One of the funnest websites I know (and remember, I’m a life-long learner) is TED.com. If you don’t already know TED, it’s a non-profit organization that is dedicated to sharing ideas in many different domains. It has spread from a small exclusive conference to a global phenomenon, with smaller TEDx conferences held in many different cities around the world. The videos are all worth watching – I haven’t seen a bad one yet. Be careful -  you could lose hours, maybe days, of your online life browsing their website. One video takes you to another – not to mention the speaker bios and discussions.

I am a “fan” of the TED page on Facebook which sends a new video to my NewsFeed daily. I don’t get the time to watch all of the talks, but when this one came through from Nic Marks, talking about a “Happy Planet Index“, I couldn’t resist.

This TED talk makes me want to move to Costa Rica – the world’s happiest country, as well as one that’s doing it sustainably. Truly impressive.

Nic Marks starts out his discourse by talking about what we measure – what’s really in the GDP / GNP. And how fear is used to try to motivate change. The problem, he notes, is that fear is biologically linked to the flight instinct – so by promoting fear (if we don’t change our habits, the world will be destroyed), we are actually inadvertently encouraging people to run away from the problem. He cites Robert Kennedy’s observation that “The Gross National Product measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”

For some odd reason, this reminds me of “movies with Marty” during my MAPP (Master of Applied Positive Psychology) courses last year. On some class weekends, Dr. Martin Seligman would bring in one of his favourite positive psychology movies. One weekend, it was Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Marty explained to us that there are two philosophies in alien movies: hostile aliens (e.g. Alien) and friendly aliens (e.g. ET). Close Encounters was one of the first movies in the friendly alien theme. The environmental movement, to this point, seems to have been based on the hostile alien theory – that fear is a motivator. In this TED talk, Nic Marks ponders – what if we went to a carrot / happiness / friendly alien philosophy instead?

Everyone wants happiness as an ultimate life goal: parents want it for their children, individuals want it for themselves, politicians want it for their constituents, and so on. Yet, we don’t measure it effectively. And where it is measured (several countries are experimenting with similar happiness or well-being indices), it isn’t broadcast – there is no collective goal that is sent out over the media waves for everyone to work towards. Marks points out that on any given day, we know what the stock indexes and money markets are doing, yet we have no idea how national happiness is faring.

In my work, helping to creating and sustain positive organizations, I was especially taken by the fact that Marks points out that employee well-being is linked to employee creativity and innovation (and in future blogs, I will be sharing more data and research into the benefits of “happy” employees). Plus Marks also shares 5 positive actions to increase happiness in your life. I won’t say here what they are – this is my teaser to encourage you to watch the video - but I will say that they have all been substantiated by positive psychology research.

Happiness does not cost the Earth. I’m definitely inspired by this talk. And very interested to hear what you have to say about it. Please comment below on the LVS Consulting website!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It turns out that, among bilingual Israeli Arabs (speaking Arabic and Hebrew), negative associations with Jewish names were connected faster when the words were presented in Arabic than in Hebrew. The language of the test affected implicit associations, or at least the speed of those associations.

This is fascinating on many different levels. First of all, I speak two languages myself (English and French) and I have always felt different speaking French (my second language) than English (my first language). In French, I find that I sit up straighter, use more precise language, am more articulate and use a higher level vocabulary. Now some of that might be the way French has evolved, but some of it also comes from the French culture, or at least my perceptions of it. My Canadian English, however, tends to be more familiar and colloquial, and my behaviour reflects that.

But it also makes me wonder about people who may be unilingual in that they speak only one language, but effectively they are multi-lingual in that they use different vocabularies based on the audience: are you speaking to clients? are you speaking to executives? are you speaking to suppliers? are you speaking to your direct reports? are you speaking to marketers? are you speaking to finance analysts? I’m willing to bet there is a different language, and a different comportment and perception, inherent in each different interaction.

So what does each different “language” mean for the different perceptions you have of others? I believe that there has been some research noting that the further removed decision-makers are from the actual money, the riskier the decisions are. (I’m unable at this time to find the actual research – but I will continue looking. If you know the work I’m talking about, please post it here!) If you are dealing with the actual bills and coins, decisions are more conservative. If you are dealing with numbers on a page, the decisions become riskier. Deal with percentages and points, and the decisions are riskier still. Deal with abstract rounded numbers bandied about in conversation in a board room… well, you get the idea.

That makes me wonder – if you deal directly with the clients, and speak their language, you may have one perception of them. If you speak about the clients with your internal staff, using a different internal language, that perception may change – and it probably loses accuracy and proper perspective.

I don’t know much about Israeli Arabs or how this study could help bring peace to the Middle East, but perhaps a deliberate and purposeful examination of how language is used within your business, and how that language affects the perceptions of others, could bring some peace and commonality to your workplace and business strategy.

Even the name of the blog is highly evocative: Box of Crayons. Doesn’t that just sound like fun? All those different colours, all those different ways of drawing the world, all those different paths to imagination and possibility? I have become a big fan of Michael Bungay Stanier and his quest for Great Work.

I first became aware of Michael (please, may I call you Michael?) when I reviewed his book Find Your Great Work. It is a quirky bit of genius, about the size of a cocktail napkin, filled with solutions to stop the busywork and get on with the “work that matters”. I was so taken with the book that, after I reviewed it, I asked if I could keep the copy and it’s been a staple on my bookshelf ever since (right alongside Daniel Pink and Peter Block, among others…). Michael’s accomplishments and contributions to the discovery and creation of “great work” are too numerous to list here, so I encourage you to head to his blog and see what’s on top. One day, it’s a Carlos Santana video, and another day, it’s an interview with academic and thought leader Roger Martin. His posts are always informative and entertaining, and although he doesn’t reference positive psychology research directly, I can sense it there, lurking in the background, substantiating his insights and connections.

Although I don’t always have the time to listen to Michael’s great interviews, I enjoy his postings enormously. They bring colour and light to each day. Great work abounds!

In the meantime, I’d like to highlight some of the great newsletters and blogs that others are creating. There are many great writers, researchers and practitioners out there, working to help create positive organizations, positive individuals and a more positive world. As an interesting or inspirational newsletter crosses my inbox, I’ll share it. If you have a submission that you’d like me to read, please send it along. I’m happy to review!

(As I write this, I’m aware that many of my positive psychology colleagues have amazing websites and blogs – I hope to get to all of them! Please let me know if I don’t – it’s not through deliberate oversight that I might miss you…)

Today, I want to share a great newsletter from Dr. Val Kinjerski. I’ve been holding onto this in my inbox for a while. Val discusses the Canadian Index of Well-Being. Did you even know that there was one? CIW measures things that make life worth living – very much along the lines of positive psychology. As explained by Roy Romanow, the Chair of the CIW Advisory Board:

The CIW Network is at the forefront of a global movement. Around the world, a consensus is growing about the need for a more holistic and transparent way to measure societal progress – one that accounts for more than just economic indicators such as the Gross Domestic Product and takes into account the full range of social, health, environmental and economic concerns of citizens.

I find it very interesting that the CIW is forming a partnership with the University of Waterloo, where our new Governor General, David Johnston, was President and Vice-Chancellor. Does this mean that an index of well-being could be more prominent in Canada’s future?

But back to Val’s post. She has highlighted some of the interesting findings from the CIW’s report (released June 15, 2010) and posed some relevant questions for her readers. I highly encourage you to consider her inquiries.

Your strong password doesn't have to be this complicated.

Ok – this blogpost has just about nothing to do with positive psychology or building positive organizations, but it might be a helpful tip for someone out there, and it’s come up in conversation a few times over the past few months, so please allow me the digression. Thanks. 

Passwords. On your websites. All of them. Big blech or easy-peasy? 

As I understand it, many people have “weak” passwords and/or use the same password for all of their sites. I don’t know how many password-protected sites the average internet user accesses on a regular basis, but I’m willing to bet it’s in the dozens. Let me know if you have any statistics. But I’m thinking here of banking sites, any sites where you want to buy something online, social networking sites, emails, and the list goes on and on and on. 

How are you supposed to come up with a strong, unique password for each site? 

Some people apparently have installed a password-remembering system on their computer. Personally, I distrust any extra application that says it will remember all of my passwords. Two problems: 1. how do I trust the code and 2. what happens if the system crashes? I want to be able to access any site from any computer anytime I want. Don’t you? 

So here, free for your use, is The Password System (TPS). The beauty is that each reader of this blog, and each reader’s full array of family and friends, can use this system and STILL come up with a unique strong password for each of their sites – no duplications. Honest. 

Three easy steps. And you can do these steps in any order you want – 1,2,3 or 3,1,2 or 2,3,1 – it doesn’t matter. (But pick one and stick with it – you’ll see why later.) 

1. Pick a number. 

2. Pick a keyword. 

3. Pick a word based on each site you visit. 

Here’s an example. Let’s say I want to log on to an online newspaper that I have a subscription with. My number might be 99 (because of Wayne Gretzsky, for example) and my keyword might be “daisy” because it’s my favourite flower. My site-specific word might be “news” because I’m logging on to a newspaper site. My password for that site, then, would be 99daisynews. Or news99daisy. Or daisynews99 – depending on which order I did the steps. 

So now I want to log onto a site where I buy books. My number is still 99. My keyword is still “daisy”. But I have a new site-specific word – based on that site. When I think of books, I think of John Irving, a favourite author, so my site-specific word for that book buying site would be “irving”. My password for that site, then, would be 99daisyirving, or irving99daisy, or daisyirving99. Keeping the same order of the steps ensures that you only have one pattern to remember, and every website has a unique password. 

Get it? 

Of course, you can make things more complicated. You can add in symbols like $ * # but beware – not every website allows them in the password. You can also add in capitals to mix things up a little bit: your keyword might be Daisy or dAisy or daIsY, for example. But again, I suggest making it the same each time, unless you have memory brain cells to spare. 

And my favourite way of shaking things up – make the number change based on an operation involving the length of the password itself. So, in the first example above, my password (without the number) was “daisynews” – a total of 9 characters. So I might make my number 9, or else 18 (9 x 2) or else 81 (9 squared). Then, in the second example, my password (without the number) was “daisyirving” – a total of 11 characters. So now the number might be 11, or else 22, or else 121. This introduces another element of strength – the number changes from password to password, but you are still using the same system – just do the same operator each time. 

A few tips: 

• Keep your words short – if your keyword is ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM, you will probably run out of room in your password text, not to mention that it will take forever to type and you’ll probably make lots of spelling mistakes and the site will think you’re a hacker for using up all of your chances to log in.
• Keep your words to something you will remember – this is why I recommend words instead of a character string, but if you can remember a character string (like ANKEOOFNE, or whatever) then go for it – it’s another layer of strength. Words in foreign languages are completely game as well.
• Never never never NEVER choose words that identify you or are associated with you – don’t pick your name, the name of anyone in your family, social insurance numbers, phone numbers, birthdates, pet names, etc. These are too easy to guess, even with The Password System.
• Your site-specific word for each separate website (such as “news” and “Irving” in the examples above) should also be short and memorable – there should be something about the site itself that triggers the memory of your site-specific word. So if you consider the Twitter site, for example, your site-specific word might be “bird” or “tweet” or “blue” or “twit” or something like that. If you pick “ambidextrous”, then you’d better have a good mental association in order to remember that.
• Consider creating a short form of TPS – some archaic sites still restrict the length of your password to between 6-12 characters. I don’t know why. But if you encounter one, you may wish to forgo the keyword and just make your password a combination of your site-specific word and number (e.g. news99). Clearly, this is not as strong, so I’d also suggest emailing the Webmaster of those sites and getting them to remove the restriction. Honestly.

Ok – that’s it for the digression. Post any questions / comments below, and please share any other password best practices (of course, without revealing your own passwords.) 

Positive psychology and building positive organizations will return next time. 

*post updated June 22, 2010

UPDATE: I just came across a site that did not allow for “repeated characters” in its password. So if your keyword was, for example, “pass” (which you shouldn’t pick, but it’s just an example), then the site would disallow it because of the double S. IMHO this is going too far. I mean, look at how many words I’ve just used with double letters! In this regular paragraph!! Let me also add that this particular site was for job applications, and I had to quit because the interface kept giving me obtuse error messages (like: “The start and end date of the qualification fall outside the start and end date of the institution”), and not indicating which field was causing the error (most sites will highlight the offending field in red, or put a red asterix by it, so you can easily identify it – this one did not).

So while I think that particular job site has overall difficulties, and it seems to be an outlier, consider choosing keywords and site-specific words that do not have repeating characters. Sheesh.