WorkPuzzle

Flow and Accountability

We all take for granted that when we step out into this round, rotating world we live on, that we won't go flying off.  We're held on by gravity.  The same gravity that can kill you if you jump off anything of any height.

This is a law..."The Law of Gravity."  As I have been preaching these last few months, there are laws that govern your work life, and laws that manage your happiness too...and they are connected.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (great name for a researching Psychologist) set out 40 years ago to determine what really gives people true and repeatable enjoyment.  What he found may surprise you.  It's actually work!  Not any kind of work, but work where you lose yourself in the activity.  I'm not just talking about enjoyable tasks, rather tasks that require accountability.

"What he found is that people of all ages, nationalities and interests in life report their involvement in activities in a similar way.  In a nutshell ‘flow’ happens when we become so absorbed in an activity that we lose ourselves and our sense of time is altered.  When we are engrossed we often have so little sense of ourselves that we do not feel happy – in fact we feel nothing.  (Or indeed we may even experience physical discomfort as may be case for a mountaineer or athelete.)  But afterwards we have such a strong sense of gratification that we construe the activity as enjoyable and satisfying and so such experiences contribute substantially to our feelings of happiness and well-being.

Activities which can induce flow are varied and numerous.  It could be reading a book, playing a sport or having an engrossing conversation with a friend.  Commonly it is something that we find challenging.  This is why many people experience flow easily in competitive sports where challenge and feedback are intrinsic to the activity.  If the talents of the players are mismatched – one is a beginner chess player, for example, and the other is a Grand Master then neither is likely to experience flow.  For one opponent there is no challenge and for the other it is too daunting and so not easy to lose oneself in the activity."

Want to duplicate this in your company?

Here are the eight ingredients of flow:

"1. The experience occurs usually when we are involved in tasks that we have a good chance of completing.
2. We are able to concentrate fully on the activity.
3. The task has clear goals.
4. The task is such that it gives us immediate feedback on how well we are doing.
5. Our involvement is ‘deep but effortless’ and this ‘removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life’.
6. There is a sense of exercising control over our actions.
7. Concern for the self disappears’ but paradoxically our ‘sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over.’
8. We lose our normal sense of time – we can feel either that it has speeded up (and passed quickly) or slowed down."    (Centre for Confidence and Well-Being, 2006)

In other words, if you don't build systems and ways to measure and compare those systems, you can't experience flow.  This serves as yet another law...one that reinforces the justification and value of good management and better accountability. 

More on Grit: Sir Isaac Newton’s 22-year Epiphany

About six months ago, Dave wrote a couple of articles on the topic of “grit.”  We received a lot of feedback on this topic from our clients who are regular readers of WorkPuzzle.  It seems to be a topic that intrigues many of us.

Earlier this month, the topic also caught the attention of the Boston Globe.  Jonah Lehrer wrote a lengthy Sunday morning feature on the topic.  Over the next couple of days, I’m going to highlight a few ideas from Lehrer’s article to help us gain a better understanding of this important topic.

“It’s the single most famous story of scientific discovery:  In 1666, Isaac Newton was walking in his garden outside Cambridge, England - he was avoiding the city because of the plague - when he saw an apple fall from a tree.  The fruit fell straight to the earth, as if tugged by an invisible force.  (Subsequent versions of the story had the apple hitting Newton on the head.)  This mundane observation led Newton to devise the concept of universal gravitation, which explained everything from the falling apple to the orbit of the moon.

There is something appealing about such narratives.  They reduce the scientific process to a sudden epiphany:  There is no sweat or toil, just a new idea, produced by a genius.  Everybody knows that things fall - it took Newton to explain why.

Unfortunately, the story of the apple is almost certainly false; Voltaire probably made it up.  Even if Newton started thinking about gravity in 1666, it took him years of painstaking work before he understood it.  He filled entire vellum notebooks with his scribbles and spent weeks recording the exact movements of a pendulum.  (It made, on average, 1,512 ticks per hour.)  The discovery of gravity, in other words, wasn’t a flash of insight - it required decades of effort, which is one of the reasons Newton didn’t publish his theory until 1687, in the ‘Principia.’

Although biographers have long celebrated Newton’s intellect - he also pioneered calculus - it’s clear that his achievements aren’t solely a byproduct of his piercing intelligence.  Newton also had an astonishing ability to persist in the face of obstacles, to stick with the same stubborn mystery - why did the apple fall, but the moon remain in the sky? - until he found the answer.”

Notice the time it took Newton to figure out the scientific Law of Gravity — 22 years!  Was Newton willing to work hard?  Of course he was.  But, grit isn’t simply about a willingness to work hard.  It’s about setting a specific long-term goal and doing whatever it takes until the goal has been reached.  It’s always much easier to give up, but people with grit keep going, despite the hardships and obstacles they encounter.

If you’re a hiring manager, this is an important topic to consider when interviewing.  Ask questions that help you learn if a person has displayed a Newtonian stick-to-itiveness in their past jobs or life experiences.  These are the people who are most likely to display the same traits on your team.

If you have the responsibility for coaching those in your group, consider using Newton’s story in an upcoming coaching session.  We all need inspiration to set goals and stick to them.  When we see that the most successful people in history used this formula, it renews our resolve to follow the same path. 

The Best Laid Plans - Part 2

Hopefully, you’ve had some time to consider yesterday’s questions about the differential that sometime develops between the plans we make and the actual results that we achieve.  Picking up from where we left off yesterday... In her work, would it be better for my wife to lower her expectations to ensure she meets her objectives, or continue to set expectations that are high, with the knowledge that she may fall short?  Under which set of circumstances would she be farther ahead in the end?

Dave Mashburn and I spent some time on a plane yesterday traveling to the midwest for business meetings and had some time to discuss the topic.  Fortunately, there is quite a bit of research on the topic of expectations, so there are some principles that can be applied to this question.

Mikaly Csikszentmihaly, the researcher who discovered and writes extensively on the topic of psychological flow, has documented that humans experience a higher sense of engagement in their work when they push themselves to reach goals that are not easily attained.  Putting together a plan that can be quickly accomplished with 100% certainty will only produce boredom—psychological flow is not achieved in this state.

On the other hand, setting objectives that are so far above a person’s ability to achieve them, creates a sense of anxiety and despair.  We’ve all been put into “no-win” situations that quickly frustrate our sense of well-being and ability to achieve.  Without a way to work ourselves out of a situation, the only choice is to give up and succumb to "failure."
 
There is a balance that must be attained between these two options in order for my wife to consistently experience psychological flow in her work.  The best position for optimal accomplishment is right at the edge of anxiety.  Crossing over this mark by setting goals that are unattainable, would put her in a constant state of anxiety.  (As if having six kids around the house wasn't enough to do this!)  Consistently operating below the edge of anxiety would trap her in a state of boredom or complacency.  In addition to accomplishing much less, this level of effort will not lead to a sense of fulfillment.

Don't worry, you don't need to take up home schooling to apply these principles to your life!  In your work, attempt to set goals that force you to operate at the edge of anxiety.  These goals will stretch your abilities and cause you to make the greatest contribution possible.   

Predicting Who Will Make a Job Change

Recruiting is a time consuming process.  Nothing is more frustrating than spending time and effort pursuing a candidate who is not willing to make a change.  You not only lose the time you spent trying to dislodge someone who is stuck, but you also forfeit the opportunity of engaging someone else who might have a higher propensity to change jobs.

With the susceptibility for such waste, it makes sense to put some thought into the inclination a person has for change at an early stage in the recruiting process.

Many years ago, Steve Hieman, the co-founder of the sales training company Miller-Heiman, developed a model for thinking about change.  The model was built to help salespeople understand how decision-makers would potentially react to sales proposals.

Heiman observed that people generally fall into one of four modes depending upon their perception of reality:

1.  Growth Mode:  The perception that there is a hopeful difference between today’s reality and the potential for short-term gains.  Something needs to be done to reach the potential.

2.  Trouble Mode:  The perception that today's reality will soon deteriate.  A person in this mode has anxiety about the difficulty looming on the horizon.  Something needs to be done to avoid the trouble ahead.

3.  Even Keel Mode:  The perception that that there is no difference between today’s reality and what will actually be accomplished in the months ahead.  “Rocking the boat” is risky and unnecessary.

4.  Overconfident Mode:  The perception that growth and prosperity are inevitable.

If you think about these concepts from a recruiting perspective, the definitions apply.  Each candidate tends to have a perception of reality that matches one of these modes. 

It’s not hard to figure out a candidate’s mode during a conversation.  The questions that get a candidate to reveal his/her perception of reality are natural and easy to ask.  Once you’ve made this assessment, you have some insight into the candidate’s propensity to change.

Candidates who are in a Growth Mode or Trouble Mode have a high likelihood of making changes.   Candidates who are in an Even Keel Mode have a much lower chance of making a change.  And candidates who are Overconfident have very little chance of making a change.

In working with a candidate in your talent pipeline, those in the Growth or Trouble Mode are going to be much more open to direct conversations about making a job change.

Those who are in an Even Keel Mode will most likely need to percolate over time.  As a recruiter, staying in touch and being seen as an indirect resource is the best way to spend your time while you wait for an external event to dislodge them from the Even Keel mode.

Those who are Overconfident will not be responsive until they “crash and burn.”   It’s a waste of time to try to engage them until their arrogance causes them to enter the Trouble Mode themselves.

Try making these assessments with the people you work with this week -- See how quickly you can become adept at assessing their modes.  With this knowledge, you’ll be more focused on the activities that produce results.

The Neuroscience of Change

One of our readers recently sent me a very good article titled, "The Neuroscience of Leadership," by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz.

Although it certainly pertains to leadership on some level, it is really more about change.  The authors did an excellent job synthesizing a good deal of brain research into understandable applications around some of the challenges of producing change in organizations.

Here are some tidbits:

1. Change is pain.  Organizational change is unexpectedly difficult because it provokes sensations of physiological discomfort.

2. Behaviorism doesn’t work.  Change efforts based on incentive and threat (the carrot and the stick) rarely succeed in the long run.

3. Humanism is overrated.  In practice, the conventional empathic approach of connection and persuasion doesn’t sufficiently engage people.

4. Focus is power.  The act of paying attention creates chemical and physical changes in the brain.

5. Expectation shapes reality.  People's preconceptions have a significant impact on what they perceive.

6. Attention density shapes identity.  Repeated, purposeful, and focused attention can lead to long-lasting personal evolution.

Points four and six are most interesting to me – Focus is power and Attention density shapes identity:

"Concentrating attention on your mental experience, whether a thought, an insight, a picture in your mind’s eye, or a fear, maintains the brain state arising in association with that experience.  Over time, paying enough attention to any specific brain connection keeps the relevant circuitry open and dynamically alive.  These circuits can then eventually become not just chemical links but stable, physical changes in the brain’s structure.

Cognitive scientists have known for 20 years that the brain is capable of significant internal change in response to environmental changes, a dramatic finding when it was first made.  We now also know that the brain changes as a function of where an individual puts his or her attention.  The power is in the focus.  Attention continually reshapes the patterns of the brain.

The greater the concentration on a specific idea or mental experience, the higher the attention density.  With enough attention density, individual thoughts and acts of the mind can become an intrinsic part of an individual’s identity:  Who one is, how one perceives the world, and how one’s brain works.  The neuroscientist’s term for this is self-directed neuroplasticity."

This is exciting information to me.  I have seen this research in various forms, coming out of all avenues of science.  Additionally, I have seen first hand the impact of people falling into old (safe) patterns of thinking based on old experiences, simply because it's what they've known and focused on previously.

I have also seen the subsequent life change that occurs when attention shifts to a new way of thinking or feeling.  Ask yourself... "Where am I stuck?"... "What am I focused on that is keeping me there?"... and "What should I focus on to get where I'd like to be?"

Basic Rules For Managing People

I like rules that make sense... Rules that have a purpose... Rules that are intended to make us more productive people.  Although I've touched on it previously, I'd like to revisit the topic of rules that govern human behavior.  Just yesterday I referenced the below material in responding to a client's question.  Clearly, it continues to provide relevant insight for all of us.

Recruiting, coaching and work performance are governed by the rules of human behavior.  The rules aren’t always as ironclad as the rules of the physical universe, but they are fairly predictable.  While it may seem complicated, our job is to boil these principles down to rules that you can remember and practice on a daily basis.

Over the next few weeks, I will list and describe some of the rules regarding human behavior, and then dive into each of these rules in more detail in the months ahead.  I hope you follow along for the ride.

 

Rule #1:  The Rule of Relationship Credibility

Whether you’re recruiting new talent, coaching a team of high performers, or teaching others to recruit clients, you must understand the concept of relationship credibility.  Ask yourself this question:

“Can I generally figure out when someone is exploiting me for their own purposes?”

I think most of us have a good barometer for detecting when this is the case.  Likewise, those with whom you’re attempting to build a relationship can likely figure this out too.

If you want to draw in the very best talent, and draw out the most from them, then you need to understand what these individuals require from you.  Talented people want to have relationships, be understood, and be associated with people who are credible.

How is credibility built?  It is partially built through "process" and partially built through "substance."

The definition of "process" is "a series of actions directed toward a specific aim."  Consistent and thoughtful follow-up on your part, shows that you are dependable.  A well-conceived plan demonstrates integrity in your thoughts.  If those around you perceive that you only make contact when you want something, you will not be perceived as credible.  Executing and clearly communicating a process will prevent this from happening.

While process is important, substance is even more important.  "Substance" is defined as "real or practical value or importance."  The substance in any relationship is most easily developed by learning about the other person’s story.  This is vital for managers because it gives both you and your (prospective) employee the opportunity to assess whether you are a good fit for each other, and whether joining your team fits into his/her life story.  Genuine interest in the lives of your employees fosters the development of substance in your work relationship with them, thus fostering your credibility.

Here’s what you need to know:  What drives this person?  What are their ultimate goals?  How does doing what they’re doing now fit into this goal?  How does it fit into their financial, family and retirement objectives?  How does it fit into their charitable affiliations?  How does it fit into their personal development?  The answers to these questions will illuminate the foundation of their life story.

If a person feels that you are genuinely interested in them, he/she wants to be asked these questions.  Having this exchange will give you the most valuable tool known to managers: relationship credibility.

With relationship credibility, you can begin to integrate every conversation regarding business plans, sales objectives, and talent development into a person’s big picture.  This will be experienced as authentic, natural, and mutually beneficial.

Defining Happiness

One of the purposes of WorkPuzzle is to facilitate a dialog concerning what makes people flourish in their work.  Typically, we address this topic from a scientific perspective.

Last week, I ran across the transcript of a speech given by Dr. Charles Murray at the 2009 Irving Kristol Lecture in Washington DC.  Dr. Murray is a social scientist and author who is most famously known for his controversial book, The Bell Curve (1994),that discusses the role of intelligence (IQ) in American Culture.

Recently, Dr. Murray has been studying happiness.  He approaches the topic from a government/public policy perspective, and much of what he says is probably beyond the interest of the general public.  You’re welcome to read the whole speech, but I thought it would be helpful to highlight a couple of passages that would liven our WorkPuzzle discussion.

1.  Dr. Murray does a great job of defining happiness:

“I start from this premise:  A human life can have transcendent meaning, with transcendence defined either by one of the world's great religions or one of the world's great secular philosophies.  If transcendence is too big a word, let me put it another way:  I suspect that almost all of you agree that the phrase "a life well-lived" has meaning.  That's the phrase I'll use from now on.

And since happiness is a word that gets thrown around too casually, the phrase I'll use from now on is "deep satisfactions."  I'm talking about the kinds of things that we look back upon when we reach old age and let us decide that we can be proud of who we have been and what we have done.  Or not.

To become a source of deep satisfaction, a human activity has to meet some stringent requirements.  It has to have been important (we don't get deep satisfaction from trivial things).  You have to have put a lot of effort into it (hence the cliché "nothing worth having comes easily").  And you have to have been responsible for the consequences.”

2.  Dr. Murray identifies the arenas in life where happiness are derived:

“There aren't many activities in life that can satisfy those three requirements.  Having been a good parent.  That qualifies.  A good marriage.  That qualifies.  Having been a good neighbor and good friend to those whose lives intersected with yours.  That qualifies.  And having been really good at something--good at something that drew the most from your abilities.  That qualifies.

Let me put it formally:  If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four:  family, community, vocation, and faith.  Two clarifications:  "Community" can embrace people who are scattered geographically.  "Vocation" can include avocations or causes.

It is not necessary for any individual to make use of all four institutions, nor do I array them in a hierarchy.  I merely assert that these four are all there are.  The stuff of life--the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one's personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships--coping with life as it exists around us in all its richness--occurs within those four institutions.”

If you have the responsibility of coaching someone, these definitions can be very helpful in coming to a common understanding concerning the nature of happiness in a person’s life.  It is also useful  to have a framework for positioning work (vocation) among the other significant areas from which happiness can be derived.

The #1 Essential Belief for Coaches and Managers

I’ve been following the work of Stanford Professor Carol Dweck over the past few years concerning the research topic she calls “growth mindset.”   Her research on this subject is about as compelling for a coach or manager as anything that I have ever seen.

Simply stated, she has shown that people who have a growth mindset believe that they can increase their level of ability and intelligence through hard work.  This is especially true if a person believes they are at an initial disadvantage compared to others.

Dr. Dweck has consistently demonstrated that people who believe their intelligence and abilities are fixed respond dismally to failure. They often feel hopeless and depressed because they believe there is little they can do to change the outcome of their futures.

In the realm of education, she has even discovered that students who are taught about the growth mindset do remarkably better than those who receive traditional skills training (ex. study skills, time management skills, etc.)

It is not difficult to make the connection to the business world.  As a manager, you’ll have a much greater return on the time you spend with your direct reports if you apply these principles.  This may seem counterintuitive, but it is better to assess and build the growth mindset in those you coach than spend time teaching them the skill-based steps to success.

Check out this interview with Dr. Dweck for some interesting perspectives:

Note:  If you're an email subscriber, see the Dr. Dweck video by visiting WorkPuzzle. 

Like anything, you’ll need to internalize these ideas to effectively teach them to those you coach.  Here are some questions you can ask yourself on this topic: 
Do I have the growth mindset or a fixed mindset?

Do I feel anxious and depressed after failing?

Do I avoid tasks because of the fear of failure?

Do I put less effort into tasks because I feel hopeless about making progress?

Do I find that when I’m carrying out a task, I am worried about how good I look at it, rather than what I am learning from it?

Do I miss learning opportunities because of fear of failure?

Coaching in Tough Times: Stop the Worry

Scientists at the forefront of research on happiness and positive functioning have discovered that negative emotion always has the ability (as Martin Seligman describes it) “to trump” positive emotion. He and other researchers suggest that we have to “learn” to keep negative emotion in check and amplify positive feelings.

How do we do that?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who I’ve referenced in past articles as the researcher who prominently studies the brain’s state of flow) believes that unless we occupy our minds with directed thoughts, defined goals, and meaningful work, the brain defaults to a state of worry.

He states that in order to escape such psychic entropy, we must build lives that strive to control our thoughts and guide our attention to activities which provide psychological flow.   These are the activities that give positive feedback, demand concentration, require skill development, and strengthen our sense of purpose and achievement.

“… with nothing to do, the mind is unable to prevent negative thoughts from elbowing their way to center stage. Worries about one’s love life, health, investments, family, and job are always hovering at the periphery of attention, waiting until there is nothing pressing that demands concentration. As soon as the mind is ready to relax, zap! The potential problems that were waiting in the wings take over.” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

This evidence is consistent with every study done on resilience and survival. The only way to stave off worry and depression is to do build meaning and purpose into your life.   This means setting goals and building an action plan to reach those goals.  Not only does this make us less worrisome, we’re also happier under these conditions.

If you’re coaching or mentoring, build this belief system into your philosophy.

If you’re the one worrying, then spend some time reconnecting to your with your own sense of personal meaning and purpose.  Then get busy putting that purpose into action.   Remember, relaxation is only as good as the work you put in to truly feel you deserved it.

You Can't Make Me Do That - Part 2

So, did you figure out why paying someone to give blood reduces the number of people of who are willing to give blood?  If you missed yesterday, you may want to catch up.  Here is another story that may help you understand why people do not respond to incentives in the way we think they should:

In Haifa, Israel there was a group of six daycare centers that were trying to find a proactive approach to dealing with a particular group of parents.  These parents were perpetually late in picking up their children at the end of the school day.  As the frustration mounted, the daycare centers searched for an incentive that would make parents operate within the rules.

The incentive they chose was a fine that would be assigned for each time a parent was late.  After the fine system was instituted, guess what happened?  The number of tardy parents doubled.  Like the blood donors, the incentive not only did not produce the desired effect, it made the situation worse.

These are just two of dozens of experiments that show that rewarding self-interest with economic incentives can backfire.  Why?  Some incentives undermine what Adam Smith called “moral sentiments.”

Dr. Bowles makes the following observations:  

Regarding the blood donors:

“People desire to be esteemed by others and to be seen as ethical and dignified.  And they don’t want to be taken for suckers.  Rewarding blood donations may backfire because it suggests that the donor is less interested in being altruistic than in making a buck.”

Regarding the tardy daycare parents:

“The fine seems to have reduced their ethical obligation to avoid inconveniencing the teachers and led them to think of lateness as simply a commodity they could purchase…   Fines or public rebukes that appeal to our moral sentiments by signaling social disapproval (think of littering) can be highly effective.  But, incentives go wrong when they offend or diminish our ethical sensibilities.”

The art of coaxing performance from those we coach and manage is difficult because people are complex.  When we treat people as machines or robots that can be poked and prodded into certain behaviors, then these types of issues usually surface to confound our efforts.

Treating people…well, like people, and respecting their complexity is the first prerequisite to earning the authority to step into their lives and make changes that positively affect them, as well as your organization.

Editor’s Note:  Content for this article was collected from a recent Harvard Business Review article called:  "When Economic Incentives Backfire" by Samuel Bowles.  You can read this article in the March 2009 issue of HBR.

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