Has ideology—management, political, religious—become so entrenched that people are losing their perspective?
99+% of the time you will be better served by sitting on your dignity than by standing on it.
Why?
Because you will learn far more sitting; people will talk to you for the simple reason of believing they will be heard.
Moreover, you will not come off as a pompous ass to your team, which, in the long run, will mean more creativity, higher productivity and less turnover providing you with better reviews, improved compensation, more opportunities, an enhanced career path and a happier life.
I’m not Santa, but I do have a mixed bag of gifts for you today.
First off is an update on your brain. If you are looking for ways to juice creative thinking on your team try making them laugh before the brainstorming session.
In a just completed study, researchers at Northwestern University found that people were more likely to solve word puzzles with sudden insight when they were amused, having just seen a short comedy routine.
How cool is that?
Speaking of brains and innovation, what do you think it would take to turn around a 153 year old icon of intellectualism in what is supposed to be a dying industry? That’s exactly what you’ll learn in the story about the revival of The Atlantic.
Getting there took a cultural transfusion, a dose of counterintuition and a lot of digital advertising revenue.
“We imagined ourselves as a venture-capital-backed start-up in Silicon Valley whose mission was to attack and disrupt The Atlantic…”
Here’s one more bit of brain stimulation, especially if you love the written word. Have you ever wondered how often a certain word or phrase was used in writing? Google’s new data base can tell you. And just think what that answer tells you abut the culture of the times.
The digital storehouse, which comprises words and short phrases as well as a year-by-year count of how often they appear,… It consists of the 500 billion words contained in books published between 1500 and 2008 in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Russian.
Today wouldn’t be complete without one feel-good story and what better in these days of growing religious intolerance than a story showing that it doesn’t have to be that way.
…here is a story to keep your spirits high — a story of cooperation between Jews and Christians, between people named Seinfeld and Samberg and people named Morgan and Lohan. A story of celebrities putting ethnic differences aside to raise money for charity.
By making fun of — or is that gently teasing? — Jews.
If you love Jeopardy and American ingenuity here’s something to fall in love with next Valentine’s Day; be sure to put it on your calendar, so you don’t forget.
I.B.M. and the producers of “Jeopardy” will announce on Tuesday that the computer, “Watson,” will face the two most successful players in “Jeopardy” history, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, in three episodes that will be broadcast Feb. 14-16, 2011.
It’s not that zombies are changing to fit the world’s condition; it’s that the condition of the world seems more like a zombie offensive. … Zombies are just so easy to kill. … A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies.
I was looking through my articles to see what I would offer you and I realized that I had five I wanted to share, but they didn’t fit into a nice, neat category. I decided I didn’t care that it was an illogical collection, it fits my mood and an irrational dose of spring fever I’m enjoying along with the weather.
First up is a little story to make you think. I write a lot about accountability; I read this years ago and forgot all about it until I saw it again in a post from Dan McCarthy. Share it as often as possible; it sinks in far faster than anything else I’ve found.
This is a story of four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody‘s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn‘t do it. It ended that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
Anyone who follows this blog knows that brain research fascinates me and this one is no different. Seems that laughter isn’t about funny, it’s a form of communication.
Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak.
Every week or so I receive an invitation to join Facebook that I politely refuse, explaining that I don’t do anything except LinkedIn. Many times they write back and ask why, so I thought it would be faster to post a link than to write every time and explain that I’m a digital dinosaur who still believes in an old fashioned concept called privacy—which seems to be disappearing whether by hook, crook or glitch.
On Wednesday, users discovered a glitch that gave them access to supposedly private information in the accounts of their Facebook friends, like chat conversations.
This one may offend some of my readers, but you don’t have to click the link. Again, long time readers are probably aware that I am vehemently opposed to the teaching of “intelligent design” or any other faith-based content, so I found the idea of someone evangelizing evolution through rap brilliant.
For Baba Brinkman has taken Darwin’s exhortation seriously. He is a man on a mission to spread the word about evolution — how it works, what it means for our view of the world, and why it is something to be celebrated rather than feared. To this end, he has concocted a set of mini-lectures disguised as rap songs.
Finally, a superbly intelligent explanation that, for me, answers the question of why the health care bill brought forth so much strong negative emotion. What do you think?
To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.
I am a fan of Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton; I reviewed both The Carrot Principle and The Levity Effect and highly recommend them. The books feel like fast reads, but digesting and using the (unconventional to some) wisdom found in each takes a bit longer.
The Daily Carrot Principle is the size of a desk calendar and offers much of that wisdom in bite-sized pieces by addressing one idea each day of the year, explaining it and providing a short description of the action needed to implement it.
I highly recommend The Daily Carrot Principle for yourself and for a gift—unlike a desk calendar you won’t want to get rid of it any time soon.
Recommendations
Many articles and books have/are being written about the Madoff scandal and dozens of other Ponzi schemes born of loose money and a wholesale ignoring of the old adage, “if it seems too good to be true it probably is.”
The most compelling book I’ve come across regarding Madoff is the inside look from Harry Markopolos detailing the eight years he spent trying to expose him and how the SEC refused to listen. Read this excerpt from How I Got the Goods on Madoff, and Why No One Would Listen to decide if it’s your cup of tea.
The message was practically the same in every one of those 14 meetings: “We have a special relationship with Mr. Madoff. He’s closed to new investors and he takes money only from us.”
When I heard that said the first time I accepted it. When I heard it the second time I began to get suspicious. And when I heard it 14 times in less than two weeks, I knew it was a Ponzi scheme. I didn’t say anything about the fact that I heard the same claim of exclusivity from several other funds. If I had, or if I had tried to warn anyone, they would have responded by dumping on me. Who was I to attack their god?
Another excerpt served up by Bloomberg Business Week offers a fascinating peek into Roger Lowenstein’s new book The End of Wall Street. Not that it is going away, but that its laissez-faire attitude may be.
The crash of 2008 put to rest the intellectual model that inspired, and to a large degree facilitated, the bubble. It spelled the end of the immodest faith in Wall Street’s ability to forecast.
An angry email berated me for Saturday’s post, saying in part, “Why don’t you ever choose more typical CEOs and cultures to write about? I read blogs to help me manage more effectively and the stuff you talk about is almost impossible to implement.”
The answer, in a nutshell, is that you can’t implement anything at odds with your own MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)
Therefore:
If you don’t believe in a happy workplace where people have fun then there is nothing that Tony Hsieh or anybody else can teach you that will help you create one.
If you stand on your dignity and can’t laugh at yourself there is no way you can implement The Levity Effect.
I could keep giving examples, but you get the point.
I, and dozens of other experts, have said over and over that people can’t sell something they don’t believe themselves.
Nor can they implement cultural features that are out of sync with their MAP.
This is especially true for managers because they typically hire in their own image, so that their team has similar MAP—and the same problem.
If you find yourself on this treadmill, rather than write an angry email or complain to your buddies look in the mirror and know that you can change if you want to.
Engaging your people is a priority these days, but to do it you must foster an environment of trust, where the messenger is never killed and people feel safe saying what they really think. It also helps if you have the kind of ego that doesn’t stand on its dignity.
Here is one approach.
Start with how many times you have said or heard people say ‘should have’, as in “We should have…” or “My boss should have…?”
What if you could harness the creativity behind those thoughts to improve performance in an organization (whether team, executives or somewhere in-between)—the company’s; the group’s; the individual’s; your own?
The idea is to take that “should have’ attitude and make it a constructive function to foster corporate/personal growth and motivation, since the more comprehensive the view of their job and company the more creative people will become.
Drawing in all your people, no matter their level, encourages them to see a larger picture, juices creativity, surfaces ideas from unlikely sources and enhances their sense of ownership, i.e., engagement.
Improvement happens because how they think is the basis for how they perform.
If your MAP makes you the type of manager to whom this appeals then encourage your people to ask
“Why did she do that?”
“What can I learn from his decision?”
“What would I have done differently?”
Later ask, “Would it have worked?”
Discuss the responses and implement the insights.
For more great stuff on engagement, click over to Becky Robinson’s LeaderTalk for a roundup of articles on engagement from some terrific bloggers.
There are five Fs that come immediately to mind, they are fun, family, friends, food and football.
Of those five only one comes close to being guaranteed good and that’s food, but even food isn’t a given. There was the year that my host’s two Siamese cats stole the turkey—dragged it off the platter, dropped it to the floor, dragged it across an Aubusson carpet and were on the way out one door when I entered another.
Football often depends on whether your team wins, although a good game, as opposed to a romp, can make the difference.
Friends are often a better bet than family since you can pick and choose, but that only works if you’re the host. One friend always invited two people he knew would ignite—one year it was an Arab and an Israeli just after the Six Day War. Talk about fireworks, more like bombs.
Then, of course, there is family. Family is family and blood may be thicker than water, but that doesn’t mean putting the family together in one room will always generate sweetness and light—too often there is a large dose of vinegar and sour grapes. It’s said that leopards don’t change their spots and neither do family members. If they are difficult or you can’t stand them 364 days of the years, they won’t change for the 365th day.
Fun depends either on the first four or your ability to take a step back and laugh—at the food, the game, your friends, your family and, most of all, yourself.
Laughter is the balm that soothes a holiday rash; apply liberally and often.
Thursday I wrote Too Busy to Manage, on the idiocy of eliminating not only bonuses, but also positive feedback, and I have more excellent incentive information for you today.
First is a forward-looking article from Wharton about how and why—shocking thought—incentives should focus on the long-term. Wow, I didn’t even know anybody in the US could spell long-term.
Another wild idea from WSJ Online suggests that “the best way to keep them from leaving is to prepare them to do just that.” Check them out, you may be surprised.
More surprising news courtesy of Steve Roesler. “Men may be more willing than women to sacrifice achievement goals for a romantic relationship. This according to a new study by Catherine Mosher of Duke Medical Center and Sharon Danoff-Burg from the University of Albany.” Actually, ‘surprising’ is a gross understatement.
My last pick was chosen to add some levity to your day. Would you write an advice columnist if your openly part-time hooker co-worker was turning tricks on company time and then brought her other job to the office. “What really got me upset was when my co-worker was having sex with a client in our public restroom.”Read the whole story and tell me if you think it’s for real.
A few weeks ago I reviewed The Levity Effect and wrote a series of posts about levity to go with all the stuff I’ve written about the necessity of fun in the workplace, especially when it comes to innovation.
And just as fun/levity/happy juice a culture of innovation, they have the ability to affect what people do and increase desired actions.
I love reading Steve, besides his undoubted smarts, he often leads me to stuff I wouldn’t find on my own—like thefuntheory.com “an initiative of Volkswagen.”
This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.
Best it’s a contest that you can enter.
Find your own evidence for the theory that fun is best way to change behavior for the better. For yourself, for the environment or something entirely different.
The site offers 3 examples of how fun got people to pick up trash, recycle more and even take the stairs instead of an escalator (as shown here).
Check out the site, get some friends together, brainstorm and submit ideas by December 15, then come back and tell us what you did.
You have as much chance of winning as anyone else!
This has been levity week and to wrap it up I have a guest post from Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher, authors of The Levity Effect. The book is excellent and don’t miss their blog.
As a public speaker and trainer we’ve discovered over the past two decades that the most memorable presentations and the speakers with the highest evaluations have one thing in common: humor. Well, two things really: humor and fun. They’re not the same thing, though they spring from the same well: Levity. (That’s enough colons to open a proctology lab, btw.)
Levity, as defined by your average dictionary, smacks of negativity—“inappropriate,” “frivolous,” “flippant,” “trivial,” even “giddy.” Giddy?
With descriptors like those, levity’s workplace value ranks well below Communication, Trust and Teamwork and maybe just a molecule above Sexual Harassment, Bullying, and Embezzling.
Let’s face it, levity is misunderstood. After all, who wants a “goof off” to handle company finances, deal with an irate customer, or worse, pilot the company jet?
But the truth is, it pays to lighten up. And that’s the definition of levity that we like best—a lightness of manner. It has a more positive ring to it. In our definition of levity we add other image words: upbeat, patient, respectful, good-natured, joyous, and possibly witty, clever, even hilarious. And not just in the realm of public speaking and training.
You may think it’s hard to measure the return on investment of levity at work—whether a go-cart outing, online vacation photo contest, or a well-timed one liner—but we’ve found a bevy of successful leaders in companies such as Boeing, KPMG and Nike who attest that fun is an essential component of their people, business and innovation strategies.
Our book, “The Levity Effect: Why It Pays to Lighten Up,” is backed up by a one million-person research study and offers up lots of ways to make money while making merry. Here are a few quick ideas that paint the proper picture of Levity…
If they’re laughing, they’re listening: Whether you’re about to make a presentation to senior management to get funding for your big idea (outsourcing to primates), pitching a sales prospect who could make your year, or trying to engage a troop of distracted Campfire Girls, great communicators know that a little humor goes a long way toward creating unforgettable messages.
Comedy can coax creativity: The work world isn’t suffering from a dearth of tedious, stiff brainstorming sessions. Research shows you can boost creativity scores by exposing people to humor or play before you start a meeting.
Laugh all the way to the bank: Managers who use more levity experience higher employee productivity, engagement and retention. People with a sense of humor climb the corporate ladder more quickly and earn more money than their peers. And executives hire and promote the humorous more often than the dour. Wouldn’t you?
Put a spring in your voicemail: As soon as you get into the office today, lighten up your tired voicemail with some quick company trivia or at least a modicum of joy in your voice. That is, after all, how we greet people face to
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
A few years ago I share how a manager turned his organization around by learning to laugh at himself.
The Daily Carrot Principle is the size of a desk calendar and offers much of that wisdom in bite-sized pieces by addressing one idea each day of the year, explaining it and providing a short description of the action needed to implement it.
An angry email berated me for 
Engaging your people is a priority these days, but to do it you must foster an environment of trust, where the messenger is never killed and people feel safe saying what they really think. It also helps if you have the kind of ego that doesn’t stand on its dignity.
Thursday I wrote 
As a public speaker and trainer we’ve discovered over the past two decades that the most memorable presentations and the speakers with the highest evaluations have one thing in common: humor. Well, two things really: humor and fun. They’re not the same thing, though they spring from the same well: Levity. (That’s enough colons to open a proctology lab, btw.)
