Lessons in Staying Positive – #8

Words: 959. Reading time: 3 minutes 12 seconds.

Our feelings are contagious. For example, if you are feeling down and disappointed then that feeling is likely to be transmitted subconsciously to those who interact with you.

Some individuals may believe that if they speak in a bright, cheery voice and act in an upbeat manner then that will effectively conceal what else is going on. It rarely does.

Even if the person concerned exactly modulates her voice to the precise pitch and timbre she uses normally when she is actually feeling bright and cheerful, her true inner feelings are almost certain to “leak” into some of the other ways we express ourselves.

These will include facial expressions, verbal dexterity and variety, breathing patterns, eye accessing cues, blink rate, gestures and body language. And it is likely to be the motions of the person’s further extremities, such as feet and fingers that give the game away.

The multiple ways we humans use simultaneously to express ourselves makes whole-body, consistent make-believe a daunting task.

And the longer, deeper and more frequent the interaction, the more likely it is that subconscious transmission will take place. Put simply, the longer pretence is maintained, the more effort it takes.

By the same token, if you are truly feeling buoyant and optimistic then the people you are communicating with will pick up on it. If you have a really good state people will think “I like this person” and be drawn to you.

We are more comfortable with people we like and it is easier to like someone who is happy, just as a warm, sunny day in May is more elevating than a cold, wet Wednesday in November.

We are also more comfortable with people who we think are like us, or who we would like to be like. Given a choice, most people would elect to be happy and most would hesitate to describe themselves as sad, miserable or cheerless. That’s not going to win them any friends.

That happiness is catching is confirmed by a study that followed a whole community of people for 20 years. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, followed more than 4,700 people living in Framingham, Massachusetts from 1983 to 2003. Researchers found that the effect of one happy person could ripple through three degrees of separation. The researchers liken the pattern of happiness transmission to the spread of a virus: those with the most number of happy contacts are the mostly likely to catch the happy bug.

“Happiness is like a stampede,” said [co-author] Nicholas Christakis… “Whether you’re happy depends not just on your own actions and behaviours and thoughts, but on those of people you don’t even know”

In this study certain social relationships were more effective at spreading happiness; the good mood of a next-door neighbour was more contagious than that of a live-in spouse. Friends of the same gender were the most likely source of good cheer.

A temporal element was also detected: the effects of a happy encounter could linger for as long as a year before fading.

One important dimension of such “contagion” has been rightly emphasised by Shigehiro Oishi, a University of Virginia psychologist who studies the causes and consequences well-being. He has said:

"Although we are connected with friends and family members who live far away via cell-phone and the Internet, these results indicate that there is nothing like a face-to-face interaction. We are told to get connected by cell-phone companies, but in order to get connected you really have to live close by and interact face to face.”

Technology is evolving a lot faster than the human animal.

But how can something like happiness be contagious? Some researchers think one of the most likely mechanisms is empathetic mimicry. Psychologists have shown that people unconsciously copy the facial expressions, manner of speech, posture, body language and other behaviours of those around them.

Through a kind of neural feedback, they experience the emotions associated with the particular behaviour they are mimicking.

Barbara Wild and colleagues at the University of Tubingen, Germany, found that the stronger the facial expression, the stronger the emotion experienced by the observer. She believes this process is hardwired, since it acts so rapidly and automatically.

Others suggest it works through the action of mirror neurons, a type of brain cell thought to fire both when we perform an action and when we watch someone else doing it, though it is not clear whether the mimicking would cause the neurons to fire or whether their firing would trigger the mimicry.

What is clear is that unconscious imitation allows people to "feel a pale reflection of their companions' actual emotions" and even "feel themselves into the emotional lives of others", says Elaine Hatfield, of the University of Hawaii.

There is plenty of evidence for emotional contagion outside the lab. In 2000, Peter Totterdell at the University of Sheffield found a significant association between the happiness of professional cricketers during a match and the average happiness of their teammates, regardless of other factors such as whether the match was going in the team's favour.

Other studies have found that waiters who offer service with a smile are rewarded with bigger tips.

In NLP this is called being in uptime. Make sure your head, your heart and your happiness are all on the same plain before launching into any key activity, particularly where it involves face-to-face contact. If not, then postponing to a better time - or making a phone call instead - might be the better strategy.

In business giving your clients, the people you are communicating with, the sense of having your “unconditional positive regard”; that you are there for them and with them; that they have your undivided attention, is the foundation on which good rapport is based.

Imparting happiness with the deal is a big bonus worth having.

What’s Your Barometer Reading?

Words: 489 Reading time: 1 minute 36 seconds

When we are sailing along smoothly on an even keel the chances are that one of two things is true:

a) Either things could be a lot better, but we are not pushing the envelope, or
b) Things could be on the verge of getting a lot worse, because we are forgetting to notice the potential threats.

In the current economic climate, which is more likely to be true for you?

In recent weeks I have had three different businesses approach me with essentially the same problem – getting the right amount of money out of clients on a timely basis. The problem manifested itself in three different ways:

~ Collection of debt
~ Terms of business
~ Pricing

The common factor between these three was forgetting to make clear to the clients concerned what the expectations were surrounding payment. The reason for such forgetfulness is common to us all. So common, in fact, that Pace and Kyeli Smith have coined a term to cover it: “The Usual Error”.

The Usual Error in this case was the belief by the business owners concerned that their clients viewed the need to make adequate payment in a timely manner in the same way that they did themselves. Big mistake.

Paul Watzlawick’s theory on communication is relevant here. One of his axioms says that you cannot not communicate, because every behaviour is a kind of communication. Any perceivable behaviour, including the absence of action, has the potential to be interpreted by other people as having some meaning.

These businesses had – probably inadvertently – let their clients know that low, unsecured or delayed payment was not an issue. In fact it was and is in every case, proving that while you cannot not communicate, you can not communicate accurately.

The tale I usually use in these circumstances is of the couple on their first date. The boy is waiting at the appointed time and place, but the girl arrives 20 minutes late.

If the boy complains on that occasion and on any subsequent occasions the girl will get the message that timekeeping is important to him. However, if says nothing about lateness, then he is opening the door to constant lateness on future dates.

Whatever he does, or does not do, sends a very specific message.

If you are in a hole, as these businesses were, the only way out is to first know that you are there. Knowing you have a problem puts you well on way fixing it. And knowing that you can fix it helps your mood, your attitude and strengthens your inclination to take action.

Watching your business barometer will let you know if the wind direction is about to shift, if you face storms, or if you are about to become becalmed.

Having some warning of what is just round the corner is really useful, even though it is but the first step on the path to a better outcome.

Lessons in Staying Positive – #7

Words: 526. Reading time: 1 minute 46 seconds.

By and large we all start out as resilient individuals. It is that attribute in the very young – the ability and willingness to bounce back – that takes us all through the many and varied hazards of growing up.

As youngsters we are typically curious and persistent. In learning to walk we fall many times, but it seems to make little difference. A few minutes later we are trying again. The same goes for climbing, talking, eating, dressing and a host of other skills we master as we grow.

We even shrug off our parents’ ire at being pestered and plagued into doing what they repeatedly tell us they are not going to do until our corrosive beleaguering causes them to give in to our demands, just to buy a little peace.

But, as we get older, we often lose that perseverance, even when it is in our own interests to maintain it. We give more weight to opinions that are not our own. We become more timid, self-effacing and deprecating. We pass it off as being considerate, even well-mannered, when in truth it is self-sabotaging and self-denying.

But did you know that resilience is a skill that can be re-learned?

I mean really re-learned, in life-or-death situations, not just as a soft and easy exercise in the comfort of a classroom or as part of a course.

Survivors re-learn from other survivors the resilience skills those people possess. This is true of people who have survived in a concentration camp, successfully recovered against the odds from a terminal illness or survived some other major life event or situation.

Although such 'survivors' are all different, it has been found that they all have certain traits and skills in common. These include objectivity, humour and persistence.

And you can redevelop these skills too.

Survivor traits have a fascinating irony about them.

Although you might think that to be a survivor is 100% positive, the very traits that make an individual a survivor are those that are most often criticised by others.

For example, survivors are often labelled as 'pessimists' because they anticipate problems.

However, the difference between a standard pessimist and a survivor is that survivors are 'optimistically pessimistic' – they anticipate challenges, act on them and know that whatever happens they will not only survive - but thrive.

Many survivors have also been labelled as having a 'warped' sense of humour, or of 'not fitting in' or 'not playing by the rules'.

And to survive that is sometimes what it takes. When everyone else is giving up and becoming resigned to their fate because “it is happening to everybody; it’s a world problem” you will be inevitably marked out as different if you refuse to conform to the norm and accept your fate.

There is no such thing as a “world problem”. The world has no problems, only us humans.

And you can become part of that problem, or you can build your resilience and find a solution.

As Virginia Satir put it so well, “Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”

Where’s Your Trumpet?

Words: 569 Reading time: 1 minute 54 seconds

I recently came across an aphorism of John Maxwell's (Attitude 101 from Nelson Business) who said “life is about 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react.”

One obvious implication is that if we choose to react less we will create more room for those things that happen to us. By choosing the events we want to notice we can respond in a considered manner with an outcome in mind, rather than being pulled hither and thither by our emotions in an uncontrolled way affected by random occurrences.

So far so good, but we also need to recognize that our life is often taken up with more than what happens. How much of life is worrying about things that will never happen? John Maxwell seems to have left that out of his reckoning.

Bob Proctor offers the following as an educated guess about the things that worry people:

Things that never happen – 40%;
Things past that can’t be changed by all the worry in the world – 30%;
Needless worries about our health – 12%;
Petty miscellaneous worries – 10%;
Real, legitimate worries – 8%.

And Sir Winston Churchill reminded us of the old man who said on his deathbed that he’d had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened.

Evolution has favoured those people that accentuate the negative. Individuals who vividly recall their previous unhappy experience – or more likely someone else’s – with poisonous toadstools, or an angry grizzly bear is more likely to survive and reproduce successfully.

Consequently, ask anyone to recall the events of the day and they will more easily and more frequently recall the bad happenings than the good. The traffic jam, the delayed train, the stressful meeting, the missed lunch, the extra workload, the broken promises will all figure more prominently and with greater precedence than the safe arrival, the word of appreciation, the delicious dinner and the expectations fulfilled.

Similarly, when asked to list their notable traits most people will denigrate themselves rather than risk blowing their own trumpet. We have been trained to focus much more on our shortcomings than on our virtues.

Evolution is not the only culprit. Home and, in particular, schooling has played a large part. We will probably all recall (there it goes again) the “must try harder” on our report card, what subject it was and who taught that class.

I believe schools could learn much from the adult world, if only they would let themselves learn.

When Andy Murray is practising he is not directed to another sport where his talents are less evident. Steve Gerard is not asked to “try harder” with his goal-keeping. Vanessa-Mae is not admonished to brush up her trombone playing.

When working with my clients we both seek ways to capitalize on their manifest abilities and morph that success into equally promising areas. We do not seek to change a tap washer if the boat is holed below the waterline.

In cataloguing our own qualities it would pay greater dividends, more often, by investing where the returns are already shown to be good, than in wasting time, effort and money reinforcing failure.

We all have different talents and different levels of talent. Maximize your personal returns and give others the scope to maximize theirs by delegating what you are not so good at, or do not enjoy as much.

In international trade it’s known as comparative advantage.

Lessons in Staying Positive – #6

Words: 455. Reading time: 1 minute 31 seconds.

The great thing about creative thinking is that apart from a little time and effort it is also free. Coming up with new ideas is essential for any business as it takes them forward and helps them keep ahead of their competition.

The down side of creative thinking is that it can feel scary because it is all about new ideas that have not been tested, where as you could be spending your time working on what you already know and do.

But please remember these two things:

1) What you know may not be working because of the change in circumstances we are already experiencing, or may start to fail at some point.

2) Any new ideas you have will continue to be free up to the point where you consider them good enough to start taking action.

This economic climate could be the time your company makes a massive leap forward, but it will all depend on your willingness to look.

The sixth lesson is: thinking creatively is as valuable in tough times as it is in the good times.

There are always far more options than people think they are; just give yourself permission to explore for a bit.

Creative thinking is essential for a company's development

The best way to do this is to throw all the known rules out of the window for a while and begin exploring the possibilities. For this initial phase accept every idea, however ridiculous it appears. This is not the time for criticism and exclusion. This is the time to get a little wild. Most people get hampered by thinking about what can't be done and who they are not, rather than what they could do and what they could become.

Once you have made the time to look seriously how each idea could be implemented and what that might mean, then you can permit those rational judgements back in to test for practical viability. Oh, and you can get back all the known rules that you threw out of the window for a while, but only if they are really still appropriate.

Strange as it may seem, many more businesses suffer from a lack of imagination than suffer from a lack of cash. Too much capital and it tends to replace creativity. Companies without money must dream, imagine, co-operate and improvise. Companies awash with money try to buy solutions from outside consultants – often with very poor results.

It was as recently as August 2008 that Woolworths revealed they had been working with strategy consultants LEK – after already having spent a small fortune with consultants over the last 5 years on their supply-chain logistics. And they were still outperformed by Wilkinsons, with the inevitable results.

How Many Pages to Go?

Words: 379 Reading time: 1 minute 16 seconds

There is a well-known anecdote that tells of Mark Twain travelling across America and receiving a telegram from his editor. The telegram says “Need 2 page story in 2 days”. Mark Twain is alleged to have responded “2 page story need 30 days. 2 days can do 30 page story”.

Those of you with some experience of writing will recognize the reason for the apparent paradox immediately.

Thirty pages gives room for rambling paragraphs, non sequiturs and unrelated blind alleys.

To distil a tale into just two pages requires review, reconsideration, revision, redrafting and endless editing if the final result is to retain the essence and carry the narrative.

I see the same pattern with my clients, whether the issues are business or purely personal.

When I first ask them to describe their situation as they see, inevitably I elicit the thirty page story.

That story is confused, with overlapping issues, unfocused worries, inconsequential asides and unsupported assertions. People often describe themselves as being in a gigantic morass, about to be sucked under and drowned by all the circumstances sapping their usual ability to cope.

This is not surprising. Few people feel they have a partner who will just sit and listen – without passing comment, or judgement, or suggesting instant solutions.

And those that do have such a partner rarely take the time necessary to articulate what is going on in their lives. They are too busy struggling to “fix” it without necessarily being fully aware of what it is that needs fixing.

In some ways my role begins by encouraging the client to edit down those thirty pages to something tighter, more focused and much less confused.

Among the more useful questions that direct the client towards the process of paring away the lianas entangling them are:

“So, what is it exactly that you are working on?”

“What would have to happen for you get the outcome you want?”

“What one change would make the biggest difference to you right now?”

“And what one thing could you do to bring that one change into effect?”

The questions are simple, even stark. The answers usually throw up a lot more anguish and take a lot more work to bring into effect.

Hence Twain’s thirty days for a two page story.

Lessons in Staying Positive – #5

Words: 595. Reading time: 1 minute 59 seconds.

So many people read book after book on better management, leadership, engagement, marketing, even surviving the recession. Some will admit they are searching for the newest technique. Few recognize their hunt as a quest for the Holy Grail of enterprise.

They attend workshops and seminars and briefings believing that one day, if they attend enough, or just attend the right one, then all those things they struggle with will disappear – they’ll know all the answers.

Perhaps this fifth lesson will provide that answer: you will always have issues to solve. The fact is they signify that the business is in a rapid learning phase. And the more issues you have the more rapid the learning needs to be.

Faced with uncertainty your possible responses go beyond the simple alternatives of flight or fight. Psychologists now also recognize freeze (extreme vigilance while immobile), fright (“playing dead”) and faint. In business there is usually a sixth reaction – flap.

And flap is what we see and hear most. It emanates from people in both business and Government. It’s most avid propagators reside in the media where any event is expressed in whatever superlatives comes most readily to hand: biggest/lowest/deepest/highest…since…the war/the 1930s/this century/this year.

It’s interesting to note the more sober and considered findings from some times of previous panic.

A study conducted by McGraw-Hill of the relationship between marketing and sales in 143 companies during the severe 1974-75 downturn found that those companies that did not cut their marketing in either of the negative growth years had the highest growth in net income during both the recessionary years as well as in the two subsequent years.

And in a study of the 1981-82 recession McGraw-Hill found that companies that cut their marketing increased sales by only 19% between 1980 and 1985. However, those companies that continued their marketing during the downturn enjoyed a 275% sales increase over the same period.

So-called difficulties, like complaints, are a gift.

So-called difficulties will have some folks running for cover, unwilling to face their own fears and failings – always forgetting that failure is a sign we are growing.

But difficulties, once faced, are seldom as bad or overpowering as they first seem.

A story, adapted from Aesop, tells of a soldier on the way home alone from a glorious battle who meets a small, puny looking monster. Proud of his martial prowess the soldier beats the monster about the head. Soon the monster lies in a heap on the ground and the soldier strolls on.

Within minutes the monster is in front of him again, but now he looks somewhat bigger and somewhat less puny. Once more he batters the monster to the ground, but this time it takes a great deal more toil and trouble.

Finally victorious the soldier wearily continues along the path, only to find himself facing the monster for a third time. This time the monster is so much bigger and so much stronger that it is the soldier who is defeated and he runs away, back the way he came.

Meeting an old comrade the soldier urges him to help him defeat the monster. As they approach the place where the soldier first met the monster he sees it has returned to its small and puny size. His friend laughs and says:

“If you pick a quarrel with something unpleasant when you don’t really have to, then it simply grows more unpleasant. Let’s just leave the feeble little thing where it is.”

So they did. They simply brushed past it. And the monster never bothered them again.