WorkPuzzle

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.

A Season For Meaning: More on Happiness...

Do you know anyone who has to numb themselves with excessive television, alcohol or other self-medicating vices when they return from work?  Chances are, the person is neglecting to build meaning into their work or into their life in general.

We’ve spent a great deal of time discussing the research around "happiness," and if you’ve been following along, you're aware that happiness and work are intimately tied in several ways.

Some recent research by Marshall Goldsmith's group sheds even more light on this fascinating topic.  His group surveyed over 3,000 well-educated (more than 60% have graduate degrees) managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals (split almost evenly between the sexes).  Their findings are worth a look, and offer insight into whether you will likely experience happiness or languish in your future.

“There is an incredibly high correlation between people's happiness and meaning at work and at home.  In other words, those who experience happiness and meaning at work tend also to experience them outside of work. Those who are miserable on the job are usually miserable at home.

The implication is unmistakable.  Since work and home are very different environments, our experience of happiness and meaning in life appears to have more to do with who we are than where we are.  Rather than blaming our jobs, our managers, and our customers—or our friends, family members, and communities—for our negative worklife experience, we might be better served by looking in the mirror.

One commonly expressed excuse for not getting more happiness and meaning out of life is: 'I'm working too many hours.'  But our results show that the number of hours worked had no significant correlation with happiness or meaning experienced at work or at home.  So much for that excuse.”

I am especially impressed with what the researchers found regarding people who seek short-term pleasure outside of work:

“We had (mistakenly) guessed that those who spent more time outside of work in activities that produced more short-term satisfaction might score higher on overall satisfaction.  After all, we assumed, people don't go home to find meaning; they want to relax.  We were wrong.  The correlations between happiness, meaning, and overall satisfaction at work and home were very similar.  Those who were more satisfied with life outside of work were the respondents who reported spending more time on activities that produced both happiness and meaning.”

I’m not sure if Marshall is familiar with Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who has found all of the above and below to be true, but their findings clearly mesh.  The below advice from Goldsmith can help you set some sound New Years resolutions:

“These links between how we spend our time and how we feel may seem confusing, but specific patterns arose—some commonsensical, some not.  Here are a few quick takeaways from our initial research:

• Reduce TV watching.  It's stimulating but doesn't increase overall satisfaction with life—at work or home.
• Cut back on surfing the Web for non-professional reasons.  It's negatively correlated with the experience of both happiness and meaning.
• Spend time exercising and with people you love (respondents who did this had more satisfaction with life at work and at home).
• Feeling challenged is linked to greater satisfaction, so challenge yourself.

What can companies do differently?  They might stop asking, 'What can the company do to increase employees' experience of happiness and meaning at work?' which encourages dependency.  Instead, managers can encourage employees to ask themselves, 'What can I do to increase my experience of happiness and meaning at work?'  This strategy may produce a higher return in employee commitment—and do so at a lower cost.”

It’s quite satisfying to see so much attention directed toward this misunderstood subject of happiness.  Especially when we learn that those who are focused on building meaning at home and at work will not only achieve it, but as I've mentioned in past articles...can "infect" others.  'Tis the Season!

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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 Research On Multi-Tasking

I recently came across some new research out of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, assessing the best conditions for successful multi-tasking.

We all have multiple tasks to execute daily in order to be successful.  Whether you're an owner, C-level executive, realtor or manager of realtors, without a good strategy for multi-tasking, you're performance will suffer.

The results of this research will not surprise the best performers, as they have probably been utilizing the following strategy intuitively.  The findings, however, serve as a great reminder for all of us.

Two separate experiments both found the following two points to be the most critical with regard to successful multitasking:

1. While the best performance is found when people stop thinking about one task and fully transition their attention to the next task, it is difficult for people to transition their attention away from an unfinished task.  As a result, their subsequent task performance suffers.  Being able to finish one task before switching to another is, however, not enough to enable effective task transitions.
2. Time pressure (or a time limit) when approaching a task is needed in order to help disengage from the first task and thus move to the next task.  This time-constrained approach to switching tasks contributes to higher performance on the next task.

Most of us can relate to these findings - Most successful people have done this at some point, if not currently.  Personally, my best performance almost always comes when I begin the day by listing the most important tasks to be completed, estimate the time to complete each task, hold myself to it, and then move, one by one, through the list of tasks.

Ask your best performers and those who are lagging what they do to plan their day - You may find the above strategy to be the differentiating factor between them.

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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.

Lessons Learned In Moneyball

If you haven't already, I would highly recommend reading the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael M. Lewis.  This book details the true story of the Oakland Athletics baseball team and their General Manager, Billy Beane, who was the first GM to question long held biases in recruiting and use only objective analysis in picking undervalued talent to win ballgames.

Between 1997 and 2008, under Beane's watch, the A's compiled a 976-804 (.548) record, which was the third-best record in the American League, and fifth best in all of baseball during that time frame.  In addition, the A's won four American League West titles (2000, 2002-03, and 2006) and secured one AL Wild Card spot (2001).  Over the last nine seasons, dating back to the 2000 campaign, the A's have compiled an 815-641 (.560) record, which is the third-best record in the American League and fourth-best mark in the Majors.

How did Beane accomplish this?  It wasn't with large sums of money.

"The central premise of Moneyball is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts, and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed.  Statistics such as stolen bases, runs batted in, and batting average, typically used to gauge players, are relics of a 19th century view of the game and the statistics that were available at the time.  The book argues that the Oakland A's' front office took advantage of more empirical gauges of player performance to field a team that could compete successfully against richer competitors in Major League Baseball.

Rigorous statistical analysis had demonstrated that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and the A's became convinced that these qualities were cheaper to obtain on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact.  These observations often flew in the face of conventional baseball wisdom and the beliefs of many baseball scouts and executives.

By re-evaluating the strategies that produce wins on the field, the 2002 Athletics, with approximately $41 million in salary, are competitive with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, who spend over $100 million in payroll.  Because of the team's smaller revenues, Oakland is forced to find players undervalued by the market, and their system for finding value in undervalued players has proven itself thus far." (Wikipedia: Moneyball)

That was in 2002.  And the A's record of wins didn't really begin to falter until 2007, when at least ten other teams began to copy the A's formula for successful recruiting.

And what is that formula?  It boils down to this:  The strategy is to find players who have the highest on-base percentage.  They really don't consider hitting percentage - They go as far to say, "We don't care whether they even look like an athlete."  If they are good enough to play at the college or minor league level, get on base, and then know how to work the count to get a lot of walks...they want them.

This new way of analyzing baseball players is called:  Sabermetrics (the analysis of baseball through objective evidence).

"Moneyball has made such an impact in professional baseball that the term itself has entered the lexicon of baseball.  Teams which appear to value the concepts of sabermetrics are often said to be playing 'Moneyball'.  Baseball traditionalists, in particular some scouts and media members, decry the sabermetric revolution and have disparaged Moneyball for emphasizing concepts of sabermetrics over more traditional methods of player evaluation.  Nevertheless, the impact of Moneyball upon major league front offices is undeniable. In its wake, teams such as the New York Mets, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, Washington Nationals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Indians, and the Toronto Blue Jays have hired full-time Sabermetric analysts."  (Wikipedia: Moneyball)

The question for all of us is this:  What subjective and flawed assumptions have we all accepted without questioning regarding sourcing, recruiting, coaching and agent performance?

Those brave enough to question the status quo through statistical analysis may find ways to succeed that were never previously discovered... 

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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.

 

The Three Rules Of Scalable Recruiting - Part 2

As promised, here are the Three Primary Rules for developing a scalable new agent recruiting process:

Rule #1:  There is no replacing a guaranteed, consistent, and large number of high quality candidates across the entire calendar year.

Rule #2:  Because of this large influx of candidates, one must have a system that tracks and enables consistent contact with every candidate from- first interest- through interview- to hire, so as to minimize any candidates falling through the cracks or being lost to competitors.

Rule #3:  Finding a manager who can consistently execute the above rules should be considered an anomaly.  You can find managers who are good recruiters, but to replicate their methods is extraordinarily difficult because they’ve developed their own personal system.  If you depend on the managers alone to do your recruiting, you’re running the risk of inconsistent recruiting.  In our experience of directing large flows of candidates toward managers, we’ve found that they simply aren’t wired to complete the tasks required to contact each candidate at the frequency we’ve seen essential for good results.  This is not an insult to managers.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Good managers are wired to be good at interactions, leading, inspiring, coaching, and of course… their own, individual, idiosyncratic, style of recruiting.  They are very good at sitting across the desk from a candidate and inspiring them to become an agent - Our numbers consistently show that most managers convert 25% of their interviews into new agents who are excited about joining their company.  So… get them a lot of people to interview!

[Addendum to Rule #3:  If you are executing on Rule #1 (having a consistent, large volume of candidates), then a central recruiting coordinator who is “wired” to handle the large number of tasks it takes to execute Rule #1 is essential.]

Because of the first two rules, companies must simultaneously execute two recruiting systems.  One system should encourage the development and accountability of each manager recruiting through their own personal methods, and the other should include systems built with the first two rules bolted on the side.  Remember, I am talking about a “scalable, repeatable recruiting system.”  This must be a system that allows everyone to do their best work every day.  It must not be a system that requires dependency on any one person, nor should it be difficult to replicate.

And most importantly, everyone involved must appreciate each other’s work across all parts of the process, for each piece takes an enormous amount of consistent work.  Sourcing large numbers of candidates, funneling these contacts toward interviews, trying to convert these into hires, etc…all are pieces of an important puzzle and must be acknowledged. 

When the above rules are followed, it will not only have a substantial impact on improving results, but will also reduce the level of frustration for everyone involved.

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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.

The Three Rules Of Scalable Recruiting

We’ve recently had the pleasure of presenting at the Realty Alliance Conference in New York City, during which time we touched base with many of our clients, in addition to meeting roughly forty other leaders in the real estate industry, whom we previously only knew by name.
 
Preparing for the presentation provided me with a good excuse to spend some time boiling down some of what we’ve learned over the past five years regarding recruiting.  I initially came up with a very long and rather cumbersome and detailed list of rules, but soon whittled it down to a concise and potent list of Three Rules.

Before sharing these rules with you, allow me to briefly review some important principles around science and research design that has given us the ability to deduce these rules.
 
When one sets out to improve results of any kind, one must do more than analyze just the results.  However, many business people do just this, especially where preconceived beliefs and biases have been in place for many years.  Excuse the exaggeration, but what many people end up doing, is simply looking at the results exclusively, and demanding, “Give me better results today than I had yesterday,” or simply, "We need to get better results!"

What happens under these conditions is that a very wide variety of systems and methods become adopted by those who have been charged with the task of “delivering results.”  These haphazard systems contain such personal and idiosyncratic twists that the methods are impossible to replicate across all territories or offices.  When this occurs, the organization loses any ability to replicate any success, and instead becomes dependent on a few superstars who are the only ones who can pull off their own personal method of recruiting (or any other task for that matter).

The scientific method is a much different process than the above.  The scientific method regarding any sort of improvement sets out to:

• Determine all variables that might have a significant impact on the result.
• Manipulate those variables until the results are significantly improved.

 And then most importantly…

• Assess if these same variables can be similarly manipulated and the results replicated in other environments (across offices, corporate cultures, territories, country, etc.).

In essence, this is what we, at Tidemark, set out to do five years ago - And we want to thank many of our clients who have allowed us to experiment in their backyard.  Many of you are likely aware of several of our methods derived from the above process.  (If you aren’t, please contact me.)

I'll give you a couple of days to chew on the above information.  See if you can guess what we've figured out to be the Three Simple Rules to Scalable Recruiting.  I'll include them later this week.  Stay tuned... 

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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 Recruiting and Retention Essential

It really pays to periodically sit in on real estate meetings and glean the latest strategies around the subjects of recruiting and retention... In a packed house of 50 managers, I witnessed a fascinating presentation regarding the appropriate use of social networking tools.  No, I’m not talking about going to the next Rotary meeting... I’m talking about the dreaded, often demeaned, frequently misunderstood tools of Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and others...

I’ve heard and read a great deal of information about the importance of these tools.  On a personal front, I've been hearing news from my daughter that her nationally renowned professors focus a great deal on social networking as part of her Journalism/Public Relations education at The University of Oregon.  But what caught my attention this time, was a story told by a real estate executive regarding retention.

There happens to be a middle-aged manager from a competing company who has made it his newfound task to learn as much as he can about Facebook.  This manager is doing two specific things that have increased both retention and recruiting in his organization.  Both of these activities clearly put into practice what I have preached again and again:  The importance of building relationship credibility.

Here’s what he does:

1. He asks all of his agents and every competing agent he meets to become his “Friend” on Facebook. He does this in a gradual, polite, and non sales-like way.
2. He then dedicates a few hours per week to making sure he comments on what these agents post. He comments on pictures and events, answers questions (not related to real estate), and shows that he is interested in each of these individual's lives.

In reality, he is substituting these small “touches” for what would amount to several mini chance meetings, where he has the opportunity to express interest in who these people are.  From both his existing and competing agents, he is able to obtain greater familiarity with who they are, what they value, who they are responsible for (family), and thus build stronger relationship credibility.  It's important to know, that he never “sells” while he is on Facebook.  He merely gets to know the people (notice I didn't say "agents"), and responds to their postings. 

Apparently he networks so well, that he eventually asks the competing agents out for coffee, which is so much more natural given the previously established connection, and finally asks them to consider working for him.  Agents have left their companies for this competing manager because they feel he actually knows and values them, and more importantly, he has the desire to know them!

If you are a manager and you haven’t yet learned how to Facebook, you may soon find both your experienced-agent recruiting, and more importantly, your retention, in serious trouble.  Younger managers are doing this without being told to.  They do it naturally, as part of their day, like brushing their teeth.

If you are older than 32, you finally have a very good reason to get yourself up to speed with regard to social networking.  If you don't, you're in danger of falling behind in the on-going competition of recruitment and retention.

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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 Revisited

Six months ago, I described the research around the fascinating topic of resilience.  Since then, I have had the opportunity to witness, first hand, examples of people who are living out, daily, the characteristics of what the research tells us.  It appears that we are headed out of the current economic crisis, but it won’t be the last time that we need to respond resiliently to stressful times.

The research regarding resilience clearly describes “no middle ground” when it comes to peoples' response to stressful situations.  There are only two possible outcomes:  (1) Either you’ll become stronger and more successful, OR (2) You’ll become weaker, less mentally healthy, and less likely to do great things in the future.

Which outcome best describes you and your response to stressful situations?  The answer to this question depends on how you’re able to handle job-related stress, and whether you are capable of becoming a resilient person. 

Management consultants Salvatore Maddi and Deborah Khoshaba conducted a 12-year study of the Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT) company staff, who were enduring almost constant organizational change during the deregulation changes in the telephone industry.

Every year for 12 years, 450 IBT employees (including supervisors, managers and executives) were interviewed, evaluated, given psychological tests, and given medical examinations.  Everyone in the organization was feeling stress, and almost 50% of those sampled lost their jobs at some point during the study.  The purpose of the study was to research how people under job-related stress handled these difficult conditions.

The research revealed that employees reacted to the stress in two distinct ways:

• 65% of the employees suffered additional serious stress-related events in their lives such as divorce, heart attacks, depression, anxiety, and drug/alcohol abuse.
• 35% of the employees actually thrived under the stress. Those who remained at IBT, rose to the top of the heap. Those who left either started companies of their own, or took strategically important employment in other companies.

When the data started to show a distinct difference between the two groups of employees, the researchers then attempted to quantify what caused a person to be part of the second group.

In their book, Resilience at Work, the researchers outlined their findings.  A “resilient person” is someone who possesses and embraces the following: (1) commitment, (2) control, and (3) challenge.

“As times get tough, if you hold these attitudes, you'll believe that it is best to stay involved with the people and events around you (commitment) rather than to pull out, to keep trying to influence the outcomes in which you are involved (control) rather than to give up, and to try to discover how you can grow through the stress (challenge) rather than to bemoan your fate.”

In short, a steadfast commitment allowed resilient employees to engage more fully in the job at hand (or with a new opportunity for those who lost their jobs).  This helped them to understand and interpret the events that were having an impact on them.

Their sense of control empowered the resilient employees to consider ways that they could proactively influence the changes that were affecting them.  Their less resilient colleagues tended to passively withdraw effort, believing there was little they could do to impact what they believed was their fate.
 
Lastly, the resilient employees interpreted the stressors and changes as a challenge, and tended to search out the potential opportunities that change would bring about.  They took the outlook that change is an inevitable part of life.  It didn’t mean that these people enjoyed the stress, but the positive outlook they embraced positioned them to keep an eye open for new opportunities.

On Wednesday, I’ll reveal the primary coping skills that separated the employees who grew, from those who languished as a result of the immense stress.

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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.

Do we have to Manage with the Brain in Mind?

One of our clients recently brought to my attention the work of David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, authors of an article titled “The Neuroscience of Leadership.”  The article can be found on-line at Strategy + Business (summer 2006).  

The premise of the article is to propose a way for managers to view their jobs through the filter of how their management practices impact the brains (and therefore the behavior) of all involved.  The authors boil down their findings to a catchy acronym, “SCARF,” to represent five social qualities: (1)status, (2)certainty, (3)autonomy, (4)relatedness, and (5)fairness.  They explain that all five social qualities must be experienced in any given organization in order for creativity and productivity to increase.

Rock and Schwartz reference several very good research projects in order to build a compelling case of the importance of enabling the sense of reward, and minimizing the threat response in the workplace.  All of this is good information, and I did find it interesting to read.  However, while I plan to fill you in on the good, I feel compelled to provide you some cautionary thoughts as well.

Here is a summary:

Brain research reveals that the origin of the sensation of physical pain is similar in proportion and location, to the area of the brain that is activated when someone experiences social rejection.  The authors use this and other research to build a case toward remembering the social qualities of SCARF. This is very cool stuff to be sure… But, just because something is interesting and intriguing, does not necessarily mean it is important and relevant!

For some reason, everyone is interested in the brain.  Marcus Buckingham has called it the “Decade of the Brain.”  Some of my most popular blogs have been regarding the brain and related research findings.  And don’t get me wrong, as I said, I think the brain and research on the brain is really cool stuff.  What I’m uneasy about is when someone uses brain research to shape their own ideas, and then to sell consulting around these theories while inferring that their view of it all is accepted theory.

It's not that I don’t think Rock and Schwartz are helping companies.  I’m sure they are - Because what they are sharing has so much intuitive reality already built in.  There is nothing wrong with redundancy - we all need to hear principles of truth again and again.  However, I don’t know about you, but I didn't need to know what happens in the brain to know why certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness are a good thing.

I don’t fault Rock and Schwartz for trying to build a consulting practice around information about the brain.  That is not what my caution is about.  What I’m wondering is:  Have we become callous to applying good old general psychological principles... or better yet common sense?  Perhaps what has happened is that we need to hear something about the brain (something tangible and important sounding) to make it important to us.  Whatever it is, there are people taking advantage of this mindset - They are using it to sell us services.

In the long run, if the services do us good then there is no apparent harm done.  What I fear is that we are resisting good old fashion right and wrong.  Certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness are the RIGHT things to develop in your company.  And yes, because of this, all research should find all brain data to reinforce these truths.

Don’t wait for the research--- Remember what's right, remember the old-fashioned Golden Rule, and find ways to apply it daily.  

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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.

 

River People

No, I'm not talking about the guy who lives in a van down by the river (Saturday Night Live).  I'm referring to the type of person we're all capable of becoming; the kind that is typically a much better hire; the kind you need to help develop in your organization.  
 
Over the past 25 years of providing psychotherapy, my chief mission has been to free people from unconscious ruts that control their lives.  This isn't easy.  People rarely see how they have boxed themselves into a view of themselves and a view of the world that limits their perspective, beliefs and actions.

When a person is in a rut, they limit their own movement, growth, vision and freedom to act.  They see the world in a fixed way, and try to convince everyone around them that their "rut trapped" perspective is indeed reality.  The way they lead their life unveils consistent themes, describing their own personal rut repeatedly acted out.

A person who is not stuck in a rut flows like a river, emanating wisdom, humor, and humility even in difficult times.  They may have a long list of things that haven't worked out, but have no regrets for their efforts. 

When things are going well, economically and emotionally, it is much more difficult to differentiate the "rut people" from the "river people."  However, in these difficult times, ruts are bound to surface.  Even the most fluid people can be temporarily thrown into a rut in these extreme circumstances, simply because life isn't familiar or secure.

Losing a job, a home, and plans for the future can certainly appear as an insurmountable rut. "River people" however, don't allow themselves to get stuck there.  They manage to continually pull themselves up and out of the rut, dust themselves off, and move on with life.  I feel fortunate to know many river people.

As leaders, you owe it to yourself and those you coach to help free them from their ruts.  Whether you're coaching or interviewing new candidates, help them find hope and envision the opportunities that can unfold if they exercise the "formula for confidence."  Help them realize their freedom and potential through new ideas, new innovations, new training, new commitments, new values, and perhaps even an entirely new direction.

You'll find that everyone within an organization benefits once the individual tributaries find their "flow," and can contribute their full potential once again.  It's not only practical to encourage this hope, it's the right thing to do.

But, change is difficult - Most healthy, rational people avoid change, preferring instead the security and safety of what is known.  Ironically however, change can produce incredible growth, if responded to effectively.  If you're interviewing new candidates without both empathy around change PLUS the encouragement to change, your missing an incredibly useful and helpful tool. 

Have candidates answer this question:  When have you experienced the most growth in your life?  For most people the answer is when they were undergoing tremendous change, accompanied by uncertainty...perhaps when they were much younger.

It's normal to risk more when we're younger, because we don't have that much to lose.  If you analyze that statement, you will begin to see the problem:  Security and hanging onto what we've acquired becomes paramount for most of us when we're older.  We cling to it and cherish it, without ever reflecting on its inherent value to our well-being.

Of course it's irresponsible to take foolish risks.  But, you can also make the argument that it is foolish to follow a course of action simply because it offers the illusion of security.

For some inspiration on becoming a manager who hires and develops "river people," read and insert the word manager for friend in the below quote:

“A true friend (manager) knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.”    -William Arthur Ward

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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.