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Number 123

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores ten “Great Ideas” in his intriguing book, “The Happiness Hypothesis – Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom.” Each chapter describes an important idea that has been discovered by several of the world’s civilizations, and examines that idea in light of modern scientific research.

The ancient truth providing a foundation for the book is that the human mind is the divided into two parts – the conscious, reasoning side and the emotional side – and those parts are often in conflict.

The image Haidt uses to describe our divided mind is that of a rational Rider perched upon a powerful, passionate Elephant. The Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because it is so small relative to the powerful Elephant.

Reason and emotion can work together to create intelligent behavior, but the emotional, intuitive Elephant actually does most of the work. And when the Elephant wants to go its own way, the Rider is helpless.

Chip Heath & Dan Heath build upon Haidt’s Elephant and Rider analogy in their compelling new book, “Switch – How to Change Things When Change is Hard.” They explain, “Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched.”

The Heaths point to research that suggests that self-control is an exhaustible resource. They say that dozens of studies demonstrate that self-supervision is exhausting. In other words, when you try to change things, like your eating or work habits, your Rider is called upon to work hard. After a while, a tired Rider won’t be able to lead an unwilling Elephant and you will run out of will power.

While changing yourself or others is never easy, the Heaths say it will be easier if you can get the Rider and the Elephant to work together. They offer a three-part framework to guide your change process:

• Direct the Rider. What looks like resistance to change is often a lack of clarity. Speed the process by offering clear direction:
  • Focus on bright spots. Find areas that are working, and then clone them.
  • Script the critical moves. Instead of trying to capture the entire big picture, specify manageable immediate steps in the right direction.
  • Point to the destination. Find a simple way of explaining where you are going and why it is worth it.

• Motivate the Elephant. Connect on an emotional level, to keep the Elephant moving forward:
  • Find the feeling. When people push for change and it doesn’t happen they may chalk it up to a lack of understanding. But we can’t simply think our way into a new behavior. It’s emotion that gets the Elephant moving.
  • Shrink the change. Break down the change until it is so small that it no longer spooks the Elephant.
  • Grow your people. Cultivate a sense of identity with the project and instill an optimistic growth mind-set, so that your team feels like it can manage the change.

• Shape the Path. If you want people to change, make the process easier:
  • Tweak the environment. If you change the situation, the behavior will change.
  • Build habits. The more instinctive a behavior becomes, the less self-control it requires from the Rider, and the more sustainable it becomes.
  • Rally the herd. Behavior is contagious. Help it spread by modeling the behavior and recruiting early followers.

Number 122

Benjamin Franklin had only two years of formal schooling, but he educated himself to become a leading American thinker, an extraordinary innovator and a major Enlightenment figure.

As a teenager, Franklin methodically taught himself to write and speak well. He read essays in leading English journals, took brief notes, then later recreated the essays in his own words. Franklin found ways to develop his skill sets and later he found ways to teach others to do the same thing.

In his days as a printer, Franklin published “Poor Richard's Almanack,” which is best remembered for the maxims that he scattered throughout each annual issue. Franklin borrowed wisdom from the classics and folklore and restated it in pithy, succinct prose. He shared his philosophy of self-management with gems like these:

• A good example is the best sermon.
• Diligence is the mother of good luck.
• Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.
• He’s a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom.
• No gains without pains

In his autobiography, Franklin described the way that, as a young man, he attempted to systemically shape certain of his own standards of behavior. He undertook, he said, a "bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection."

In the course of this self-help project, Franklin listed thirteen “virtues” he wanted to develop. Then he created a book with columns for each day of the week, in which he marked with black spots any offenses against each virtue.

Franklin, speaking of these early efforts with a sense of humor, said that he eventually realized that perfection cannot be attained. Nevertheless, he felt better and happier because of his attempt. Among the characteristics Franklin worked on were:

• Order – “Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.” (Franklin said that this was the toughest “virtue” for him.)
• Resolution — “Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
• Frugality — “Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”
• Industry — “Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
• Sincerity — “Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.”

A business friend I’ll call Sam is now a very wealthy man, and he seems to be very happy as well. Sam has had several careers and pursued many entrepreneurial projects. Our paths have crossed for close to 30 years, but most often when Sam’s career has been in a tough patch.

I have seen Sam when his business has been crashing, his industry has been cratering and his personal life has been in stress. I have watched him fight off the specter of bankruptcy at least twice, and have seen prospective clients and investors tell him “no” time after time.

Although I’ve had a close view of several of Sam’s crises, I don’t think I’ve ever heard him complain or cast blame. When a partner left him in the lurch in the 1980s, I learned from the way he faced the situation. He said, “Bev, these things are just gonna happen. It’s important not to waste energy on gettin’ angry. We gotta look to the future. We’ll just keep trying things until something hits, and it’ll all work out.” Sam kept focused on his next goals, and in fact things did work out, despite fall after fall.

Sam may have been born with an indomitable spirit, but we all can learn from the way he handles career failures. A key is how Sam talks to himself and others. When things go wrong he doesn’t obsess about it, and he doesn’t indulge in self-pity. Instead, he faces the facts and quickly starts searching for next steps.

Research suggests that we can indeed become more resilient. My coaching colleague Mary Jane Reed often addresses the issue in workshops and client work, so I asked her to share some thoughts. She said, “We can build resiliency not only for ourselves but also for our work teams and families. Although some individuals are wired with resiliency from birth, we are all capable of growing our ‘reservoirs of resiliency.’” Here are her tips:

• Face facts and move on. Reed says, “resilient people are able to ‘face down’ reality and not see the world through rose-colored glasses … Resilient people reflect on the situation and ‘create bridges’ to the future. They ask ‘how can I use this experience to build a stronger foundation, business, career path?’ Also, they continually improvise: ‘What have I not thought about? What else could I do?’”
• Plan for the worst. Reed suggests you think strategically about potential challenges. It can be useful to address questions like, “What if I lose my job? What if I lose my partner? What if our company servers go down?” She says, “If we think through these issues before they happen, we can adapt more quickly to changes and take steps to recover from their impact. We avoid the ‘dazed period’ when we are immobilized, and we can act quickly. Also, worse case scenario discussions can help your teams perform well when a crisis does occur.”
• Get and stay connected. “Develop a strong network of positive relationships,” Reed says. “These relationships need to be established and nurtured long before times of crisis. Friends and family provide support and acceptance during hard times. And encourage teamwork and networking within your organization so others can benefit as well.”
• Meet the crisis. Know that hard times are part of life. If you are facing a challenge now, Reed suggests that you:
  • Encourage humor because it can help you and your organization keep valuable perspective, and laughter helps reduce stress.
  • Take care of yourself and encourage others to do the same. This includes getting enough ZZZs because sleep deprivation reduces our cognitive functioning and our ability to handle stress.
  • Set short-term goals and routines even if the “big picture” is hazy. Reed often encourages people who are out of work to get dressed every morning and set simple goals for each day.
  • Reflect on what is working and what is not working, and adjust accordingly. Take time with friends, family or colleagues to discuss the situation and brainstorm additional options.
  • Take action. It is important to make some kind of plan and put it in motion, even if you’ll probably change it later.

Ted Leonsis believes “that happiness can be achieved by approaching it with the same degree of discipline and rigor that’s needed to build a successful business.” And some of the same rules for individuals also apply to institutions. His very readable book “The Business of Happiness,” relies on three concepts:

• Pursue goals. You increase your chances of becoming happy if you treat happiness like an entrepreneur would approach building a business, with a vision and the systematic pursuit of a plan and goals.
• Take care of business. Leonsis argues that enterprises will do better if they consider themselves in “the happiness business.”
• Start with happiness. “Happiness is a driver of success, not the other way around,” Leonsis says.

Leonsis believes that the happiest and most successful people live by several basic tenets, including:

• Set life goals. People are more likely to be happy if they pay attention to whether they are on track to reach their goals. Leonsis said that writing and pursuing his “Life List” – the goals he wanted to accomplish in his life – did not by themselves make him happy. Yet he credits the writing of that list and his “dogged, faithful effort to accomplish” those goals as a necessary aspect of his quest for happiness. He advises the rest of us to, “Just write the list. Start now.”
• Connect with communities. Leonsis says that the more communities in which you are an active participant, the more likely it is that you’ll be happy and successful. In his own life, he has encountered opportunities and fostered innovation because of the broad variety of circles within which he circulates. “I work it,” he says of his “ever-expanding universe of interests and friends and communities.” Leonsis is a conspicuous extrovert, but he says that the same rule applies to introverts.
• Say thanks. Like many of the experts, Leonsis says that a critical ingredient in finding happiness is being able to express gratitude. Feeling thankful helps us to stay grounded and is a way to arrest the harmful domino effect of a bad day becoming a bad week. And, he says, “empathy, gratitude, giving back to society, and having a higher calling are all part of a continuum.”

According to Daniel H. Pink, Wikipedia has been extraordinarily successful because “it represents the most powerful new business model of the twenty-first century: open source.” In explaining the strength of open source projects where volunteers are welcome to participate, Pink sites research showing that contributors are motivated by the enjoyment they feel when they master a challenge in a creative way.

There is a role in the workplace for bonuses and other “carrot and stick” motivators, particularly for routine tasks. In his intriguing book “Drive”, Pink writes that “Rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus…They help us stare ahead and race faster.”

But, Pink says, “For more right-brain undertakings – those that demand flexible problem-solving, inventiveness or conceptual understanding – contingent rewards can be dangerous.”

In other words, if a task is tedious the promise of a bonus upon completion may keep us hustling. But research suggests that an external “carrot” might actually chill our interest in a creative challenge, like participating in an open source project. What is more likely to get our juices flowing is the fun of working with others to create something new.

Pink describes decades of research, including in the field of “positive psychology,” that helps explain why intrinsic motivation is a key to stimulating high performance. Scholars have demonstrated that our activities are shaped by three powerful drives, he says. Human beings want to be:

• Autonomous. We are more likely to enjoy our work if we can do it in our own way and according to our own schedule. And we are more likely to perform well if we can choose our own team.
• Competent. We like to do things well. We are more likely to be creative if we find a project to be satisfying and challenging. And if we can find a profession where we want to improve at even the most mundane tasks – where we are willing to work toward mastery -- we are likely to be happy.
• Connected. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Pink says, “Autonomous people working toward mastery perform at very high levels. But those who do so in the service of some greater objective achieve even more.” The “purpose motive” is a powerful source of energy