning and dealing with other team administrative matters), then it became easier to set norms for attendance and behaviour, as well as expectations for outcomes.
2. The over-use or under-use of a strength is a weakness
A strength is only a strength when it is used in the right way at the right place and right time. Assertiveness overplayed can look aggressive, and underplayed can look spineless. In Peer Reviews and 360 tools generally, it is possible for an individual to receive contradictory feedback. Someone thinks the individual is assertive and someone else thinks they are too aggressive. Both are right. Both are speaking to different times, different situations and, most importantly, different perspectives.
3. Critical or harsh feedback might have no malicious intent
Sometimes, individuals receive comments that hurt. I mean, really hurt. There is a specific word that strikes at the heart – like “condescending” or “arrogant” or “dominant”. In those cases, there is a natural inclination to do two things: dismiss the criticism and malign the feedback provider (who is, of course, anonymous – so the next inclination is to try and attribute the feedback to someone…) However, when the individual was able to reframe the intent of the feedback, determining (with coaching) that the feedback provider might have no malicious intent and just chose his/her words poorly, then it was easier to examine the feedback and look for hints of truth. This leads to greater learning and insight on the part of the recipient, and greater growth.
4. Taking in new feedback broadens you
Sometimes, when an individual reads feedback like “You are too easy-going”, a natural response might be, “But I like being easy-going – I don’t want to change…” My response is that you don’t have to change. But you might want to expand your repetoire of skills and abilities. You will always have a natural inclination that you will resort to. Under stress, or when things are going well, your natural inclination might be to go with the flow. But when the building is burning, for example, that might not be the best response. Or when a deadline is looming. Or when someone’s performance is failing. Being a strong team member and a strong leader means developing other skills and techniques outside what you’re naturally good at. Most artists don’t work only with one or two comfortable colours. Increase your palette, and you can still maintain your favourites.
I enjoy working with MBA students and leaders as they interpret their feedback. While we think we know ourselves well, in many cases, others truly know us better. Taking in those perspectives leads to our own growth – in my books, always a good thing.
Permission to slack
I have been on vacation for the past two weeks or so. This has meant that my email has piled up, and so has the reading that I’ve wanted to do. Normally I would sit down and plow through it all, but this time, I’m giving myself permission to slack off a bit.
Some might take exception with the phrase “slack off”. In fact, I do too. “Slacking off” has a very negative connotation to it. So let’s rephrase – it’s about savouring and enjoying. Instead of just plowing through my emails and newsletter updates, I’m going to read them slowly, thoughtfully and meaningfully. Joyfully. Intelligently. Savourishiously.
And possibly write about them. There is a theme of articles that I’ve been saving – about positive psychology in the workplace. Look for some blog posts coming soon!
In other news, I’ve been reading Switch by Chip and Dan Heath – really amazing book! A lot of great positive psychology principles embedded with change management and organizational culture. A great bringing-together of many different elements! Highly recommended.
Positive organizations and workplaces
Click on the image for more information about happy employees and productivity from Pepperdine University.
One of the big questions in Positive Psychology today is how to get more of this good stuff – research and applications – into workplaces. There seems to be a stumbling block in that the words “positive psychology” don’t resonate with business, and the people who would make the purchasing decisions around positive psychology services aren’t feeling the love.
A few articles that have crossed my inbox recently illustrate how positive psychology principles, no matter the name or label, actually improve business productivity and workplace wellness - all of which is good for the bottom line.
The Times Live (out of South Africa) recently reported that workplace happiness is not only possible, but also desirable. JobCrystal looked at which employers are considered the best to work for, and where employees are the happiest. Turns out there is a strong correlation, and this has important implications for attracting and retaining key talent. This only makes sense: would you want to apply for a job at a company with a burn-out depressive reputation? Probably not. And certainly not if you were a key player with stellar qualifications and references! You’d be looking for an “employer of choice”: one that has a positive corporate culture and helps individual employees achieve their goals.
As Kevin Laithwaite, Managing Director at JobCrystal succintly says:
“It is clear that the companies that focus on gaining staff buy-in for company-wide goals and objectives, at the expense of meeting employees’ individual career goals, are going to find it difficult to hold on to top talent. The two go hand in hand in terms of attracting and keeping star performers.”
Yet businesses may still ask, what about the bottom line? What’s the point of helping individual employees be happy and meet their individual goals if it doesn’t help us profit? (Well, there is an implicit assumption in there that businesses only care about their profit, but we’ll leave that for another day…)
The Guardian (UK) reported that, amazingly enough, happy employees actually do work harder! This may also smack of the blindingly obvious – at least to anyone who has ever been an employee – but it seems to get lost in the management world. Harken back to Taylorism and early attempts to deconstruct management by treating assembly line workers as cogs in the machine who could only perform repetitive tasks and were punished for any deviance. No wonder unionization was important in the early industrial years! One could argue that one conclusion from the Hawthorne experiments is that paying attention – even very slightly positive and curious attention – to factory workers increases productivity. Positive psychology principles in action in the workplace!
To continue with The Guardian article:
A team of economists has now produced research that suggests there are clear links between workers’ happiness and their productivity.
The team, led by Andrew Oswald, a professor of economics at Warwick Business School and a leading authority on the relationship between economics and mental health, said its research has important implications for the worlds of politics and business.
“We find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity,” the team said. “Positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings, while negative emotions have the opposite effect.”
Please note: CAUSALITY. This means that an increase in happiness CAUSED an increase in productivity.
The article goes on to explain the research, and concludes that a boost in happiness from watching a 10-minute comedy clip resulted in a 12% productivity increase. Those who watched the comedy clip, but did not report increased happiness, did not increase productivity.
What to make of this? I’ll conclude with the researchers’ final quote:
“If happiness in the workplace brings increased returns to productivity, then human resource departments, business managers and the architects of promotion policies will want to consider the implications.”
Indeed, they should.
The image at the top of this article links to http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/081/performance.html - a very intriguing article by Dr. Charles D. Kerns at Pepperdine University, talking about how employees can and should address both workplace performance AND happiness.
Positive parenting
As a bit of a diversion from my usual professional direction (leadership, teams, effective communication, workplace culture, etc), my MAPP Capstone has me researching parenting. I’m creating a book proposal for a book that will help new parents in their early decision-making on topics such as co-sleeping, breastfeeding, baby-wearing, and so on.
It’s no surprise that parenting is a heavily-researched area. It is key to our continuing success as a flourishing society, and research shows over and over again that there are certain parenting practices that produce healthy families, resilient and capable children, positive parental relationships, and other parenting practices that… well… do not.
Dr. Christine Carter is a positive parenting expert (a sociologist and happiness expert) who directs the Greater Good Science Center’s parenting program. Her book Raising Happiness (I love love love that title – I’m a big fan of wordplay and I find it to be quite clever!) is based in science and shared in heart. Her blog takes on timely issues, and it is a welcome boost in my inbox, especially as I continue with my own research.
Parents – take note – sign up for Christine’s blog and get a copy of her book. It’s wonderful positive advice and insights, the likes of which you won’t see anywhere else.
Celebrating great writing and sharing ideas
I’m in the midst of writing my final Capstone submission for my MAPP (Master of Applied Positive Psychology) program at the University of Pennsylvania. I can’t believe the hundreds of research papers that I’ve scoured and reviewed, in order to come up with my own paper. It will eventually be posted on the Scholarly Commons and I will announce the link when that is available.
In the meantime, I’m extra-appreciative of excellent writing and how other positive psychology practitioners – those using the research and philosophy of positive psychology to enrich the “real lives” of people, organizations and societies – are able to share their ideas widely.
Two examples:
Paula Davis-Laack is a lawyer who is using positive psychology to help those in the legal profession. Her company, The Marie Elizabeth Company, is all about empowering “strengths-based and resilient living”. Her writing may be aimed at those in the legal profession, but her wisdom is something we can all learn from. Today’s celebration for Paula is special as she was published in the Wisconsin Lawyer , the official publication of the state bar of Wisconsin. When a publication like that is paying attention, you know it’s important!
(I would be remiss here if I didn’t mention someone who has been inspirational to Paula, and also to me, Dan Bowling. Dan is also a lawyer, but a really really nice one – though he never shies away from controversy and debate. Dan was recently interviewed by the ABA journal, the journal of the American Bar Association. If you want to see the reaction to his article, conduct a search for “vibrant stew” and “Dan Bowling” and see what bubbles up…)
The second example is someone I’ve actually never met in person, but I have been in constant awe at his ability to apply research and write clearly about the most convoluted ideas. His contributions and generosity are impressive. Jeremy McCarthy works in the spa industry, which I would think is perfectly suited to positive psychology – it’s all about flourishing and knowing that other people matter. Jeremy blogs at The Psychology of Wellbeing and his articles are always well-written and bring a smile to my face. Today’s celebration for Jeremy is that his reach just got a big boost from About.com, perhaps one of the most-referenced websites for anything you want to know anything about. Kudos to Jeremy!
Of course, there are many many more practitioners out there writing and sharing great ideas about the application of positive psychology. If you know of any blogs or newsletters, please send them my way! I’d love to highlight them. A well-deserved toast to you all.
