What Bosses Should Be Looking For

 

Check out the latest blog post by Positive Acorn ~ are you on the right path to help your employees be successful?

 

  

What Bosses Should Be Looking For

Many of the challenges that we see cross our path at Positive Acorn have to do with creating a positive company culture. Recently we were asked to spearhead a cultural shift in an organization that was struggling. In the past 24 months, this company had seen a huge increase in employee turnover. We knew that there could be many reasons-- difficult work or low pay, for instance-- but one explanation stood out. They were simply hiring the wrong people. They had a workforce of highly competent individuals, many of whom were negative and had poor communication and self-care habits. Choosing the right person for the right job can be quite a difficult task. Here is what we know: it's not about hiring the right person for the job anymore.

Companies often make the crucial mistake of using old practices when they should be using best practices. An example of this is that many well established companies are using the same old interview questions that they used ten years ago. The problem with this is that the context of work has changed. We have learned that Generation-X tends to be less loyal to companies than their predecessors. They tend to leave a company if they feel dissatisfied.We also know that members of Generation-Y are looking for meaning as well as a paycheck. Managers looking to employ the younger set need to focus, therefore, on values as well as skills.

Here are a couple of suggestions for hiring;

1) Stop looking for the right person for the job.

I know this doesn't sound correct, but hear me out. Rather than looking to see if the person could do the job or not try looking the person's values and character. No doubt that it is important to find someone who is capable of the tasks at hand but what is more important is if the person is right for the organization. Let's face it- you wouldn't be interviewing them if they didn't meet the qualifications of the job in the first place. A great question to ask yourself before hiring someone is "what kind of impact do I want the person in this position to have on our culture?"

2) Interview for potential not qualifications.

There is no need to look for job specific qualifications during the interview process. The primary purpose of a resume is to highlight these. Instead, employers should be asking questions that elicit the individual's strengths, character, and process by which they solve problems. Ask questions like "How do you feel you still need to develop personally?" or "How do you experiment?" This allows the person to share more deeply about who they are, what their values are, and what they hope to accomplish in this lifetime.

Hiring the right person for the culture is a better indicator of employment satisfaction and longevity than hiring for the job, especially in today's job market. One of our favorite sayings is; "You can teach skill but you can't teach character." We always welcome your thoughts and comments.

Positive Acorn - http://positiveacorn.com/

 

Spring Ahead!!

The Capp Blogg

Spring Forward! Five Ways to Get More Energy

 

Posted: 02 Apr 2013 12:09 AM PDT

Posted by: Emma Trenier, Senior Psychologist, Capp

 

March in the UK was very un-spring-like, with the enduring snow and cool temperatures. It’s no wonder that everyone seemed a little under the weather.  So, with clocks having gone forward last weekend, what can you do to put a spring in your step?

 

 

1. Take time out from energy sappers - we all spend time with some people who make us feel great and others who sap our energy. If you are already feeling low, take a break from the interactions and situations where you know you will leave feeling worse than when you arrive.

 

2. Find a different way to tackle draining tasks - if the approach you are taking isn’t working, don’t keep doing it. Seek the exception to the rule, a time when you found a similar task enjoyable. Why was this occasion different? Could you do it this way again?

 

3. Stop mulling over things that have gone wrong – when we do something wrong or make a mistake, many of us are inclined to dwell on it. We might think it is our fault, we won’t be able to change and the consequences will be dire. Instead, take a leaf out of the optimists’ book and try considering the other factors involved. What can you do to put it right? Put the consequences into perspective.

 

4. Celebrate other people’s good news – relationship researchers tell us that active responding versus passive responding is beneficial to relationships when things go wrong in people’s lives and also when they go right. When someone greets you with their good news, why not ask them to tell you more, share their happiness with them and capitalize on the moment.

 

5. Use your unrealized strengths - discover what your unrealized strengths are by taking Realise2 or asking yourself what you are good at and enjoy doing but don’t do very much. Find a way to do it more. For example, if you have an unrealized strength in Courage, challenge yourself to do something scary every day – or at least every week!

Put these tips into practice and feel the energy start to flow. After all, summer is just around the corner!

 

 

This Blog is provided by the Center for Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP)

Visit the CAPP Blog at:  http://blog.cappeu.com

 

5 Myths of Positive Psychology

There's more to happiness research than meets the eye.

Published on April 1, 2013 by Robert Biswas-Diener in Significant Results

 

Psychology in general, and positive psychology in particular, are different from all other sciences. Because every human has personal experience with psychological concepts—emotions, motivation, and decision making, for instance—people tend to form opinions about these topics. You rarely find a lay person with a strong opinion about when to focus on “log income” (an economic term) or who has a pet theory about “light refraction” (physics), or who believes that some of the results from research on telomeres (biology) may be over stated. By contrast, you often come across people who hold a strong opinion about the causes of happiness or who can whip off some supposed statistic about the relationship between money and happiness. In part this is because people are generally more interested in happiness than they are in light refraction (sorry, physicists). It is also, in part, the result of misinformation and misunderstandings related to the science of positive psychology. Here are 5 commonly held assumptions about positive psychology topics that are—well—not true:

 

1. Severely disabled people adapt back to their earlier levels of happiness: In 1978, Brickman, Coates and Janoff-Bullman published an article on the happiness of lottery winners and accident victims. These days their findings are commonly interpreted by lay people as hopeful evidence that people can adapt to just about anything. Unfortunately, the original article showed that the 29 accident victims, interviewed between one month and one year following their accident, reported that they thought the accident was just about the worst thing that could have happened to them. They reported significantly lower pleasure and also remembered there past happiness as being significantly better than did members of a control group. Their current happiness was higher than you might expect and their predicted future happiness was no different from that of the controls. The authors concluded that disabled people tended to idealize their past and that this did not help their current happiness. This finding—that disability is psychologically difficult—has been replicated with larger samples using more sophisticated research designs. One interesting finding related to this topic is that income is a factor in how well disabled people adapt to their new circumstances with wealthier individuals—presumably—able to afford more help and conveniences.

2. 40% of your happiness is the result of your own choices: This idea is the result of a well-known pie chart created by Sonja Lyubomirsky who, interestingly enough, does not believe this myth herself. Lyubomirsky has simply summarized research that suggests that genetics, life circumstances and personal choices are all implicated in the differences in levels of happiness between people. Unfortunately, the public has run away with this pie chart and misinterpreted it as if it has something to do with an individual’s happiness; it does not. If you think about it, it is nonsensical to speak about 40% of your happiness being the result of personal choices. Further, within an individual it does not make sense to separate genetics from circumstances from personal choices. All three interact and mutually influence one another. In the end, it is the spirit of the pie chart that people warm to: the notion that you have some control over your own happiness. Rest assured, that sentiment is correct.

Happiness Pie Chart created by Sonja Lyubomirsky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Making more money won’t make you any happier. This is a very popular myth and you hear it voiced in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is “money matters to happiness only up to the level of 10 thousand dollars a year and then it no longer matters” and sometimes it is “As countries get wealthier they do not enjoy a corresponding rise in happiness.” In either case the data don’t exactly back up these well-intended statements. People warm to these myths largely because of their anti-materialism messages. Unfortunately, gaining more income does appear to be associated with more happiness and—at the national level—household income reliably predicts happiness. This is because money can be translated to psychological security, more leisure and self-growth pursuits, better goal pursuit, better national infrastructure and a whole host of other individual and collective benefits. Again, the mis-interpreters may miss the mark on the research results but still hit home on an important message: placing income before people can detract from happiness and, at the national level, there can be environmental consequences for rampant consumption. A more accurate take-home would be “financial circumstances can affect happiness but is certainly not the most important factor.”

4. Good moods motivate change. There has long been an assumption on the behalf of lay people that emotions motivate behavior. You can see this when someone says “I only yelled because I was angry.” Modern scientists tend to distinguish between emotional expression (e.g. yelling) and the actual feeling of emotion. Emotions are information, giving you a quick thumbs up/thumbs down about the current quality of your life. Emotions provide insight. They can pave the way for change but they do not necessarily pave the way for change. People often try to avoid negative emotions because they fear they will cause negative actions and promote positive emotions because they believe these will cause positive actions. You can avoid this common trap by thinking of emotion as a highly sophisticated radar system scanning your horizon.

5. Happiness is our desired state. There is ample reason to believe that happiness is desirable. In one study people from around the globe rated being happy above other desirable goals such as falling in love or even getting into heaven. Not only that but there is emerging evidence that happiness boosts sociability, creativity and your immune system. Happiness may not cure cancer but it appears to be able to fend off the common cold. So it is easy to see why people think happiness is so desirable. It is important to note that while happiness is beneficial, it is not necessarily something we should experience intensely. One study, for instance, showed that extremely positive feelings can make other events seem less positive by contrast. Similarly, being completely satisfied with life appears to undercut achievement. Students who are very highly satisfied have lower GPAs than their counterparts who are merely satisfied and people who are in the 80% for cheerfulness and satisfaction make less money than do their super happy counterparts. It may be that there is more to life than getting good grades and making money but this is initial evidence that happiness is good for some things (e.g. health) but too much of it may run counter to achievement.

Robert Biswas-Diener is the author of The Courage Quotient (2012) and Happiness (2008). He is widely known as the "Indiana Jones of Positive Psychology" because his research on happiness has taken him to such far flung places as Greenland, India, and Kenya. Robert is Managing Director at Positive Acorn and lives in Portland, Oregon.

 

Stress and Your Health

American Psychological Association - Monitor Magazine

 

Feature

Health-care falls short on stress management

APA's latest Stress in America survey finds that health-care providers give inadequate attention to the behavioral health needs of younger Americans and people with chronic illness.

By Sophie Bethune
April 2013, Vol 44, No. 4
 

When it comes to stress management and wellness, there is a gap between what Americans want from their health-care system and what they actually get, according to a new survey by APA.
Findings from Stress in America™: Missing the Health Care Connection, conducted online by Harris Interactive among 2,020 U.S. adults last August, suggest that people are not receiving what they need from their health-care providers to manage stress and address lifestyle and behavior changes to improve their health.
While Americans think health care should focus on issues related to stress and living healthier lifestyles, their experiences do not seem to match up with what they value. For example, although 32 percent of Americans say it is very/extremely important to talk with their health-care providers about stress management, only 17 percent report that these conversations are happening often or always.
"When people receive professional help to manage stress and make healthy behavior changes, they do better at achieving their health goals," says APA CEO Norman B. Anderson, PhD. "Unfortunately, our country's health system often neglects psychological and behavioral factors that are essential to managing stress and chronic diseases."
To improve Americans' health, lower their rates of chronic illnesses and lower health-care costs, "we need to improve how we view and treat stress and unhealthy behaviors that are contributing to the high incidence of disease in the U.S.," said Anderson.
Americans who receive little or no stress or behavior management support from their health-care providers are especially vulnerable. Slightly more than half (53 percent) of those surveyed said they receive little or no support for stress management from their providers, and 39 percent said they have little or no behavior management support.
The same respondents were more likely to indicate that their stress increased in the past year compared with those who do get support from their health-care providers (38 percent with little/no support vs. 29 percent with a lot/great deal of support). The situation appears to be worse for the 20 percent of Americans who report experiencing extreme stress (an 8, 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale).
More than two-thirds of U.S. adults with high stress (69 percent) say their stress has increased in the past year, yet 33 percent of U.S. adults say that they never discuss ways to manage stress with their health-care providers.
Survey findings also show that Americans struggle to keep their stress to levels they believe are healthy. Even though average stress levels across the country appear to be declining (4.9 on a 10-point scale vs. 5.2 in 2011), stress levels continue to surpass what Americans define as a healthy level of stress (3.6 on a 10-point scale).
And for many Americans, stress is on the rise — 35 percent of Americans say their stress increased this past year.

Millennials challenged by stress and lack of support

Millennials (ages 18 to 33) in particular seem to have trouble managing their stress and getting health care that meets their needs. The Stress in America survey found Millennials reporting an average stress level of 5.4 on a 10-point scale, exceeding the national average (4.9). This generation also gives its health care lower marks than Americans across the country: Millennials are less likely than people nationwide to give their health care an "A" grade (25 percent vs. 31 percent).
Nearly half of Millennials (49 percent) do not believe or are not sure that they are doing enough to manage their stress, and few say they get stress or behavior management support from their health-care providers. Only 23 percent think that their health-care providers support them a "lot or a great deal" in their desire to make healthy lifestyle and behavior changes, and just 17 percent say the same about their health-care providers' support for stress management.

The connection between chronic illness and stress

The Stress in America survey found that U.S. adults with a chronic illness seem to lack support for stress and behavior management when compared with Americans overall, and compared with people who do not have chronic illnesses. Americans with a chronic illness are less likely than those without a chronic illness to say they are doing enough to manage their stress (59 percent vs. 66 percent).
And for those with a chronic illness who say they get little or no stress management or behavioral support from their health-care provider, stress is on the rise — 41 percent said their stress increased in the past year compared with 35 percent of Americans overall.
Although Americans living with a chronic illness see their health-care providers more frequently than those without a chronic illness, they do not necessarily receive better stress management support. Half of those with a chronic illness (51 percent) see their health-care providers three or more times a year, compared with only 17 percent of those without such conditions. Despite more frequent visits, only one quarter of those with chronic illnesses say that they get "a great deal or a lot" of stress-management support from their health-care providers. But those who say that their health-care provider supports them a great deal or a lot for stress or behavior management fare much better than those who do not receive such support. Sixty-eight percent of the former group report they are doing enough to manage stress. This compares to only 54 percent who say they receive little or no support.
Read the full Stress in America report.