Habit of Gratitude Part 2

Where do you stand?

If you’re curious about your general level of gratitude, go to www.authentichappiness.com and take the gratitude survey (these are also available in the book Authientic Happiness by Dr. Martin Seligman). It’s free, as are all the assessments at that site. They are based on research in positive psychology being conducted at the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions.

Instead of focusing only on mental illness, positive psychology research has been looking to see if traits that make some happier or more optimistic than others can be developed. While it appears that there is a natural leaning toward optimism or pessimism for each individual, experiences also play a role and people can learn more optimistic behaviors. Several studies suggest that optimistic people liver longer and more satisfying lives.

One study was of nuns living very similar lives in a convent. They wrote essays during their early 20s and sixty years later, researchers found that those who expressed the most positive emotions in their essays lived up to ten years longer than those who expressed more negative emotions. Study abstract

You may also want to have a look at researcher Barbara Fredrickson’s findings on the 3:1 positivity ratio and take the Positivity Ratio assessment.

The series continues later this week. Follow this link for more beautiful expressions of gratitude. Pringle Hill’s gratitude journal

Gratitude Journal by Pringle Hill

The Habit of Gratitude Part 1

Thanksgiving is a great time to think about and feel gratitude but let’s not stop there. There are many benefits to the habit of gratitude. Current research has shown that people who feel and show their gratitude are living happier lives. In this series of blog posts we’ll explore ways that you can develop the habit.

The Gratitude List   

Thanks in many languages by woodleywonderworks

Take a few minutes at the beginning or end of each day to write down at least five things for which you are grateful. Imagine a world where the newspapers and news shows focused on all the good things that happen instead of the “newsworthy” bad events. It’s not hard to imagine that it would have a dramatically different impact on the people reading and watching. Changing your personal focus from the things that are going wrong to the things that are going right has a similar effect.

Robert A. Emmons, University of California, Davis and Michael E. McCullough, University of Miami are conducting a research project on gratitude and thankfulness. They found that those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week. They also were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals. The control groups in the experiment kept journals of neutral life events or of the hassles they experienced (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). See http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/labs/emmons/ for additional research results on gratitude and thankfulness.

Let us know your experiences with a gratitude journal or list and check back this week for additional ideas.

Empowered Collaboration – Part 3

For our third post by this title, we present the last 4 practices that enabled Michelle Chung and Nancy Donahue to have a successful collaboration while creating the tool mPWR10.

7. Be flexible and go with the flow

While Nancy and Michelle had educated guesses and did their homework, they weren’t attached to a particular outcome and they didn’t start with the idea of creating a business together. Their ability to test and be open to others’ ideas and to allow the next steps to unfold, led them to an outcome that exceeded their original expectations.

8. Commit to regular time together

Initially Michelle and Nancy met just once a week after work, discussing what they were reading and learning. They increased the time as they began to focus exclusively on mPWR10. Their regularly scheduled time enabled them to stay flexible and responsive to the input they were receiving. Currently, with an evolving, more mature business, they talk every day to keep on track with their goals.

9. Value and leverage each other’s differences

As Michelle and Nancy learned about each other’s strengths and differences, the way they structured their work evolved. Initially they went to every client meeting together. Later, they learned to brainstorm and plan together and then divide the work. They checked in frequently, reviewed what was working and what could be improved, and learned from each other rather than do everything together.

10. Keep the target goal in line with your values

Their core value is Create the results you want. It is the guiding principle behind the mPWR10 tool and Nancy and Michelle used it to weigh their decisions. They used the mPWR10 habits to create mPWR10!
Are these the definitive practices for a great collaborator? Michelle and Nancy would say no. They need to evolve, be tested and refined with the input of many others. So, these practices are a work in progress. Join us in considering them.

What do you think?

For more information about mPWR10 see http://www.mpwr10.com
Debbie

Empowered Collaboration – Part 2

We interviewed Michelle Chung and Nancy Donahue about what practices they used to collaborate when creating the tool, mPWR10. Our previous blog post listed 3 practices. Here are 3 more.

4. Take no criticism personally – everything is fodder for learning; get egos out of the way.

When Nancy and Michelle first began to share their tools with others, they needed to work at not personalizing criticisms from those who didn’t share their enthusiasm for their “baby.” They discovered the usefulness of adopting a learning attitude, where all input is received in the spirit of expanding, broadening or refining their ideas. Learning to set aside any defensiveness or sensitivity helped the duo to continue to improve their tool.

5. Combine focus with blue sky thinking; consider new options and put some on the shelf to pull out later

Michelle and Nancy learned that they brought different strengths to their collaboration. Nancy preferred to focus and jump into action. Michelle liked to sleep on an idea and deliberate before executing. Michelle also was more of a blue sky thinker, envisioning what might be possible long-term. Nancy favored operating in the present. Along with becoming accustomed to one another’s styles, they realized the benefit of stepping back to think and being action-oriented. When Michelle started blue sky thinking, Nancy imagined how to execute those future plans.

6. Trust one another

In order for collaborations to be successful, participants need to be in synch with the vision, goals and intention for the project. The glue for this type of alignment is a high level of trust. Michelle and Nancy had many years of working together before launching the mPWR10 project. They built a sense of familiarity and uncovered common core values. Both women had each other’s best interests at heart and admired each other’s successes. Trust enabled them to work independently and then to make accelerated progress when they met for updates.

Please read the next blog post entitled, “Empowered Collaboration – Part 3”, to uncover the 4 remaining recommendations Nancy and Michelle have to contribute to your collaborations.

Maddie

Empowered Collaboration – Part 1

When a person says something “changed my life” it gets my attention. I was at a professional meeting and the woman speaking was talking about something called mPWR¹⁰

mPWR¹⁰  is a 10-minute-per-day tool created by Nancy Donahue and Michelle Chung that teaches six habits distilled from the research on positive and peak performance psychology. After testing the product and finding it very valuable, we were very curious about how they collaborated on its creation. We set up a phone interview to explore what the keys were to their collaboration. Over the next three blog posts, we will report on the 10 practices Nancy and Michelle cited as keys to their collaboration.

1. Keep track of the passion that brought you together

At the beginning of their collaboration, both women were employees of another firm. When that firm experienced manufacturing difficulties and eventually collapsed, it would have been easy to seek employment elsewhere. Start-up cash-flow challenges could have led them to drop their collaboration, but Nancy and Michelle calmed their uneasiness by hunkering down and focusing on the reason for their collaboration – a passion for supporting people’s success. They launched mPWR¹⁰.

2. Know your value proposition

Michelle and Nancy are both expert synthesizers of information. Their capacity to glean the most important threads from the science of positive and peak performance psychology allowed them to create a simplified, accessible and practical set of habits. From the reactions of others, they learned that this talent was critical to the value they could create.  A client told them that with mPWR¹⁰, “I can throw away all the other books I have.”

3.  Seek input freely and widely

“Our goal was to collaborate with everyone since we knew we didn’t have all of the answers”, said Michelle. They drew in other smart people such as Joe Dowling, a peak-performance psychologist, and sought feedback from 500-600 mPWR¹⁰ users. The 6 habits evolved because so many people have used it and shared their experience and suggestions.

Read the next post to learn 3 more collaboration practices.

Debbie

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

Collaboration with Phone and Cat

OK, it’s a stretch to call this a collaboration but it’s so much fun I have to write about it. I’ve been playing around with a new phone app called “Sleep as an droid” (I thought this was a grammatical mistake until I got the play on words — android).

Smart phones have sensors that detect movement to figure out which way to orient the screen and to blank out the screen when you hold the phone up to your ear. Apparently when the phone is placed on a mattress, those same sensors can detect a sleeper’s movements. We move around less when we are in deep sleep and more in light sleep stages.

I can tell the app the time I want to wake up and give it some leeway (from 5 minutes to 2 hours) to wake me up earlier if it detects that I’m in a lighter sleep phase. The theory is that we wake up more easily and happily during light sleep. There’s also a selection of ring tones and I chose the one of birds singing.

Picture this: It’s 5:15 in the morning and I slowly wake up to the sound of birds singing. It’s gradually getting louder. How nice.

My cat is also having the same experience. But she wakes up a lot more quickly than I do. This is very exciting! Where are those birds. Under the covers? Let me at ’em!

By now I’m laughing so hard I’ve got tears in my eyes while I’m rescuing my phone. This happens every morning (it helps that we have multiple cats). Yesterday Shakleton even came running in from another room!

Imagine looking forward to the alarm going off each morning! I don’t know if my phone is truly detecting my light sleep stage but it sure is fun.

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!

Collaboration can increase your visibility to others within and outside of your community where they see you as a valuable resource.

Network News misses collaboration opportunity

On Friday evening, September 10, 2010, a rare moment in Network News occurred.  All three news anchors – Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams – appeared together at the end of their respective programs  to promote a telethon program called “Stand Up 2 Cancer”.  This fund-raising program was to appear on numerous networks simultaneously after the evening news to mobilize the public’s support of cancer research.

Katie Couric framed the telethon as an evening of collaboration.  When I tuned in later in the evening I saw many celebrities speaking together about the need for more of a focus on cancer research.  The show also highlighted what is already happening with previously raised funds. Footage covered  “Dream teams” of scientists from varied academic and clinical  institutions coming together to share their research data . These teams were depicted as dropping their competitive spirits.  They talked about collaborating with previous competitors in the hopes of accelerating the search for a cure.

Despite all this evidence of teamwork, I was disappointed in one facet of the evening that may have gone unnoticed by the average TV viewer, but spoke volumes about the distance we need to go as a culture to really achieve the benefits of collaboration.  It was during the closing moments of Brian Williams news program.  While his colleagues allowed the last moments of their broadcasts to be the view of the 3 network anchors standing together on the telethon stage, Brian chose to appear alone.  He came back on the air alone to close his program.  What a missed opportunity! The tone of Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer’s closing moments was one of commitment to partnership.  As the credits scrolled across the screen they appeared side-by-side with Brian Williams.

In the end, Brian opted to identify with his own network turf. This was the message left with the viewers of the NBC news program.  I applaud ABC and CBS for choosing the high road of collaboration.  I wonder what it would take for  news anchors, scientists and all of us average citizens to understand that it is in these small decisions that we really demonstrate what we  stand for.