And you thought that ‘think fast’ was what you did if you got caught doing something you shouldn’t.

Turns out it’s a little mental trick you can use to change a mild case of the blues into a rainbow of colors.

If you’re in a mild holiday funk, try writing down all your gripes in 60 seconds. Or read aloud Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” [the rest of the year try Green Eggs and Ham or Cat in the Hat] as quickly as possible.

You’ll feel better, say a team of psychologists who found that fast thinking doesn’t just get you out of a jam; it actually can make you happier, more energetic, more creative, more powerful and more self-assured.

Fast thinking has been linked to mood in clinical cases of mania. So Princeton University’s Emily Pronin and Daniel Wegener of Harvard studied what might be called “mania light”: the racing thoughts that all healthy people experience at some point by doing things such as brainstorming or learning about a new and exciting concept.

Using the equivalent of a streaming news “crawl,” the text that scrolls by at the bottom of the television screen, the researchers found that people felt better when the statements were read at a faster pace, regardless of content. Even thinking sad thoughts at a rapid pace made people relatively happy, according to the article published in Psychological Science.

Thought-speed manipulations might be useful if you’re feeling tired or downcast and also might help treat depression, which is characterized by slow thinking, the researchers said.

To do it at your desk, think quickly, but pick topics that aren’t too challenging. Solve an easy crossword. List as many cities as you can think of in 60 seconds. Or brainstorm names for that restaurant you want to open.

If that fails, sprint down the hallway or drop to the floor and do 10 push-ups. Exercise is a terrific mood enhancer.

How cool is that?

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Some of the most brilliant quotes I see are from the ancient Chinese and I just ran into a great one from Confucius—

Choose a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.

Ain’t that the truth! And it’s especially true for people who choose to manage.

I say choose because not all people should manage, it’s not their skill, and it often results in perfect proof that the Peter Principle is still alive and well.

But people doing good work deserve promotions, so what can you do?

Create a duel-career ladder in whatever business or department you run. It’s simply a way to receive recognition and compensation without becoming a manager.

In engineering it looks something like this

Do you have something similar in your company?

Would you like to?

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Comments—priceless:)

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I learned about Wordless Wednesday from Sean Kelly, who writes Franchise Pick (cool blog, especially when he’s dishing the dirt on the shenanigans in the franchise world). Thanks, Sean! Be sure to check out other WW links on the new Wordless Wednesday page in the sidebar and do send me (miki.saxon@b5media.com) your favorite WW links from wherever!

If you’re a long-term reader you’ll know that I’m not a big fan of Jack Welch, while I am of Jeff Imelt—two guys with very different MAP.

Knowledge@Wharton made this comment as background in describing what Judy Hu, global executive director for advertising and branding, is doing to publicize the “new” GE.

Since becoming boss in 2001 — just a few days before September 11 — Immelt has aimed to make GE not only an innovator but also an environmental leader. In doing that, he has broken with his predecessor, Jack Welch, but also, in some ways, taken the company back to its roots. Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb and the phonograph, started GE in the late 1800s. More recently, under the combative, controversial Welch, it came to be known for operational excellence and a brassy pugnacity.

Welch famously declared that GE would have to be no. 1 or 2 in every line of business in which it competed and would ditch divisions where it wasn’t. And he battled state and federal regulators for years over their order that GE clean up carcinogenic waste that its factories had dumped into New York’s Hudson River. Under Immelt, the company hammered out an agreement to dredge the still-polluted river bottom. “Jeff said, ‘We’re going to fix that and move forward,'”

I find this ironically amusing after reading various articles where Welch was talking about corporate responsibility.

Corporate responsibility is a major buzzword these days, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s tied more closely to

• doing what’s right;
• doing what you can get away with; or
• just not getting caught.

What do you think?

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A review of John C Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership quotes from

The Law of Victory (p.183):

Leadership is responsible.
Losing is unacceptable.
Passion is unquenchable.
Creativity is essential.
Quitting is unthinkable.
Commitment is unquestionable.
Victory is inevitable.

I want to make it clear that I haven’t read the book and that my reaction is most likely to something taken out of context, but I know that lists like this get passed around sans context all the time. Therefore, the list itself matters and that’s why “Losing is unacceptable” really bothers me.

That mindset screws ethics—it drives salespeople to lie about their numbers, scientists to fudge results and publish them and, carried to the extreme, it’s what drove Enron—and you know where that ended.

What do you think? Am I over-reacting? Which ones bother you or make you shudder?

It’s the list time of year again—first shopping lists and then resolution lists.

I hate resolutions mainly because I find that rather than inspiring and motivating us they turn into a club with which we beat ourselves.

Once I realized that I stopped cold turkey with the resolutions. Not even one itty-bitty, teeny-tiny one did I allow to creep into my brain.

Instead, I remembered something I’d heard way back when I was in school, it went something like this,

A dream stays a dream without a plan and a deadline.

And that’s what most resolutions are, dreams.

These days I treat myself as a company and handle my year’s goals exactly the same way I teach my clients to handle their company’s goals. I already described the process in Wrap and Plan and it only differs in one way—there are fewer executives and I get to wear all the hats.

The other big difference is that my execs are really mouthy and sometimes I think that they’re just arguing for the fun of it, but even then, I/we continue until all of us are satisfied with the final goals. There are never more than five, usually more like three, and I know exactly what I have to do, when/how I have to do it and what it will cost to achieve each one.

The thing that really amazes me since I started this is how well it works. I end up accomplishing most of what I want to do each year and if I don’t at least I know exactly why and if it was in or outside of my control.

That’s it—no more broken resolutions because you can’t break what you don’t make!

I hope you’ll share your 2008 goals here with me and feel free to ask for assistance—here in comments or call 360.335.8054 or email miki@rampupsolutions.com.

Tom Vander Well talks about the difficulties in applying what he learned attending the Disney Institute. Two comments really struck me,

It’s harder to change a corporate culture than it is to grow one. …One of the lessons I’ve learned in the call center business is that it’s easier to get new employees to embrace a service attitude than the crusty old veterans. Culture is hard to change, and the larger the company the more difficult it becomes. You’re fighting years of baggage and branding. Your great Disney-esque ideas are easily perceived to be the latest in a series of fad initiatives that employees have seen come and go.

Tom’s absolutely right about this, but it’s easier to do anything when you can start from a fresh slate. That’s one reason that hiring is so important, whether you’re working to change the culture or hold on to it.

If the effort is to change the culture than you must avoid hiring people with the kind of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™ that supports it.

Similarly, if the goal is to sustain and nurture your current culture you need to hire those with MAP that is, at the least, synergistic with it.

Further, you need to make and implement these choices consciously.

Tom ended by saying,

I have come to believe, however, that there is only one Disney. While we can all learn nuggets of wisdom from Disney’s experience, we must ultimately do the work to create our own magic.

That is the true key—recognizing that your culture is magic and that you are the magician.

What kind of magic have you conjured up lately?

Have you ever wondered what the perfect attitude for a leader is? Not just a top dog leader, but for any person who aspires to lead and, for that matter, every person who lives and breaths.

I recognize it when I see it, know when I’m doing it, and can explain it when I’m coaching, but I’ve never seen it so perfectly boiled down to ten short words—all self-explanatory, nothing to look-up or study or requiring training.

I found them in my friend’s post yesterday, here they are

Like 3 year olds, be passionate, humble, impatient, grateful…daily.

Do it and change your life—and your world—guaranteed!

I received a phone call in which the caller made a very potent argument regarding the ethical differences between metropolitan and rural areas commented on by Jesse. He said,

“Yeah, but in a sense, rural people have more “accountability” due to the incestuous nature of small towns.”

He’s right; the more public unethical, illegal, or immoral actions are publicized, the faster they are “fixed.”

But the action needs to cross the generally accepted social norm for the effect to happen; otherwise it’s a case of my opinion vs. yours.

This is just as true about corporate behavior as individual.

Great example is Microsoft, who used to ignore security concerns voiced directly to the company by the white-hat hackers who found them, until they started sending them to the media and announcing them on the web and their customers freaked. All of a sudden, security (supposedly) became Microsoft’s number one focus, blah, blah, blah. The community pressure worked enough that they now issue patches almost simultaneously with programs, but that’s still an improvement from the days they pretended there were no problems.

Public Walls of Shame have popped up all over and seem to make a difference.

So I invite you to post info on any unethical, immoral or illegal behavior that you’ve witnessed and together we’ll see if we can blow some whistles. (FYI, I’m the only person who can see your email address and it’s only used if you check the notify me box or I write you directly:)