Positivity and Collaboration

In Barbara Frederickson’s book, Positivity, she talks about her wonderful collaboration with Marcial Losada. Building on Frederickson’s broaden-and-build theory, Losada’s mathematical model determined exact ratio of positive to negative emotions, 3-to-1, that distinguishes those who flourish from those who don’t.

Losada had an ordinary looking boardroom with walls made of one-way mirrors, video cameras, and special computers which they provided to intact business teams. Research assistants coded every single statement made by every single team member during the business meetings they observed. They tracked whether the statements were 1) positive or negative, 2) self-focused or other-focused, and 3) based on asking questions (inquiry) or defending a point of view (advocacy).

Of 60 teams that were studied, 25% met the criteria of high-performing. They achieved high scores on profitability, customer satisfaction ratings and evaluations by superiors, peers and subordinates. 30% scored low on all three business indicators and were floundering. The rest, the majority, had a mixed profile, doing well in some ways and poorly in others.

photo by tbone_sandwich

Losada also quantified a new variability called Connectivity – how much each team member influenced the behavior of the others, how attuned they were to each other.

There were huge positivity ratio differences between the different types of teams: high-performing were at about 6 to 1, mixed-performance at 2 to 1 and low performance were well below 1 to 1. High-performing teams also had higher connectivity and were equal in the balance of inquiry vs. advocacy and outward vs. inward focus. Low-performing teams were low on connectivity and showed almost no outward focus.

So how can you use this data to improve your collaborations? Comment with your ideas and check back to read some practical steps for fostering positivity and collaboration in your teams.

Get Things Done: 4 Ways to Collaborate for Accountability-Part 4

Get-It-Done Days

The last three posts explored some ways to collaborate with people to get things done. But what if you’re not ready for an ongoing commitment? And what about those pesky things that have been hanging over your head for a long time? For me, these are usually things like taxes, cleaning up and organizing physical space.

Create a Get-It-Done day. Thomas Leonard, one of the pioneers of the coaching profession, used to hold days periodically where people would check in by phone on the hour, state their goal for the next hour and then call back to report progress and set a new one-hour goal.

I’ve done this with small groups of friends to great success. It really helps you to notice when you get distracted and to focus back on your current goal. And it allows you to chunk a huge task into one-hour steps so it doesn’t seem overwhelming.

Try some of these methods and create a community of support and structure –especially if you work from home and miss the camaraderie and support of an office-mates. Collaborate and get it done!

Get Things Done: 4 Ways to Collaborate for Accountability-Part 3

In addition to accountability partners for procrastination-prone activities a mastermind group provides a different kind of support.

Master Mind Groups

Master Mind groups are made up of about three to eight people who set a schedule to meet in person or by phone and come prepared to discuss needs and goals. Like coaching, this commitment forces you to set aside some time to work on those important but not urgent projects.

Each person reports on their individual goals, progress and sticking points. Sometimes a common goal will emerge which may lead the group to bring in a speaker or other form of information and learning.

Members brainstorm for each other. Best of all, they act as mirrors, helping each individual to acknowledge their progress and strengths as well as pointing out unproductive patterns.

I’ve found that these groups are very engaging and productive. Some of my masterminds have continued for years, some for just a few months. Even when the group has run its course, the members usually become long-time friends.

Who would you choose for a master mind group? Collaborate and get it done!

Tune in tomorrow for the last in this series for beating procrastination!

Get Things Done: 4 Ways to Collaborate for Accountability-Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about overcoming procrastination by collaborating with others on a joint project. You can also banish procrastination by collaborating on individual goals.

Accountability Partners

Last year, my friend Karen was in her own office writing her book for non-profit executives while I worked on my writing about collaboration. We’d start our sessions with a five-minute phone call to connect to our purpose and state our goal: “Today I’m writing this book because I want to help non-profit leaders be as effective as possible so they can accomplish their important work. I’ll be working on chapter 4.” We check back five minutes before the end of the session to report on our progress.

A few weeks ago I had a “work-date” with Natalie to stay focused on developing new material on our respective speaking topics.

Vickie has an accountability partner for making sales calls. They work for different companies selling different products but that doesn’t matter. They check in, state their goals and check back to report progress. Vickie also finds that biscotti rewards are motivating.

Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, talks about his accountability partner for healthy habits. They check in daily to report on fitness and healthy eating goals. Those short calls help Marshall to make the effort to find a gym and exercise even when he is traveling.

What do you need support with? Collaborate and get it done!

Tune in tomorrow for a third method to beat procrastination!

Habit of Gratitude Part 4

Thanksgiving Day Traditions

For some, Thanksgiving Day is far removed from the idea of giving gratitude. If old traditions have fallen by the wayside or if family time is stressful, it can be especially easy to overlook the point of the celebration. Many have created new traditions that serve them better. Some volunteer to serve Thanksgiving dinners at homeless shelters or deliver them to those who are homebound. If you have a traditional dinner with family, consider asking each person to spend a minute or two describing the things that have happened during the year that they are particularly thankful for. Create a new tradition that works for you.

by Edsel L

Enhance positivity through meetings

Many of my business clients report that an average day is spent going from meeting to meeting.  Some would say that half of their life is spent attending, conducting,  preparing or following up from meetings.   It would therefore seem sensible to assume that if you want to build more positivity in your  workplace, a good place to focus would be in the way meetings are conducted.

In our last blog post, we reported research that linked positivity in a team with the incidence of positive statements made, the degree that the statements are about others and the amount of questions that are exchanged among group members. Here are some tips that may help you put this into action during the meetings you lead.

Meetings can enhance positivity.

1.  Open each meeting asking for recent accomplishments.  “What has happened that you feel good about and want others on the team to know?” In my experience this type of question elicits the telling of stories that help to build a group’s sense of success.

2.  Have a standing agenda item – “Way to go!”.  Ask for people to share personal compliments for others who have demonstrated collaboration or some other high-priority behavior.  In a local medical-surgical nursing unit, this tip is being used to increase the level of coordinated care provided to patients. Compliments help to remind us of our strengths and create stronger relationships with others.

3.  Periodically, use a portion of a meeting for everyone to have 5-10 minutes to check in with every other member.  These “Check Ins” can be structured to cover a specific set of questions aimed at increasing connectivity and positive regard:  What is going well in our relationship? What strengths have I noticed you exhibiting?  What can we create that will enhance our effectiveness?

In future posts we will be offering tips about how to increase inquiry in your teams.  What can you share to get us started?

Maddie Hunter

Ready to Get IT Done? Collaborate!

What is IT for you? Is it a messy, disorganized office or closet? You know, the kind that slows you down every day because you have to search for things.

photo by Alan Cleaver

Or perhaps you’ve resolved, once again, to get your taxes done before April! Or you need to make sales calls or write blog posts. Most of us have an IT and whatever IT is, you’re more likely to complete it if you are accountable to others.

If you’d like to join me in this effort, set aside Friday March 18 and/or Saturday March 19 from 10 AM to 3 PM MST (or whatever portion of that time that works for you). Each hour we’ll check in by phone and announce our desired goal for the next hour as well as our progress during the previous hour. Just send an email to Coach at ExnerAssociates.com,  commit to a window of time and mark it on your calendar.

photo by Joseph Erlewein

Think you can do it on your own rather than give up a Friday or Saturday? Terrific! You have almost 3 weeks to prove it to yourself.

Either way, here’s a great article on Using Enjoyment as a Tool to Reach Goals that will help us to increase our success. I discovered LucReid.com while searching for research to correct the oft-repeated, but incorrect, claim that “it takes 21 (or 28) days to make a habit.” It would be nice but unfortunately it’s not true. Happily, I found what I was looking for along with a treasure trove of articles on self-motivation. Enjoy!

Introverts as Collaboration Partners

Today I’m delighted to bring you my good friend and colleague, Naomi Karten, as our guest-blogger. Naomi is a witty and prolific writer with important information for  introverts and extraverts.  I hope you’ll follow the links in Naomi’s bio at the end of this post. Debbie

Naomi Karten

Not everyone believes I’m an introvert because I’m a professional speaker and also because I can get pretty extraverted in some situations. But I’m a lifelong introvert. It’s easy to find me at a party where I don’t know anyone. I’m the one at the bookshelf scanning the books.

When I first started writing about introversion, there were a few books on the subject and not much else. Now, there are blogs galore, a steady stream of tweets, articles, and numerous books. Not so extraversion. There’s not much at all on extraversion outside of academic/research circles except in the context of both introversion and extraversion and their interaction with each other and other aspects of our personalities.

Why is there so much on introversion and so little on extraversion? The reason, I think, is that introverts struggle to make their way in the world in a way that extraverts don’t. And that struggle can easily affect the quality and success of collaborative efforts.

Think about it. Introverts who collaborate with extraverts may have to contend with people who yakkety-yak non-stop (as some extraverts do), people who have seemingly boundless energy (as many extraverts have), people who get energized by interaction (as so many extraverts do), and people who excel at thinking out loud (practically the epitome of extraversion). Challenges, indeed, for many of us introverts.

photo by katrinket

Of course, there are huge upsides to collaborating with extraverts. Their energy can be infectious. When I’m with extraverts, I become more extraverted because their energy energizes me. They are comfortable in social situations (at least, that’s how it appears to us), and that’s something that can enhance collaborations. Their thinking out loud can generate ideas that we introverts may have also, but we have a tendency to want to mull them over before we speak – and perhaps edit them, revise them, modify them, rethink them, and edit them yet again before we say anything. It’s not that we’re withholding ideas, of course, just that those ideas have to find their way from brain to mouth. Extraverts seem to have a direct connection between brain and mouth. Even though that sometimes drives me crazy, the truth is I often envy it.

If we introverts want to collaborate with extraverts, we have to take some responsibility for what we need. For example, we can explain that sometimes we need to take things in and reflect on them before responding. If someone asks a question or requests our opinion, we don’t need to feel forced to respond immediately; we can ask if we can take a minute (or an hour) to respond. We can incorporate some quiet periods during face-to-face collaboration and arrange some cave time to recharge. And if extraverts go on at length, so that our brain is about to burst, we can ask for a time-out. We can even do that before our brain is about to burst.

We can also do some things for the extraverts, especially those to whom we are a mystery (which is most of them, I think). When extraverts are speaking, we can show some facial expression so they know there’s someone home; seeing blank stares on our faces doesn’t give extraverts the feedback they need. We can welcome approaches that extraverts thrive on, such as brainstorming (provided, of course, we intersperse it with some quieter approaches). We can be more forthcoming than we might otherwise be, so that we don’t give the false impression that we’re not team players or are not willing to do our part. We can tolerate, and maybe even enjoy, the on-and-on-and-on communication style of our extraverted collaboration buddies, recognizing that in the midst of all that thinking out loud are great ideas that will further our efforts together.

Extravert/Introvert by e³°°°'s photostream

Basically, I believe that introverts and extraverts can collaborate – and can do so successfully if:

• Early in our collaboration, we each explain our communication and work style as it relates to introversion and extraversion, and discuss how our styles are similar or different. This will go a long way in helping us understand and appreciate each other.

• We collaborate not just about our project, but also about how we can work together in a way that maintains respect for each other – and ourselves.

• We give each other permission to raise concerns about how we are getting along so that we can make adjustments in support of our collaboration and our relationship.

Now, I have to go back to the cave.

***

Despite being an introvert, Naomi Karten has delivered seminars and presentations to more than 100,000 people internationally. Get information on her downloadable guide here: How to Survive, Excel and Advance as an Introvert. She has also published several other books and ebooks and many years of newsletters. She blogs. She tweets. She’s published more than 300 articles. All of these are easier for her than picking up the phone. She’d enjoy hearing from you (by email, of course) at naomi@nkarten.com.

4 tips for becoming happier

peyri from Flickr's Creative Commons

I’ve been noticing how happy many of the members of my cancer support group seem.  Yes, we have fears about our diagnosis, strange side-effects from the treatments we elect and frustrations at our experiences with the many medical professionals we lean on for our care.  However, when we get together smiles abound and laughs flow freely. How does this happen?

1.  Reach out to others. We share our cancer experience. There are positive sensations  that come from social interactions.  When I step into our support group meeting room, I feel an instant lift of my spirits.  Many of us believe that these positive connections help to extend our lives.  Even outside of my cancer experience, I find  spending time with a friend or colleague to often turn a frustrated mood into a more relaxed one.   Connecting with others definitely raises my happiness quotient.

2.  Chose to act happy – Acting happy is likely to make you feel happy according to an article in   Psychology Today. I know this from coaching clients who are working on trying a new behavior.  Acting confident before you completely believe it can often result in your not only appearing confident but experiencing yourself in a new way too.  The more one acts in the new way, the more the behavior becomes the new normal. Many of my fellow cancer survivors have just decided to live their days being happy.

3.  Share what you  know. Offering what you have learned really make a difference to others.  As we share the ins and outs of our medical journeys,  we feel great to be in a group that cares and will listen to anything we offer.  The magic happens when the thing one person shares about their experience becomes the missing link of information or inspiration for someone else.

Alieness GiselaGiardino

4.  Be grateful.  Many who have been given a serious health diagnosis report that the experience gives almost instant clarity about what is truly important in life. The little things of life take on big meaning.  Gratefulness for each breath, each day and each moment of enjoyment is more easily expressed.  We say, “Life is precious” and really mean it.  Many of  us become savorers of life.  Life becomes juicy in new ways.  I am filled with a sense of contentment when I focus on the people, places and things for which I am thankful.  Being grateful makes me so happy.

What enables you to be happy?