The Power of a Fresh Start (15th September 2014)
Is today, Monday a good day to make a fresh start?
When can you create that feeling of making a fresh start?
Can you recreate that New Year effect, that is the energy and enthusiasm you feel when you make a fresh start at the beginning of the New Year?
Well according to Katherine Milkman, a Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania we should look for opportunities to make fresh starts. When we begin anew we find a natural motivation to work with more vigour.
So we should be on the lookout for opportunities to make fresh starts. So, for example, a Monday provides a good opportunity to shed the baggage of the previous week. Other opportunities might be the start of a new month or following a birthday or holiday.
Manchester United had got off to a faltering start in the Premiership but on Sunday they beat Queens Park Rangers four nil.
Manager, Louis Van Gaal said to the players. “Let’s make a fresh start.” It obviously paid off with a handsome win.
Maximising Happiness from Good Deeds (17th August 2014)
It was the philosopher and comedian, Ken Dodd, who offered the view that happiness is the greatest gift that we possess. The challenge is how to achieve that desirable state.
One of Doddy’s comic creations was Knotty Ash University but guidance on how to be happy comes from a more distinguished academic establishment, Stanford in California.
Jennifer Aaker is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and along with Melanie Rudd from the University of Houston and Michael L Norton of the Harvard Business School the three academics have some concrete advice on how to be happy. Their paper is published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology and entitled ”Getting the most out of giving: Concretely framing a prosocial goal maximizes happiness.”
One reliable route to personal happiness is to engage in doing something nice for someone else. In other words performing acts of kindness makes you happy. Such deeds not only help and benefit the recipient but also create a pleasurable “helper’s high” that benefits the giver.
Research shows that individuals who regularly do volunteer work report greater happiness and less depression than those who don’t.
There is evidence that performing five random acts of kindness each day for six weeks brings a happier state of mind.
So a proven route to happiness is to do good deeds, but the way that they are framed can affect what Aaker et al refer to as the “helper’s high” – the level of resulting happiness after performing a good deed.
Aaker, Rudd and Norton’s paper shows that having specific goals when carrying out philanthropic works has more impact than vaguer, abstract intentions.
An example of this would be having the specific objective of trying to make someone smile rather than the less concrete one of just trying to make them happy.
The psychologists conducted various experiments to explore their hypotheses/contention that specific goals related to acts of kindness are better than general ones.
In one experiment the researchers took 50 participants and in return for them performing two assigned tasks in a day to make someone happy they gave them a $5 Amazon gift card. They were then asked to describe what they had done and what feelings had resulted.
Half the sample was instructed to make someone smile, the others just to make a person happy. Not surprisingly there were numerous ways in which the respondents had performed their acts of kindness. Some had given people a helping hand, others had shared a joke with others.
However, those individuals asked to get someone to smile reported greater personal happiness than those given the more generalised request of just promoting happiness.
Why should that be the case? The researchers believe it is because framing a goal in definite terms is more likely to bring success than a more general approach. If there is a more specific goal, there can be a more focused approach to achieving that goal. Additionally it is easier to know whether the outcome has been successful. So if the objective is to make someone smile there’s clear evidence that end has been achieved. Whilst if it’s the broader goal of just making somebody happy it’s not easy to tell that has been achieved.
The research also established that people are not very good at predicting which charitable acts will bring them the most happiness. The psychologists went back to the participants in the “smile” and “happiness” groups and asked them to predict how happy they would feel 24 hours later after they had finished their task.
Whether their goals were concrete or abstract, participants evaluating just their own condition — either concrete or abstract — inaccurately predicted the same degree of happiness as those pursuing the other. Second, those weighing both conditions incorrectly anticipated that the abstract goal of making someone happy would create greater personal happiness than making someone smile. The authors write “People do not recognize that acts performed in service of a prosocial goal that is framed concretely (versus abstractedly) will more effectively cultivate personal happiness,”
This research supports my grandma’s contention that you should leave the world a better place for being there. Having specific goals will be a help to achieving that aim.
And Now……Happy New Year (1st January 2013)
A happy, prosperous and healthy new year to all.
The new year and a time for new resolves. One of mine is to be more in the moment-the present, that iswhat is happening in the here and now.
Joan Chittister has been one of the Catholic Church’s key visionary voices and spiritual leaders for more than 30 years. A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Pennsylvania, Sister Joan is an international lecturer and award-winning author of more than 40 books.
In her book “Songs of the Heart” she recounts a wisdom story from Theophane the monk taken from his book “Tales from the Magic Monastery”.
I had just one desire - to give myself completely to God. So I headed for the Monastery. An old monk asked me “What is it you want?“. I said I just want to give myself to God.” I expected him to be gentle, fatherly, but he shouted at me, “NOW!”.
I wasstunned. He shouted again, “NOW !”. Then he reached for a stick and came after me. I turned and ran. He kept coming after me, brandishing his stick and shouting, “NOW!, NOW!”.
That was years ago, He still follows me, wherever I go. Always that stick, always that “NOW!”.
This is an interesting story to ponder whether from a spiritual or temporal standpoint.
So one of my resolutions for 2013 is the be more in the moment.
As Spencer Johnson says in his excellent book “The Present”:
The present is not the past and it is not the future.
The present is the present moment.
The present is right now!
Micro Power (3rd April 2012)
Most readers of this blog will be familiar with the idea of personal branding. It was Tom Peters who said “Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark”.
Personal branding is a very valid concept whereby you define what you stand for and how you provide value to the organisation, as well as what differentiates you from the competition.
It is necessary to be “on brand” in all you do. In these pressured times small lapses can harm the reputation of your brand in what might seem a disproportionate way. There is even a name for these lapses, micro-inequities. The term micro-inequities was coined back in 1973 by an MIT professor, Mary Rowe, while looking at discrimination and equal opportunities.
Micro-inequities were those subtle messages of disapproval or disregard unconsciously communicated to others. We have probably moved on from the more gross examples of such behaviour but there are still examples to be found.
Have you ever been with a fellow manager who was checking their mobile phone or blackberry, or otherwise multi-tasking while you spoke with them?
Have you ever been in a meeting and had your idea dismissed by the boss but then accepted when paraphrased by a seeming favoured co-worker?
Have you ever had a boss who interrupts you in full flow or finishes your sentences for you?
Brickbats and Bouquets (28th March 2012)
Do you dwell on the negative rather than the positive? If that is the case you are not alone, according to a recent article in The New York Times “Praise is fleeting, but Brickbats we recall”.
In it Clifford Nass, a Professor of Communication at Stanford University tells us that the tendency to focus on what is negative is a common trait. “Some people do have a more positive outlook, but almost everyone remembers negative things more strongly and in more detail “he says.
There are physiological and psychological reasons why we do this. According to Professor Nass we process positive and negative information in different hemispheres of our brains. As negative emotions generally involve more thinking and the information is processed more thoroughly than positive ones, we tend to think more about negative events than happy ones.
Professor Nass makes another surprising observation. There is a tendency to see people who say negative things as cleverer than those who take a positive standpoint. This is apparently the reason we give greater weight to critical reviews.
The Stanford Professor also believes that the majority of people can only take one critical comment at a time. As Nass says “I have stopped people and told them “Let me think about this”. I am willing to hear more criticism but not all at one time”.
This finding that we remember disapproving remarks with more clarity undermines the effectiveness of the so called “criticism sandwich “. (Which has a less polite name in some circles.) In this ploy somebody is praised, then served a “meaty” criticism, then given a word of praise.
Professor Nass believes it would be better to offer the criticism straight “off the bat” then follow it with a list of positive comments.
My own experience from my working life, which is supported by coaching experiences is that managers do not praise their fellow employees often enough. A cautious view needs to be taken of making criticism, which should be delivered constructively and sparingly.
Using both Optimism amd Pessimism (10th January 2012)
For the first blog of 2012 ( and indeed the first new log for some time) I’d like to examine the related subjects of optimism and pessimism.
So is your glass half full or half empty? Does the statement a pessimist is seldom disappointed resonate with you? Do you always look on the bright side of life?
The world I inhabit (coaching, consultancy and lecturing) tends to favour optimism and positive thinking. We are told that optimism improves our health and extends our lives. Being of an optimistic frame of mind can earn you more money or push you up the greasy pole of career advancement faster.
However, recent research indicates that optimism and pessimism need not be a fixed point of view but mindsets to be adopted depending on the circumstances.
Edward Chang, Professor of Pyschology at the University Of Michigan, has started to investigate the flexible deployment of optimism and pessimism.
Successful people can employ pessimism as a powerful weapon to prepare and motivate themselves for the future. B Cade Masse, an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Yale School of Management, captures it brilliantly saying “Optimism and pessimism are feelings about the future. They help us to manage our expectations and our actions moving forward.
It is also possible for successful people to use pessimism as they produce scenarios for the future mapping out how the world might change. These scenarios benefit and come alive if they are enhanced by offering both perspectives, an optimistic one and a pessimistic one.
Optimism can be energizing and motivational in prompting dynamic action, whilst impending disaster is also be a powerful incentive to get things done to avoid that unhappy outcome.
David Armor at Yale summarises ” The emotional component of optimism and pessimism is what makes them so influential. We can look ahead and anticipate in objective terms what is likely to happen. Both optimism and pessimism bring feelings along with them and these feelings push us into action more forcefully than any rational prediction could”
What a day for a daydream (13th January 2011)
There is good news for we day dreamers.
Research has emerged which shows that doing nothing but day dreaming improves focus and makes us smarter.
Jonah Lehrer is the author of “Proust was a neuroscientist” and “How we decide”.
On his blog site http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/01/intelligence_and_the_idle_mind.php he makes reference to a study conducted by Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli and John Gabrieli of MIT which suggests that an active idle state of mind activates long-range neural connections in the brain that are linked with high performance in IQ tests and better thought processes and intelligence.
Lehrer explains
“In the latest edition of Mind Matters, Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli and John Gabrieli of MIT outline some interesting new research on the link between resting state activity – the performance of the brain when it’s lying still in a brain scanner, doing nothing but daydreaming – and general intelligence. It turns out that cultivating an active idle mind, or teaching yourself how to daydream effectively, might actually encourage the sort of long-range neural connections that make us smart. At the very least, it’s time we stop discouraging kids from staring out the classroom window, because mind wandering isn’t a waste of time.”
As W.B Yeats so perceptively wrote:
“”Tread Softly because you tread on my dreams”.
Intuitive Problem Solving (16th June)
PSFK is a New York based trends, research and innovation consultancy that publishes a daily news site. I recommend it. As an example of what’s on offer take a look at an interesting video on intuitive problem solving.
http://www.psfk.com/2010/06/video-skills-of-the-rockstar-planner-intuitive-problem-solving.html
A discredited financial sector (11th May 2010)
As I write there are dire warnings from city analysts BNP Paribas threatening that the UK credit rating will be downgraded if a Lib-Lab deal comes to pass.
These ratings agencies are subject to an interesting and critical analysis in an article in the Irish Independent. See
These ratings agencies are funded by the banks and they were guilty of failing to see any problem with the unsustainable debts of the banks who have caused this unholy mess.
Gary Younge in the Guardian sums up the gross hypocrisy of the financial sector nicely when he writes: “So the very sector we bailed out with public money, run by incompetent people who are once again paying themselves bonuses is now threatening to destabilise the next government unless it fires thousands of low paid workers, cuts their wages and withdraws the sevices to millions of mostly poor people.
It’s as though you borrowed money against your home to save a wayward relative from penury only to have them roll up a week later in a new Porsche and tell you to cut your food bill or they’ll repossess the property.
Why do we stand for it?
Charlie Gillett- In Memoriam (19th March 2010)
It was sad to learn of the death of Charlie Gillett who died this week at the age of 68. For those who don’t know Charlie was an author and radio disc jockey.
It is as an author that I remember him. Charlie Gillett wrote “The Sound of the City” first published in 1970. A paperback copy from 1971 still sits on my book shelves. I can still rememember the feeling of excitement reading the book all that time ago. Here was a book about Rock n’Roll that was erudite, knowledgeable and analytical in tracing the history of the first fifteen years of Rock n’ Roll. Indeed given his education at Peterhouse, Cambridge and Columbia University it was academic in its tone but certainly not dull or dry. Many have followed Charlie’s path in “intellectualising” Rock n’ Roll but few have written with his clarity and insight. It is my loss that I never really latched onto Charlie’s other career as DJ. I shall, however return to “The Sound of The City”. Rest in peace, Charlie.