Fully Charged: Post #2--Meaning

Meaning. Find meaning and purpose in your life.
a.    Progress toward meaningful work every day is what people seek, according to Harvard researcher Teresa Amabile. And, small wins get to meaningful progress. Pursue meaning by helping others, not happiness focused only on yourself. There is science/biology behind this purpose vs. happiness dilemma. People who lack meaning in their lives express a gene pattern that activates an inflammatory response, which can become chronic. However, people with purpose in their lives showed no such gene expression.
b.    Motivation from meaningful intrinsic values (recognition, respect, and impact) and not extrinsic (rewards and money) has significant positive impact on people’s lives. Research: Before starting to write, writers who thought about intrinsic motivations vs. those who thought about extrinsic motivation produced much better writing. People who did meaningful work outside of their work, performed better at work.
c.    Strengths: According to Gallup’s intensive research on strengths, we all have distinctive talents, which can develop into world-class strengths only if we recognize and practice those talents. And when we use those developed strengths, people are six times more engaged at work and three times more satisfied.  Unfortunately, we can often “fall into the default career path” and pursue a job because our parents or mentors think it’s a good idea, often without regard for our talents. Job crafting (U. of Michigan) instructs us to look at tasks that give us energy and meaning in our work and recast our jobs toward those tasks.

Flourish: Post #3 - Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology that Works
a. Why is positive psychology worth pursuing?
a. Simple answer: It gets results—success rates in reducing depression and remission rates: 55% (positive psychology); 20% for treatment as usual; and just 8% for usual treatment and drugs!
b. Fifty people did the “What went well” exercise for just one week, and 47 of the 50 became less depressed. That’s an amazing result. At that rate one could even call it a potential law (with testing on a much larger scale).
b. The Gratitude Visit: Seligman suggests writing a one pager to a person who’s meant a lot to us in our lives and then delivering the message in person. Communicating sincere thanks for help along the path of life makes both recipient and donor much more positive immediately.
c. What Went Well (Three Blessings Exercise): Write down three things each day that went well and why you think they went well. I do this nightly and keep a small notebook in a prominent place so I don’t forget to do it. Makes a huge difference.
d. Gratitude List: Keeping a list of 3-5 things you’re grateful for—including even those we often take for granted like running water, heat in the winter, sunlight—is a great way to prime your day with a positive push out the door that can color the rest of the day.
e. Signature Strengths: Go to www.authentichappiness.com and take the signature strengths instrument. Try to use your strengths daily, especially if you want to feel the sense of flow (being totally engaged in the moment) and to flourish…being the best you can be.

Happiness Advantage: Post #3--A Competitive Advantage

Principle #1. The Happiness Advantage: How Happiness Gives Your Brain—and Your Organization—The Competitive Edge
a. We used to think that happiness “orbited” around success but found the opposite is true. Get happy and watch success happen. Martin Seligman (U. of Penn.) analyzed happiness in terms of three components: Pleasure, Engagement, and Meaning (watch him explain this on Ted.com). Simple pleasures of life are only part of the story. Positive emotions are at the core of happiness. Scholar Barbara Frederickson (UNC) identified the ten most common positive emotions: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love. Many studies demonstrate that happy workers are more productive, get higher performance ratings, take less sick time, and so on. And happy CEOs create a happier climate that fosters happier, more productive employees. In short happiness causes success, not the other way around.
b. The Nun Study: In a now famous longitudinal study of 180 Catholic nuns (all born before 1917) who were asked to write their bios when they originally entered the convent, amazing results emerged. Over five decades later, researchers coded and analyzed their bios to search for positive indicators in the text. They discovered the “happier” bios led to nuns who lived, on average, 10 years longer than their less happy sisters.
c. Elements of happiness: Scientists have proven that we can improve our happiness set point by doing the following—having purpose and meaning in life, looking for opportunities, developing optimism and a gratitude mentality, and having strong social relationships. Some ways to make that happen:
i. Meditate: Even just 5 minutes a day helps—though most, like me, prefer 20 minutes—breathe in and out deeply and notice how the oxygen calms your mind.
ii. Spend Money—not on objects but on experiences. Go to a great movie rather than buy a gadget. Spend it on a memorable vacation rather than buying a new gizmo.
iii. Find Something to Look Forward to: Planning to do to something you love in the future creates about the same joy and happiness as that of actually doing it.
iv. Commit Conscious Acts of Kindness: Commit random and deliberate acts of kindness and watch your happiness mount. Try to do 5 acts of deliberate kindness a week for good results.
v. Exercise Signature Strengths: Figure out what you’re strengths are and try to use them every day and watch happiness mount and depression decline.
vi. Exercise and fill your life with positivity—regular exercise can stave off depression. Also, keeping things around you that give you positive energy has the same effect. I keep a gratitude journal in my medicine cabinet and write down 5 things I’m grateful for each day. Makes a difference in my mindset.

Strengths: Post #3 - Teams

Great Leadership Teams
--Individuals may not be well-rounded or possess strengths in all areas…a virtual impossibility. --However, based on extensive Gallup research, teams need to be well-balanced across four key domains of Leadership Strength: Execution, Influence, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking.
--According to Gallup research, there are 34 StrengthsFinder themes—which sort out into nearly equal sets of the above four key domains (Strategic Thinking, Influence, Relationship Building, and Execution).

Harvard Business Review Oct.: Post #1 Talent Management

Harvard Business Review, October 2011, as reviewed by Steve Gladis, Ph.D., October 2011
This month’s issue focuses on Talent Management:

Making Yourself Indispensable (Zenger, Folkman, and Edinger, p. 85). Leaders can become exceptional and indispensable by developing several key strengths, which are also important to the companies. Most execs go right to the latest 360’s weaknesses and chip away at them. Better to look at 16 key strengths for the several that you can take to a significant level…especially if you do a kind of leadership cross training that the authors discuss. This article is one that executive coaches will be discussing with their clients for a long time.

How Full is Your Bucket?

A Review of How Full is Your Bucket (Written by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton)

Two confessions up front in this four-part review series:
1.First, I’m a big fan of the research that the Gallup folks have done over the years (published in their best sellers, Now, Discover Your Strengths and First, Break All the Rules).
2.Second, I like short books with useful information in them, such that the ROI (return on investment) of both buying and more importantly, reading it is high.
Tom Rath's and Donald Clifton's book, How Full is Your Bucket?, fits both my needs. Based on research over the years, the book has a strong foundation that allows it to say what might be obvious but now we know how important: People either fill us up or drain us of useful positive energy that reinforces our relationships, longevity, productivity and more. The series of posts over this week will look at some of the more key findings of this book—which I’d recommend especially to leaders, who want to have significant impact on their followers and ultimately the health and productivity of their organizations.