WorkPuzzle

What Really Motivates Workers?

Occasionally, I come across an article unveiling some new research finding that literally raises the hair on the back of my neck...in a good way.  Such articles are typically the result of rigorous research, uncovering something significantly universal about the core of who we are and how we are made.

Harvard Business Review recently released its Breakthrough Ideas For 2010.  If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a look. 

"HBR’s annual ideas collection, compiled in cooperation with the World Economic Forum, offers 10 fresh solutions we believe would make the world better."

The first entry, by Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer of HBR, titled Understanding the Power of Progress, resonated enough with my own experience, that I'm pretty sure it will with you as well.  I think it will cause many of you to carefully rethink the way you structure training and coaching of your new agents particularly, but could really be applied to anyone in your organization. 

"Ask leaders what they think makes employees enthusiastic about work, and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms.  In a recent survey we invited more than 600 managers from dozens of companies to rank the impact on employee motivation and emotions of five workplace factors commonly considered significant:  recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress, and clear goals.  'Recognition for good work (either public or private)' came out number one.

Unfortunately, those managers are wrong.

Having just completed a multiyear study tracking the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivation levels of hundreds of knowledge workers in a wide variety of settings, we now know what the top motivator of performance is—and, amazingly, it’s the factor those survey participants ranked dead last.  It’s progress.  On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak.  On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.

This was apparent in vivid detail in the diaries we asked these knowledge workers to e-mail us every day.  In one end-of-day entry, an information systems professional rejoiced that she’d finally figured out why something hadn’t been working correctly.  'I felt relieved and happy because this was a minor milestone for me,' she wrote, adding that her efforts to enhance a specific version of software were now '90% complete.'  A close analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries, together with the writers’ daily ratings of their motivation and emotions, shows that making progress in one’s work—even incremental progress—is more frequently associated with positive emotions and high motivation than any other workday event.  For example, it was noted on 76% of people’s best days, when their reported moods were most buoyant, and on only 25% of their worst.  (The exhibit 'What Happens on a Great Workday?' shows how progress compared with the other four most frequently reported positive events.)"

One example within our own business, that we've written about before, is the positive impact a  measurable recruiting system has on those responsible for moving candidates through predictable steps in the recruiting pipeline, from first contact to hire date.

By building a system that can be followed with tasks to be performed daily, one feels that they have made progress simply by checking each task off the list for the day.

Here is HBR's "breakthrough idea" for applying this research:

"As a manager of people, you should regard this as very good news:  The key to motivation turns out to be largely within your control.  What’s more, it doesn’t depend on elaborate incentive systems.  (In fact, the people in our study rarely mentioned incentives in their diaries.)  Managers have powerful influence over events that facilitate or undermine progress.  They can provide meaningful goals, resources, and encouragement, and they can protect their people from irrelevant demands.  Or they can fail to do so.

This brings us to perhaps the strongest advice we offer from this study:  Scrupulously avoid impeding progress by changing goals autocratically, being indecisive, or holding up resources.  Negative events generally have a greater effect on people’s emotions, perceptions, and motivation than positive ones, and nothing is more demotivating than a setback—the most prominent type of event on knowledge workers’ worst days."

I don't know about you, but this simple yet profound finding about how people work best raises the hair on the back of my neck... It says something about who we are, how we are created, and what we are meant to do:  Make progress!  By small steps, yes...but progress nonetheless.

If you can harness the tapping of this core need in people, you can build and sustain a company, a family, a marriage, or a country...

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Another List Of Excellent Manager Behavior?

I'll bet most of us have read countless books and articles that claim to provide the most essential characteristics, traits, or behaviors of great managers.  We all know that with so many “MOST IMPORTANT” lists, they can’t all be true.

That fact has never seemed to keep me from reading the newest list, claiming to have discovered the latest.  Why?  Because every list seems to resonate with what I know to be true.  Namely, that becoming a good manager differs from situation to situation and requires such a vast array of traits that we may never exhaust discovering and dissecting them all.

But this doesn’t mean that I’ll give up reading these list.  On the contrary...each list contains elements of truth we can use to measure ourselves against.  We’ll never have all of the desired characteristics, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

So...here’s yet another list:  This list was compiled from answers given by students of Kathryn Britton in an article titled Becoming an Excellent Manager: Where to Start and 12 Clues in Positive Psychology News Daily.

Britton began by asking students, “Have you had a manager that you thought was truly excellent?”  This was followed by, “If so, describe his or her management style and explain why you found it so good.”

She distilled all comments and, in her words, "Here’s what we settled on:"

1. Supports career development. Gives stretch assignments. Mentors.
2. Knows how to do the job. Leads by example. Technical competence.
3. Cares about people beyond work performance. Helps people with practical needs.
4. Gives autonomy.
5. Communicates well within team – e.g., gives clear directions.
6. Has an open door — is accessible to employees.
7. Asks for people’s opinions and acts on the information. Is willing to learn from others.
8. Is positive and cheerful. Values humor. Detoxes stress.
9. Shares information. Enables employees. Watches for occasions where help is needed and gives it in a way that increases rather decreases employee confidence.
10. Bears the brunt of mistakes. Shields employees. Deals well with errors and failures.
11. Gives credit for good performance. Gives feedback well.
12. Trusts employees and is trustworthy.

Is this the greatest list you’ve ever read?  Probably not.  But that’s not the point. This list conveys what people say they like in their managers.  Mark the ones you already do naturally and pat yourself on the back- Job well done.  Now, pick a few more and work on developing them.  It may not be “THE LIST” but let’s never stop learning...

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Resilience In Children / Coaching Agents

What's more important?  A new agent's knowledge of the business, or their confidence in their ability to be successful once they're out on their own?  Training and coaching new agents requires that you know what's going on in their heads...not just when you're training them, but after they've left the support and energy of the training room and have begun to take the steps required to earn business.

Here's what often happens:  They are excited to learn, they soak up all the great training, and then they go home and try to put into action what they've learned...they stumble, make mistakes and begin the negative internal dialogue that slowly leads to inertia.  I'm sure you've encountered an agent who is in a slump or who has just begun their career and appears to suddenly have little confidence in their abilities.  New research might be helpful in addressing this pattern before it surfaces.

Preventing these funks and building lasting confidence takes more than an optimistic pep talk.  It takes figuring out what might be going on between the ears that could undermine performance.  Most people at some point (and some more than others) have a tendency to get into ruts of negative self-talk and believe false things about themselves and their abilities.

There is a great deal of research on the impact on negative self-talk.  Negative self-talk is the barely conscious, blatantly negative explanations of who we are, how we are perceived, and how we perform.

One group particularly prone to negative self-talk is teenagers.  An estimated two million 12- to 17-year-olds experience clinical depression annually.  In light of this, there is a group of researchers from University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, who have found that building resilience in younger children can help thwart depression before it starts.  The pair has developed school-based curricula that teach educators, parents, and ultimately kids the core skills of resilience.

Psychologists Karen Reivich and Jane Gillham have conducted 17 studies of nearly 2,500 middle-school students and have demonstrated that if resilience training is taught before kids enter this sensitive period, depressive symptoms can be reduced long after the training.

"A key resilience-building skill they teach is how to identify the link between self-talk (in essence, what's playing on kids' 'internal radios') —and kids' feelings and behaviors, says Gillham.  Negative self-talk can create self-fulfilling prophecies, leading kids to behave in ways that create new situations that only reinforce the negative thoughts they have about themselves.  Say, for example, that a child does poorly on an algebra test.  That may prompt her to think, 'I can't do math,' fueling feelings of discouragement and sadness.  Because of those thoughts, she stops studying and then bombs the next exam.  A downward spiral ensues.

'A lot of what we're trying to do is interrupt that process,' says Gillham.  Her approach to positive psychology teaches teachers and parents how to help kids challenge negative self-talk and see disappointments from other angles.  Perhaps the hypothetical girl did poorly on the algebra test because it's an area of math that she finds difficult, though she excels at fractions; perhaps she felt groggy during the exam because she didn't sleep well the night before.  Once the faulty link in those thought patterns has been identified, adults can encourage kids to come up with ways to best tackle the problem.  Positive education also encourages kids to identify and embrace their strengths."  (Lindsay Lyon - US NEWS)

The key is to predict and intercept negative thoughts before they derail teens into the downward spiral of depression.  So, what would happen if preparing new agents also included resilience training?  What if we spent more time discussing individual strengths that will help compensate for the inevitable difficulties?  We all know that what happens between the ears is half the battle - Why not anticipate the negative self-talk that is predictable in brand new agents and help inoculate against this internal disease early on?

I'll bet that the best managers and trainers do some form of this, and may not even know what they've been doing until now.  It makes sense - We're onto something when intuitive logic meets research findings.

And if you haven't thought of it yet... try using this proactive coaching strategy with anyone who is venturing out for the first time in anything.  They'll appreciated it, I'm sure.  

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Getting Ahead At Work: Three Components To Working Well

Most of you know that I carefully follow the latest research in the fairly new field of Positive Psychology.  You also know by now that Positive Psychology is based on rigorous standardized research that investigates the causes of human flourishing in various domains.  There has been a huge outpouring of research money allocated for this.  The findings are fascinating and can help you, and your organization.

Some of the questions being asked include, "How do people flourish at work"...or "What kind of behavior leads to success?"  Michael Frese, Professor of Organizational Psychology at Germany's University of Giessen, believes he has identified an answer.

What you're about to read may seem obvious, but much of science is studying the obvious and distilling it down to its most intricate core elements, so we can then say, "Of course!"

Frese claims there are certain "active behaviors," that he defines as responsible for the majority of flourishing on the job.  These active behaviors are comprised of three components:

"The first is self-starting behavior; self-starters do things not just because a boss demands it, but because they see those things as being important.

The second component is proactive behavior, or actions that people take when they think of future opportunities and prepare for them now.

The third is persistence in the face of professional obstacles."

Frese says that each of these three things must be consistently in play to lead to positive results and impact.  He goes on to say that, "Every job you can imagine—from blue-collar to starchy white—can be discussed and described in this way."

We often use the term "personal initiative," but now we know just what this means.  We can operationally define it and ask people to take it (initiative that is), not just because it will help the company, but because it will help them.

In a recent article in The US News and World Report, writer Lindsay Lyon reports:

"His studies of employees suggest that people who engage in a high degree of active behavior at work are more successful on the job—they gain more empowerment, meaning they have greater control over their work and their work is more complex; they gain even more personal initiative; and they find new jobs more easily if they become unemployed.  Those findings hold true across many different workplaces and countries, he says.  And active behavior not only pays off for the individual, he's found, but can change the workplace environment for the better, even boosting a firm's income."

This evidence is robust enough to warrant some consideration into ways you can more effectively observe and encourage more "active behaviors" as you coach, critique, and reward your employees.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Job Satisfaction: Up in the Air

Last week (1,2), I presented data which sadly reveals job satisfaction among Americans to be at an all time low, with a steady downward trend over the past 20 years.

I theorized that much of that decline isn’t so much a result of fewer interesting jobs, as it is the result of higher levels of emphasis upon individualism, and an increased focus on self-gratification...rather than on earning respect through contributions to something greater than oneself.

If you recall, I proposed two possible answers to the above problems:  (1) Building a culture of standards, and (2) Having recruiters and managers of character. 

Most recently, I focused on the importance of building a culture of standards and expectations, which will in turn attract the brightest and best candidates.  Today, I'll tackle the importance of having recruiters and managers of strong character.

I came across an insightful article by Peter Weddle that describes the vital importance of strong character, specifically with regard to recruiters.  Weddle describes having seen the latest George Clooney movie that he feels serves as...

"an appropriate metaphor for post-bubble America... Called Up in the Air, it tells the story of a human resource professional who works for what might best be described as a LOO-a Lay Off Outsourcing firm. Clooney travels 10 million miles by plane doing the dirty work of firing employees companies no longer want or can afford." (Weddle)

Without giving too much a way (I've seen it too), I can tell you that the storyline is subtly wrapped around the importance of character.
 
By the end of the movie, Clooney has succeeded in teaching a tech-savvy young go-getter "a thing or two about the human side of their work.  More importantly, he personifies a value we often overlook in our efforts to improve performance:  character matters most.  Especially in recruiting." (Weddle)

Do you recall the definition of culture I described in the last blog... "a specific set of beliefs and behaviors built on those beliefs?"  This is very similar to Weddle's discussion of the definition of character:

"The dictionary defines character as 'The combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one person, group, or thing from another.'  While that may be accurate, I think it's much too neutral.  To me, character has a decidedly positive overtone.  It is the combination of qualities or features that represent the best of a person or group.

The irony, of course, is that we spend countless hours attending recruitment conferences and training programs that teach us the best practices in our field, and that effort leaves us little or no time to focus on character.  Yet, character is the secret sauce of best practices.  The best practices work best in the hands of recruiters who are at their best as people.  Implement the best practices with a recruiter whose character is deficient, and they may fill their reqs, but they will never recruit the best talent."

Why?  Because character operates like a magnet.  It attracts those who have it and repels those who don't.  And the best talent are almost always people of character.  They not only perform at their peak, they help others do so, as well.  Or to put it another way, they focus on both doing things right and doing the right things.

The best talent have their pick of employers, and not surprisingly, they want to work with the best of their peers.  While they may know a colleague or two in any given organization, they will often judge the character of its overall workforce by the character of its recruiters.  A recruiter without character, therefore, can be an expert in social networking; they can make Twitter sing, they can write job postings even the most passive job seekers will read, but they cannot recruit top talent.  Their nature actually pushes them away.

Happily, the converse is also true.  Recruiters of character have a powerful advantage in the War for the Best Talent.  They bring in top performers because they are top performers themselves, and because they have personal attributes that resonate with those individuals.  They transform the recruiting experience from a transaction between strangers to an interaction between those who share a commitment to being their best."

I couldn't agree more.  Combining managers of character with companies of standards will help you greatly improve the level of job satisfaction on your team. 

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

 

Job Satisfaction Is Down: What This Means For You - Part 2

On Monday, I presented data which sadly revealed job satisfaction among Americans to be at an all time low, with a steady downward trend over the past 20 years.

I theorized that much of that decline isn’t so much a result of fewer interesting jobs, as it is the result of higher levels of emphasis upon individualism, and an increased focus on self-gratification...rather than on earning respect through contributions to something greater than oneself.

Now, as promised, today I plan to discuss why you need not necessarily give up hope.  Although an increased number of people in our culture are following the mantra of: "Let’s find ways to increase the duration and frequency of individual pleasurable experiences," you don’t have to cater to this philosophy to hire the best people.

In fact, if you do try to adopt your environment to cater to these people, they will likely end up among the most dissatisfied with their work environment, and never really engage helpfully in work for your company.

If you’ve read WorkPuzzle for long, you know that true happiness is built on hard work, specific goals, and focused attention on reaching those goals built around adding meaning to one’s life and the lives of others.  Happiness is NOT achieved through personal pleasure, until one has earned it... Then of course, pleasure can be extremely rewarding.

So, how does one build a company that is founded on principles that will attract the most innovative, hard working people...people of character?
 
The answer involves two very important ingredients:  (1) Building a culture of standards, and (2) Having recruiters and managers of character. 

(1)  Building a culture that is based on the right standards will attract the best people.  Have you ever thought about the word culture?  It comes from the same Latin root word “cultura” that also gives us the word "cult."  No, I’m not recommending you develop a cult, but they both mean “to cultivate."
 
Central to this root word is the idea of a specific set of beliefs and behaviors built on those beliefs.  There are historians who believe that the greatest societies have fallen when they lost these central belief systems and instead began to live by the idea of "anything goes."  Losing beliefs and standards- losing the expectation that everyone will contribute their best toward the greater good for their families and their society, will eventually lead to decay, and YES, lead to dissatisfaction.

Catering to meet the needs of a self-serving generation will leave you competing against perks and commission, and neglecting the focus of providing the intangible and very attractive sound culture that's becoming more and more difficult to find. 

The companies who will raise the bar of job satisfaction will be those who consider how to cultivate an environment that nourishes and rewards people for hard work and extraordinary effort toward the greater good of the entire organization and others.  It’s been my experience that people are starving for these standards, and thrive when you provide them.

I’ve seen this first hand in several organizations, including the fastest growing church in the Seattle area, that for the past ten years has attracted thousands of people in their 20’s.  These young people are hungry for someone to speak to them about responsibility, selflessness, contribution, helping others, parenting well, and railing against self-preoccupation.

By providing a company that is built on sound principles regarding the source of true happiness, you’ll attract the best talent and inspire others to change.  Only then will job satisfaction improve.

In the next edition, I'll focus on the importance of having people of character as your first point of contact when recruiting new candidates.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Job Satisfaction Is Down: What This Means For You

We all remember the Rolling Stones song Satisfaction, which is about getting NO satisfaction.  Well it appears that U.S. workers are getting "no satisfaction" from their jobs, and at the highest rate ever recorded. 

According to a new survey recently released by The Conference Board, only 45 percent of Americans are satisfied with their work.

In a follow-up article titled, Americans' Job Satisfaction Falls To Record Low, Economics Writer, Jeannine Aversa, of the Seattle Times reports:

"That was the lowest level ever recorded by the Conference Board research group in more than 22 years of studying the issue.  In 2008, 49 percent of those surveyed reported satisfaction with their jobs," and goes on to add: "Worker dissatisfaction has been on the rise for more than two decades."

Linda Barrington, Managing Director of Human Capital at the Conference Board, who helped write the report states:

"It says something troubling about work in America."

Lynn Franco, another author of the report and Director of the Conference Board's Consumer Research Center elaborates:

"What's really disturbing about growing job dissatisfaction is the way it can play into the competitive nature of the U.S. workforce down the road and on the growth of the U.S. economy - all in a negative way."

What's frightening is that if this downward trend in poor job satisfaction isn't reversed, many economists say it could "stifle innovation and hurt America's competitiveness and productivity." (Jeannine Aversa)

Several theories have surfaced regarding why this trend exists.  Aversa theorizes:

"The drop in workers' happiness can be partly blamed on the worst recession since the 1930s, which made it difficult for some people to find challenging and suitable jobs." 

Some blame it on the availability of interesting jobs:

"Workers who find their jobs interesting are more likely to be innovative and to take the calculated risks and the initiative that drive productivity and contribute to economic growth." (Barrington)

Based on my own professional experience, and far more consistent with the research in Positive Psychology, these theories are completely backwards. The research shows that the inverse of that statement is more likely the case:  That workers who are more likely to take calculated risks and initiative are more likely to find an interesting job, and subsequently drive productivity and economic growth.  To say it more bluntly:  More workers now have that "sense of entitlement" attitude, demanding that others make their jobs more interesting, rather than feeling any responsibility to do so themselves.

As we've shared with you in WorkPuzzle, there is a growing movement away from teamwork, hard work, and delayed gratification-- and toward the belief that happiness comes through increasing one's frequency and duration of pleasure.  This way of thinking has been at work since the 60's, and that first generation of the self-obsessed, have now raised their children under the flag of "individual freedom and self-gratification."

As long as our culture promotes this type of thinking and neglects finding our way back to teaching a set of standards that begin with contributing to the group and earning respect through hard work and good character, job dissatisfaction numbers will continue to escalate.

All is not hopeless however.  Over the next two blogs I'll let you know how you and your company can help reverse this trend and attract those who will be the hardest workers and the next generation of innovators.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

New Years Lessons From Last Year's Blogs - Part 2

Earlier this week I began building a list of my favorite learning from last year's blog entries.  Picking up from where I left off:

6.  Ben Hess wrote that he had attended the funeral of a good friend, Roger Shaeffer, who had passed away at the age of 88, after a short bout with cancer.  Here is what he learned from Roger (The Benefits of Success, June 2009):

a) Success means making those around you better individuals. 

b) Success means encouraging those around you. 

c) Success means being generous and thankful. 

7.  Your brain can't grow without failure (The Benefits of Failure - Part 2, June 2009):  In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle provides multiple examples of this, and describes the neuroscience of brain growth.  He has convinced me that I must seek out new challenges where I will fail...if I want to grow.

8.  Do less talking and more listening (Following Up With Candidates In Your TalentPipeline, June 2009).  Dale Carnegie once recognized:

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."

9.  Develop The Confidence Formula (The Confidence Formula, Oct 2009): 

Confidence = Self-efficacy (the belief you can reach your goals) + Optimism. 

10.  Remember... your best customers are your agents.  They are the ones who will bring in the revenue.  So, from the time a prospective candidate first calls, through the interview process, and long past their hire date, each agent should be treated like a valued customer and partner. 

11.  Always question assumptions...they may be flawed (Lessons Learned in Moneyball, November 2009).  Measure everything.  Taken from Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael M. Lewis.

12.  Loyalty to customers and clients will improve your happiness and theirs (The Case For Loyalty, November 2009):

“Fulfillment only comes when we give of ourselves to others. Loyalty, like love, is not something you get but something you give. But, like love, giving loyalty, over time, through difficulties and trials, leads to mutual loyalty.  And it leads to relationships that are a profound source of satisfaction and happiness that cannot be built in any other way.”  (Why Loyalty Matters, a recent book written by Timothy Keiningham and Lerzan Aksoy)

The last two entries in WorkPuzzle have been intentionally brief, so that you can take the time to reread past entries if necessary, and make plans to improve in some of these areas.  I have already promised myself greater attention to a few of these items in the coming year.

We look forward to learning, along with you, in 2010.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

New Years Lessons From Last Year's Blogs

I trust you all have recovered from your New Years celebration and are back in the office, looking forward to a strong 2010.  If you haven't already, it's important to take time to reflect on what you've learned from last year and discipline yourself to make improvements in the upcoming year.

Allow me to make your reflections much easier by summarizing some of my favorite learning from this past year- As presented in WorkPuzzle, 2009:

1.  Surround yourself with resilient people.  Dr. Kerry Sulkowicz says:

“Psychologists consider [resilience] a key component of emotional health.  Resilient people, they have observed, are naturally better at containing their anxiety.  And that enables them to see in hardship the seeds of opportunity.  What would emotional resilience entail in the face of the current crisis?  The ability to resist being swept up in the global state of panic and to adapt as creatively as possible to one's setbacks and losses.”  (Resilience Revisited: Avoiding Anxiety Paralysis, Jan 2009)

2.  Although we at Tidemark source a very large volume of candidates for our clients through the use of technology, it should not substitute for the human work that follows:

"Personal connections produce results.  Work hard at making personal connections and becoming relevant, helpful, and engaged with the network of people you already know."  (Ben Hess, Feb 2009)

3. Work on developing the characteristics of survivors.  As learned from Laurence Gonzales in "Deep Survival":

a)  Move on quickly:  Resilient survivors have an uncanny way of moving through the stages of grief (denial, anger, depression, and acceptance) more quickly. They stop blaming, wishing and bargaining early on in the process, so as to focus their energy on a solution.

b)  Think, analyze, and plan:  Survivors quickly organize, set up routines, institute discipline at take correct, decisive action. 

c)  Celebrate minor successes:  Survivors take great joy in the smallest successes.  This provides relief from unspeakable stress, and helps create hope.

d)  Believe in a successful outcome:  Survivors admonish themselves to do their very best all of the time and convince themselves (despite what appears to be hopeless odds) that they will succeed if they continue to execute their systematic plan.

e)  Never give up:  Survivors are not easily frustrated and are not greatly discouraged by setbacks.
(Advice For Job Seekers Part 2, Feb. 2009)

4.  Look for people with grit:  Stick to rewarding effort in you and in others and you'll be on top of the next economic wave.  The data shows that if we praise talent and accomplishments, we get stagnation, and even failure.  However, in studies where "effort" was rewarded, the result was growth and greater success. 

Thomas Edison once said:

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up"  (Psychology Today)

Success comes to those who work harder... (Choosing Grit Over Talent, March 2009)

5.  Optimism is much more than a Zig Ziglar recommendation.  It not only will help boost your confidence, but will also improve your health.  (Why Optimism Matters, May 2009)

Spend some time rereading and reflecting on the depth of information and insight, and I'll follow up with more later this week...

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Looking For ZEO Recruits?

Have you heard about The ZEO Personal Sleep Coach?  Regardless of your answer, you're probably wondering what it has to do with recruiting.

First, some words about The ZEO: It is a bedside contraption that monitors and charts sleep states (such as REM sleep) for a better understanding of when and for how long one experiences certain sleep states.  In addition, this company has developed and marketed a personal sleep coaching service which allows users to learn to improve these analyzed sleep patterns.

This product is capturing national attention, having been featured on NBC's Today Show and in The Wall Street Journal.  The product is a huge hit.

Now, let's move on to the information about this product that pertains to your business:  In 2004, a few students at Brown University were sitting around talking about the natural interest that most people have around the topic of getting a good night's sleep.  Sleep medications were on the rise as the fastest growing prescription medication, and sleep study clinics were developed in nearly every major city.

This group of young people (college age!) had the time, creativity and motivation to consider the possibility of developing a way for people to change their sleep habits for the better, driven and supported by the latest technology.

Have you ever noticed that young people are usually the ones who come up with ways of addressing old problems with new technology?  There is something contained in younger hearts and minds- some strange, elusive recipe of creativity, high tolerance for risk, little need for relaxation, abundant energy and competitiveness... that gives young people an edge in developing the next wave of innovative development in almost any field.

When is the last time that you've heard new strains of music genres begun by anyone over 40?  A study of history tells us that it rarely happens.

For example, I remember hearing Bob Dylan (one of the most important innovators of music, bringing the lyrical genius and deep meaning of folk together with the hard hitting melodies of rock and roll), interviewed by 60 Minutes when he was over 60 years old.  In this interview he was asked how he wrote some of his earlier work that everyone predicted would become so timeless.  His answer is at the heart of my point: 

"I have no idea how I wrote those great songs, but I can't do it anymore.. I've tried and I just can't do it."

If one of your goals is for your company to be recognized as an innovator in your industry, then you have to attract those who will creatively experiment their way into discovering new ways to sell, position, market, communicate and integrate new technologies for your services.

There is no question that in any industry, including real estate, those companies who recruit, listen to, and unleash the creativity of young people, will be the ones leading the way to better methods of conducting business in the 21st century. 
 
Allow me to remind you of the ages of some of the greatest innovators of the 20th century:

• Ransom E. Olds (Age 36):  Created the assembly line in 1901 
• Willis Haviland Carrier (Age 25):  Inventor of the air conditioner in 1902
• Marie Curie (Age 35):  Pioneered the study of radioactivity in 1903
• Albert Einstein (Age 26):  Invented The Theory of Relativity
• Orville and Wilbur Wright (Age at first flight 32):  Inventors of the airplane
• Gideon Sundback (Age 33):  Invented the zipper
• John Hammond (Age 23):  Invented radio remote control
• Philo Farnsworth (Age 21!):  Inventor of Television in 1927
• Walter Diemerm (Age 24):  Inventor of bubble gum in 1928
• Chester Carlson (Age 32):  Inventor of Xerography in 1938
• Jack Kilby (Age 35):  Inventor of Integrated Circuits in 1958
• Nolan Bushnell (Age 29):  Inventor of the Pong Video Game in 1972
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Ages 21 and 27): Inventors of the Personal Computer in 1976
• Bill Gates (Age 22):  Founded Microsoft and struck a deal with IBM
• Tim Berners-Lee (Age at concept 25):  Inventor of the World Wide Web (NO, not Al Gore)
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Ages 24 and 25):  Google founder

So next time that a 21 year old expresses an interest in giving Real Estate a try...

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.