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Month: January 2010

4 big reasons why we initally find positive psychology puzzling

At first, I was suspicious about positive psychology

I came to positive psychology some 10 years ago and like many people, I was deeply suspicious. Life is not about happiness, I thought. Life is about effectiveness. Life is about dealing with reality.

I still think that is what life is all about but I have also changed my “mental model” of happiness

Many people encountering positive psychology and happiness for the first time feel the same suspicious. And they write columns in newspapers and the speak on radio and TV about why focusing on happiness is wrong-headed.

A straight-forward summary of the puzzle of positive psychology

Gaye Prior writing from Zimbabwe, commented the post I wrote yesterday on poiesis and auto-poiesis and has captured the debates very clearly.

I realise that you write often of happiness and I wonder how you define what happiness is? It seems to me that many people might describe happiness as pleasure, which to me is more of an ephemeral thing and not happiness in the least. Pleasure does not give life meaning and purpose and love. These are more important to me than passing enjoyment and survive even in the face of tragedy, horror, awfulness and loss.

All over the web people write about happiness and often it sees to me, living here, to be more about pleasure than purpose. I know your blog is more about work and how positive psychology pertains to that and that you may have already done this and I missed it before I found you blog. Perhaps you could just [give] me the reference?

4 puzzles of positive psychology

I’ll answer her query at four levels

#1 The contribution of pleasure, engagement and meaning to well-being.

#2  Happiness at difficult times and in difficult places.

#3  The ‘maths’ of happiness and why positive psychologists agree that much of enjoyment is “passing”.

#4  How conventional psychology is a ‘straw man’.

I’ll leave this here for today and summarize each of the issues in a separate post.

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Oh! What poiesis taught me about auto-poiesis

Poiesis

I learned something very interesting just now.  The Greek word for poetry is poiesis – ‘making’.

That wouldn’t have been too dramatic a discovery but management theorists are fond of the word auto-poesis.

Auto-poiesis

Autopoiesis literally means “auto (self)-creation” (from the Greek: auto – αυτό for self- and poiesis – ποίησις for creation or production), and expresses a fundamental dialectic between structure and function.

We like this word in management because it expresses the constant interplay between our relationships with the world and ourselves.

Autopoiesis vs allopiesis

An autopoietic system is to be contrasted with an allopoietic system, such as a car factory, which uses raw materials (components) to generate a car (an organized structure) which is something other than itself (the factory).

Management theory in the 21st century

Much of the management theory I grew up with was about allopoietic systems.  How do we turn inputs into something that we will send out or away?  X and Y.

Indeed, even allowing for the transformation of X into Y is somewhat of a novelty for a psychologist.  To have a feedback loop from Y to X is so challenging that the loop mysteriously disappears from some text books!

When we think of ourselves as autopoietic, we allow that “if organization of a thing changes, the thing changes.”  Here we are saying that every time a bolt and a washer, or indeed anything enters a factory, or a car leaves a factory, the factory itself has changed.

We are less concerned with what goes in and what goes out and more concerned with way the factory reinvents itself minute-by-minute.

An example of an autopoietic system

It’s a bit giddy-making when we switch from one idea to the other.

For the research minded

It is easier for research, stats-minded people to see the idea when they think of Losada’s work on the maths of happiness.  Happiness is made up of three things yet any one these is not happiness, or even the beginning of happiness.  The three things are a positivity/negativity ratio of around 5 to 1, slightly more curiosity than advocacy, and slightly more interest in the outside world than ourselves.  We don’t add up these three variables.  Rather, they “feed” off each other. At any one time their coordinates (x,y,z) can be anywhere in a 3D space shaped like a 3D butterfly.

Happiness means we have a big plump space and the coordinates swoop around.  Unhappiness means they have a repetitive circle or limited space.  Here we see the dialectic between structure and function.

We are healthy when we are constantly regenerating ourselves in response to the world around us and what we were a minute ago.

We become ill when we don’t look after who we were one minute ago (right now in other words) and we don’t attend to what is going on around us.  We are ill when our head is anywhere except here and now.

There is room for day dreaming, planning and reminiscing.  But as the icing on the cake.  Devoting space to what we are not is not healthy. A healthy mind is asking what is going on now and celebrating what is rather than what is not.

For the non-research minded

For the non-research minded, lets think of a cake made of flour, eggs and sugar.  We can vary the proportions, or at least good a baker can, and by varying proportions we get a good range of delicious cakes.   To have one type of cake all the time is boring.  Happiness, in this analogy, is a wide variety of cakes from plain biscuits to luscious forest cakes.   We have a plain biscuit today and we feel like a rich cake tomorrow, and vice versa.

Life becomes grim when the recipe never changes or we try to swap eggs for something else (like potatoes).  We need constant variety within broad rules.

We need to enjoy each cake for what it is.  A dry biscuit is that.  It is not chocolate cake. It never will be.

We also need to bake the cake. Happiness is the cake. Not a line of eggs, sugar and flour on the kitchen table.  It is a baked cake.  It is the product of interacting parts mixed sensibly.

Poiesis

I didn’t know that poetry means makingAuto-poiesis is the poetry of ourselves. The constant interplay between structure (me) and function (the world).

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In politics, motivation isn’t important

In politics, motivation doesn’t matter

A political science professor once said to me “In politics, motivation doesn’t matter.”  I don’t think I have ever really understood that until I read the current Economist debate on “Who is leading the fight against climate change?”

Pro: Peggy Liu
“For Chinese people who see, smell and touch pollution every day, climate change leadership is closely related to personal health.” Read more

Con: Max Schulz
“China is not pursuing lower energy consumption per unit of GDP because of warming. It is pursuing it because it wants to be rich.” Read more

Does it matter why the Chinese reduce emissions. Surely if emissions are important then it is just important that they do?

How much credence do you give to motivation?

I’m trying to figure this out here.

I think that maybe when we feel out-of-control that we look for sound lasting relationships.

We are more likely to manage by outcomes when we have control.

What gives us a feeling of control?  Knowledge, a well-developed world view, the temperament of no-drama Obama, a willingness to accept that other people will act in their own interests?

Another spiral effect, I think. We trust because we trust.  And we don’t trust because we don’t trust.

Maybe when we worry about the motivation of others, we should stop and list all the factors that ARE under our control.  What can we count on?  How would we see the world then?

Am I on the right track?

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Social Media needs to work harder to show people its potential

Dear 2010 – phishing, scams and poor service from corporates

My first task of the New Year was to block any possible damage from a phishing exercise.  I received an email from “Virgin Media” saying my direct debit had bounced and that I should login to their ebilling to sort it out. I did.  But didn’t reset my details.  I went first to my bank site to check what was happening then looked at the email more closely.  I followed up an odd looking html address marking the place of a blocked picture and discovered this was a scam.  The owner of the website address had posted the details on 30 December 2009.  I was disappointed that Virgin hadn’t warned its customers and set about changing my passwords.  What a mission. I’ve still to drive to the next town to change the passwords at my global bank, locally.   You know who I am talking about.  The local branch is good but their global IT sucks.  What would happen if I was 1000 miles away from the local branch as in my last billet?

Social Media: at least we acknowledge #So.ME

With this dismal start to 2010, I calmed down with a cup of coffee and read blog posts with a jaded eye.  Straw men.  Blither and blather. Eventually, I got my head in order and replied to a post on Made in Many.  I think my reply will be incomprehensible to them but it may make perfect sense to people from turbulent places.

  • Social Media is a revolution.
  • It perhaps was not a deliberate revolution but those who wanted social change are chortling.
  • The old guard and the old guard who have got left behind are fretting.
  • The old guard who are fretting are wishing away the changes to communication and pecking orders.

So far, so ordinary or so “dittohead” to use Social Media slang.  This is where experience of living in a place that changed rapidly and often helps.

Social Media and Wars of Liberation

There are plenty of times in life when change is discontinuous.  We may have seen the change coming. We may not.  But discontinuous change is by definition abrupt and more importantly changes who are the winners and losers in life.

We are quite happy with change when we are winning.  We are obviously distressed when we are losing.

What do we do with people who are distressed by change?

First, let me tell you what does happen.

  • They “get it” and join in
  • They resent it and try to use their residual status to negotiate the change away (they try to blackmail us).
  • They resent it and “go underground”
  • They exit or withdraw
  • They are ejected.

We notice the second group and we are eventually bitten by third.  The fourth and fifth might cost us through their loss.

Let’s deal with the second group, as they were the subject of the Made by Many post.

If this had been a War of Liberation, we would have deliberately set out to change the pecking order. We would have had little sympathy for the losers but might have pragmatically included them in a policy of reconciliation ~ not because we loved them, you understand but to mitigate the cost of groups 2 to 5.

The parallels between social media and Wars of Liberation

Social Media was not a deliberate War of Liberation but it has similar revolutionary effects.  The old guard is being displaced. They could join in but for the most part they refuse.  Should we just ignore them?  Should we chide them for their surliness?

I don’t think so.

What should we do about people with high status who are trying to “wish away” change?

I think there is no going back. Social media has introduced a more democratic world.  Not a perfectly democratic world but a more democratic world.

I won’t be blackmailed by the old guard who refuse to use social media and use their old positions to try to block change.

But I will lay out a clear road map and tell them

  • How to take part
  • How they will benefit
  • Make them feel welcome

The issue is inclusion

I won’t be blackmailed. But I will put myself out to welcome them ~ because that is the issue. They have to come to terms with the new pecking order.  That is unavoidable.  And they will do that faster when they feel welcomed and accepted.

But there will, sadly, be those who persist in undermining or feel they have to “leave”.  We can only regard each of those as our failure to show them possibilities.  We can only regard each as a failure to show them possibilities.

Social change is never pretty.  And those who lead it should budget for side-effects.  They don’t have to put up with blackmail. They do have to budget for showing people the way (or spending money on defense).

You see, this is a common story. It’s happening as we speak in other arena too.

Social media is a peaceful revolution. But it is a revolution.  We have choices.  Go with history. Or don’t.  Lead others. Or don’t.  When we confront history we get hurt.  When don’t help confused people understand, we get hurt.

Social Media needs to do the work of bringing people into the fold

We need to get organized.  We cannot leave people behind.  Yes, it is their choice how they use social media but have we truly shown them how and assured them of their welcome.  Not their old status but the freedom to interact on the same terms as everyone else.

It is too expensive to leave people behind. We have to try again. And again. And when we are tired. Let someone else try. Maybe that is all that is needed to let the light burn in their eyes.

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Is it time to reap your harvest? If it is time, reap. Now.

My Dreams, My Works, Must Wait Till After Hell

I hold my honey and I store my bread

In little jars and cabinets of my will.

I label clearly, and each latch and lid

I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.

I am very hungry. I am incomplete.

And none can give me any word but Wait,

The puny light. I keep my eyes pointed in;

Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt

Drag out to their last dregs and I resume

On such legs as are left me, in such heart

As I can manage, remember to go home,

My taste will not have turned insensitive

To honey and bread old purity could love.

Gwendolyn Brooks

For everything there is a season

If we do not sow in spring and reap in summer, what will we have the autumn and winter?  And if we don’t eat the harvests we stored during the cold months, won’t they just rot?

We make ourselves unhappy when we muddle the seasons. Look again.  The harvest in the store is still there.   There is no need to eat it all at once. But eat.

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Are their eyes shining? The only question to ask when we lead others

Who am I being that my children’s eyes are not shining?

“It’s the same for parents. If their eyes are shining, you know you are doing it. If they’re not, you’ve got to ask a question – who am I being that my children’s eyes are not shining?”

Ben Zander

And if their eyes are not shining?

Maybe the wisdom of Tony de Mello will help.  Are you trying to make them do your bidding?  Could we put equal energy into developing a deep relationship between ourselves and others?

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17 ways to increase the productivity of new professors

The wandering university teacher

Displaced from my own country, I have been “on the road” now for 7 years.  In that time, I have taught at five different universities and colleges with quite different characters.  They have varied from the old to the new.  Students have come from all over the world.  And the staff ‘gave a damn’, or ‘didn’t’.

What my experiences have taught me is that there is a steep learning curve adjusting to the culture of a school.  ‘Old’ universities allowed for this by having long settling in periods.  People did not have a full teaching load at the outset and their responsibilities in other areas were reduced too.  There was often elaborate support outside the college with subsidized housing, sports facilities, etc.

17 ways to get a new lecturer up-to-speed quickly

In these days when colleges churn their staff and try to make every penny out of them that they can, it makes sense to manage the learning curve of their lecturers and professors.  This is what I have learned from my moves.

  1. Allocate some time to learn the culture of your school.   Arrange for people to observe various classes and pick up what works and what doesn’t.  I had the opportunity to do that at one school and something as simple as walking away from the podium into the audience, where the light was better, seemed to make students with happier.  I suspect students are sensitive to lecturer’s facial expressions and they need to see our faces.
  2. Have communication channels and time available for lecturers to hear and react to students reactions to classes.   Whatever method you choose, don’t divert student reactions to junior tutors or managers, neither of whom can pass feedback  on effectively.  When they receive feedback, positive or negative, their job should be to facilitate a meeting and direct communication.  In the days of the intranet, chatter channels where the lecturer is also a member, work quite well.
  3. Have people in the building who speak the students’ first language and are sufficiently comfortable with other cultures to explain differences in expectations without provoking defensiveness.
  4. Be honest about the level of your school.  As a general rule of thumb, over-ambition kills a teaching initiative. We cannot do more than the skills of students allow.  We cannot do more than the equipment and libraries support.  The dumbing-down happens not when we get students to take the next step in their learning curve.  The dumbing-down happens when we define a highfaluting curriculum and have to pretend students are doing tasks that are way-over-their-heads.  This seems to be a fault of weaker schools who are trying to pretend they are something they are not.
  5. Identify the teaching unit.  I taught a 2 hour class in one school and contended with 20 emails a day on its administration.  On the whole it is better to let one person start and finish something.  If one person cannot manage course from beginning to end, break it up into two courses!  What you spend on lecturer costs, you will surely save on admin and managing misunderstandings.
  6. Keep the degree structure simple.   The more students are swirling around registering and deregistering, the more admin you have to do and the harder it is to relate to them as people.  When you have complicated systems, the school begins to be run by the admin staff and lecturers increasingly stop being teachers.

And also consider the absolute basics

When I arrive to take up a new appointment, these are the minimum and not very demanding facilities that I need to be effective.

  1. A clean desk and 10 hour rated chair, a bookshelf, a new internet-enabled computer, and a lockable filing cabinet in an office that I can work in quietly, tutor students and leave my personal possessions and half-written exam papers quite safely.
  2. A file with the regulations that pertain to the course.
  3. A clear map of the computer servers and any information that I might need.
  4. A visit from IT to set up any passwords that I might need.
  5. Students enrolled and present no later than 10% into the course.
  6. A list of any other resources I have (budget, printing press, photocopiers, etc.)
  7. Library access and an opportunity to tour the library.
  8. Any previously prescribed textbooks and material.
  9. A written brief on the culture of the school.  If it is not written down, then do not be surprised when we trip over it!
  10. If there is a course manual, have the material presented in one place.  What I don’t want to see an idiosyncratic syllabus with a “goals” for students, then a “text”, then questions and model answers, then another set of goals for the lecturer, then another set of suggestions for class.  This is nonsense.  The text is the model answer and the questions answered by the text are the questions.  One manual should do the trick.
  11. Examinations should have the same assessment process as the in-term assessment.  If the students will write essays in the exam, then the continuous assessment should be essays, etc.  The examination should reflect the skill we are assessing and that is what students should be practicing during the term and that is what the classes and textbook should model.  If students cannot make the step-up to the assessment within a month of the course beginning, then perhaps the course should be redesigned.  The following two months should be for a repeat cycle with fresh content but the same skill.  The last month should be for revision.

Paradoxically, in the olden days when people moved in and hung about for decades, these facilities might have been in place.  Now that ‘managers’ have speeded-up the churn, they can’t always keep up with the business model that they have put in place.

My list of 17 as a gift to you.

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    Productivity 2.0 vs Productivity 1.0

    HRM in the long recovery

    People are starting to look for ideas on how to manage HRM during the (long) recovery.  Here is my best hunch.   Once we have gone past keeping the firm positive, which I’ve written about quite extensively, then we have to go back to some basic strategic HRM.  You know, the ‘hard’ stuff.  What we make around here.  Who buys it.  Who makes it.  The numbers.

    Here are 4 questions to set you on the road to asking about HRM strategy.

    Productivity 2.0 vs Productivity 1.0

    Does the company work assembly-line style? Is its central idea that the world will deliver a steady stream of repetitive work that you will do exactly as you did yesterday?

    OR does the company work with a variety of demands, working with the customers to streamline what they want?

    Does the company rely on a few people to think up work processes which are designed and then handed over to staff to execute, no matter what feedback is received from the market?

    OR does the company center the work around feedback from the market?

    Of course, once you have answered these questions, you do need to figure out what to do next.  But if you are clear about these questions, you are well on the way to cutting out 80% of the muddle that we see in HR.

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    To the American people & your better angels at the dawn of 2010

    Wise words for business students

    In every business school, first year students are taught these words.

    I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.


    You will recognize the words of Abraham Lincoln at the close of his Inauguration.

    The better angels of our nature

    We recognize the counsel to students.  Follow the common story Speak for the better angels of our nature.

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    An optimistic poem for a New Year

    Moving Forward

    The deep parts of my life pour onward,

    as if the river shores were opening out.

    It seems that things are more like me now,

    That I can see farther into paintings.

    I feel closer to what language can’t reach.

    With my senses, as with birds,

    I climb

    into the windy heaven, out of the oak,

    in the ponds broken off from the sky

    my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

    Rainer Maria Rilke

    Gratitude Diary and Appreciative Inquiry

    I’m not entirely sure what the last line of the poem means.  Other than that, this poem illustrates the process of writing a gratitude diary or being appreciative during organizational change.

    We look for those parts of the day where were feel as if we are pouring onward like a great river or soaring in the sky like a wild bird.  As we focus on those parts “things seem more like me now”.

    Happy 2010!

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