Positive Deviance is a great movement that works wonderfully in synch with Solutions Focus and Appreciative Inquiry, which I use extensively. It’s particularly wonderful to see the social and environmental ills it helps. This is particularly close to the first two of my Improvement Questions: Goals? What works already?
Do you want to be more popular?
What is everyone’s favorite topic – their own successes.
Help others feel good
Do you want to be more popular? Sincerely look for and acknowledging other’s real strengths, accomplishments and insights.
The best leaders (described as Level 5 Leaders in “Good to Great“) surround themselves with others who have superior skill sets, abilities and talents. Then they encourage them to do their work. These are the kind of leaders that people will go the extra 10 miles for.
Look for what is best about your spouse. Share that in a sincerely appreciative way.
Look for the talents in your children – let them know as well.
Appreciate out loud what you like about your friends – become more popular.
Just keep it real. Sincerity is key to lasting relationships.
And do it for yourself as well. Acknowledge your strengths, build on them, celebrate them. (for those that are modest — when we celebrate others strengths first most people are willing to give us credit for ours as well.
If enough people do this, the culture of your company/family/circle of friends becomes more fun, more effective and safer to try new things.
The Power of Inspirational Culture
Inspire the performance you need
As Daniel Pink describes in “Drive” we generally perform at our best when we feel competent, make a difference in the world, and when we learn. These are not things that coercion or any type of fear encourages.
An inspirational culture (whether it be work, home life, or a community organization) drives us to perform at our best.
What could you do if you had a more inspirational culture?
You could inspire…
nimble agility
excellent performance
loyalty-building customer service
employees who embrace & drive change
an improvisational culture that adapts constantly
We’ll talk more over the coming weeks about what it takes to create and nurture a culture that inspires people to greatness. It’s both incredibly simple and also sophisticated. There are many wonderful examples of inspirational cultures in the world. Please sign in and share your examples you know of.
Improvisational Leadership – positive influence for everything
powerful & positive
I just led a two-day course on Improvisational Leadership. Not only was it a blast, I learned a lot from the students as well.
Some of the key lessons that the students talked about were:
- the improvisational tools can be layered on almost any management approach to add even more value
- any culture can increase its capability to improvise in ever-changing situations… and the more leadership models and rewards positive and risk-taking and adaptation, the faster the organization can improvise
- the “yes and” approach can help make any relationship better – even with oneself
- one of the side benefits of using improvisational leaders
hip techniques is being more approachable and popular
Please join in on the posts talking about improvisational culture and what you think that looks like.
Priming: Focusing on a clear goal guides positive behaviors
The Power of Focus: The human brain can only take in so much data at once.
Focus on your end goal
What we unconsciously or purposely focus on ends up limiting our ability to see other things. So what happens when we choose to look mostly at negatives or limitations? What happens when we focus mostly on success? Choosing to focus on solutions primes our brain to see opportunities that we may have otherwise missed. Words prime us by creating mental images and feeling states. Negative words such as “stop”, “avoid” and “don’t” try to negate them. The brain immediately sends out emotion biochemicals in response to imagery – creating feeling states within milliseconds. Plus, the brain does not know how to negate a mental image.
E.g., when we say to a child, “No, do not go into the swimming pool,” the child’s mental image is going into the swimming pool.
When we focus on a clear goal, our mind automatically starts looking for ways to get there. Make that goal a positive one that energizes you.
Got improv culture?
Can your team jam?
Here are a few of the top characteristics of an improvisational culture. How many does your organization have?
- Clear goals, great training & flexible plans – allow people to use talent and goal focus to grab opportunities of the moment
- Moments of “group flow” – that particular state of heightened consciousness in the team that fosters great creativity and very high engagement(1)
- Innovation emerges from the bottom up – often from random encounters with potential customers asking radical questions
- Collaborative creativity feels like “jamming” (2)– it’s energizing, unpredictable and produces great results
- New ideas valued – even those that aren’t used are seen as positive contributions to the group
- “Yes and” practiced – rather than criticizing ideas and practices and build on them. No wasting time and energy with blaming. Jump straight to what you do like about a plan and guiding it in a positive direction with positive questions about how to make it fit certain criteria, etc. (3)
Here’s the good news. Cultures can become more improvisational.
Whether it’s a slow change over time, or a rapid transformation (with the right guidance).
(1) Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, University of Chicago Psychologist
(2) John Kao, Harvard Professor
(3) Bob Faw, author of this blog bobfaw.wordpress.com
Improvisational Organizations – fun and profitable
Who's company is it anyway?
Create an improvisational culture in your company
— fast, flexible, empowered and positive.
Imagine your people guided more by principles and less by rules.
Picture them quickly adapting with resilience to customer needs, market changes and sales surprises.
Get everyone engaged in sustainable profitability with clear metrics, a motivating environment and room to experiment!
In an improvisational culture a leader’s primary focus is keeping up with the needs of the groups she supports (rather than manages). Useful information flows throughout the company to where it’s needed. People keep each other on track because they’re passionate about the goals and don’t want any slackers holding them back. Fun is as a staple of an energized environment.
What companies do you see as being improvisational? (no wrong answers here)
Knowing your purpose and principles protects against manipulation
Be clear about your purpose.
- in life.
- in your job.
- in your family.
Why do you do it? How do you know you’re successful? How do you feel when you’re successful?
What are your core principles?
What 3-5 qualities are so important to you that you will adhere to them even if it loses you money (in the short term)? E.g., integrity, achievement, caring, teamwork, protecting others (or the environment), seeking joy, etc.
When you are CLEAR about your purpose and your core principles you can stay on track when others try to manipulate you.
Seth Godin has a great blog posting “Who is easily manipulated?” that helps you know what not to do.
What is your purpose — in one word or one sentence? Share with us, or at least remind yourself regularly.
The power of culture to drive business success
This article share’s DaVita’s very inspiring case study. It’s a great story of how focusing on culture makes everyone more successful. It’s also a great example of positive influence in action.
Influence your mood – enjoy life more
Choose to feel more joy - influence it
Feel better more of the time. Influence yourself with imagery.
The images we have in our minds directly influence what neurochemicals (hormones) are released into our body. This is scientifically proven. When we have images of fearful things in our minds it triggers the release neurochemicals that literally make us feel bad. When we have images of good things it triggers the release of neurochemicals that make us feel good. If we’re in danger, the fear responses are helpful. If we’re not, they’re unnecessary stress and to be honest, a real downer.
I use images of past successes, of soothing nature, of great relationships to influence my mood. What do you use?