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Is Your Brain Friend or Foe? Make It Your Friend with Positive Intelligence

Is Your Brain Friend or Foe? Make It Your Friend with Positive Intelligence

by | Jul 15, 2020 | Book Club

“If you spend a lot of time in your own head, you’re spending time in a bad neighborhood.”

 

I was deep in a bit of worry and self-doubt when my friend uttered that sentence.  Immediately, my mind conjured an image of falling gown building, boarded up doors and windows, overgrown yards, and empty streets (basically downtown Cleveland in the 1980s).

 

“Man, I do not want to be here!” I said, probably a bit too loudly.

 

Everyone I know spends a lot of time in their bad neighborhoods.  It’s a consequence of the world we live in – more demands, responsibilities, and expectations running into greater uncertainty, fewer options, and weaker safety nets.

 

There are lots of ways to spruce up our neighborhoods, cultivating a Growth Mindset is one.  In his book, Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve Yours, author and executive coach Shirzad Chamine, lays out a powerful framework and action plan to build your Positive Intelligence by increasing your PQ (Positive Intelligence Quotient).

 

Why Should I Care about Positive Intelligence?

Because research proves that a high PQ creates better results

  • An analysis of more than 200 different scientific studies, which collectively tested more than 275,000 people, conduced that higher PQ leads to higher salary and greater success in the arenas of work, marriage, health, sociability, friendship, and creativity
  • Salespeople with higher PQ sell 37% more than their lower-PQ peers
  • Project teams managed by high-PQ managers perform 31% better
  • Doctors with a high PQ make accurate diagnoses 19% faster
  • People who demonstrated high PQ in their 20s (as evidence by journal entries) live, on average, 10 years longer

Better sales, better performance, better health, longer lives.

Seems like something worth learning more about.

 

What is Positive Intelligence and PQ?

Chamine defines Positive Intelligence as “an indication of the control you have over your own mind and how well your mind acts in your best interest.”  Basically, what kind of neighborhood is your mind.

PQ, your Positive Intelligence Quotient, is “the percentage of your time your mind is acting as your friend rather than your enemy.”  It’s expressed on a scale of 0 to 100 and research shows that a PQ of 75 (meaning your mind is your friend, or a good neighborhood, 75% of the time) is a tipping point.  “Above it, you are generally being uplifted by the internal dynamics of the mind, below it you are constantly being dragged down by those dynamics.”  80% of teams and individuals score below the tipping point.

 

How you can increase your PQ

People with high PQs use one or more of the following 3 strategies:

STRATEGY 1 – Weaken your Saboteurs:

Saboteurs, also called Inner Critics, are the voices, beliefs, and assumptions in your head that work against you.

There are 10 and every person has at least two actively chattering away

  1. Judge: The “Master” Saboteur in everyone’s head. It constantly finds faults in you, others, your circumstances, and anything else it can get its hands on.
  2. Avoider: Focuses on the positive and pleasant to avoid dealing with difficult and unpleasant tasks, conflicts, and people.
  3. Controller: Takes charge, seeking to bend people to its will because it believes that the only way to get the best outcomes from people and situations is to control them
  4. Hyper-Achiever: Relies on constant external rewards, recognition, and praise as a way to feel self-respect and self-validation
  5. Hyper-Rational: Focuses on logic and reason as the sole means through which to understand people and situations, often leading to impatience or outright dismissal of anything or person deemed not logical
  6. Hyper-Vigilant: Sees threats in every moment and is constantly on guard and preparing for the worst-case scenario
  7. Pleaser: Seeks to gain acceptance and affection by constantly helping, pleasing, rescuing, or flattering others
  8. Restless: Searches for the next adventure, new thing, or adrenaline rush and distracts from the relationships and work that really matter
  9. Stickler: Needs perfection, order, and organization to such an extent that it makes everyone anxious and uptight
  10. Victim: Gains attention and affection by focusing on internal feelings, especially negatives ones

To weaken your saboteurs, first identify which one is currently active, then recognize the story its telling you (often, the story will seem helpful so this part is tricky), and then either call it out (“oh, it’s you again, making up stories) or thank it (“thank you for trying to keep me safe.  I’ve got this.”)

STRATEGY 2 – Strengthen your Sage: 

The Sage perspective is essentially the opposite of the Judge.  Whereas the Judge finds everything that is (or could be wrong), the Sage accepts every single thing as a gift or opportunity.

OK, I know this sounds like some new-age woo, especially in the midst of COVID-19 and its impact on every single thing in our lives.  Chamine’s C-Suite clients are skeptical of this too, which is why he teaches them the Three Gifts technique – write down the horrible thing then write down 3 ways it could turn out to be a gift or opportunity at some point in the future.

You can strengthen your Sage by using one (or more) of its 5 powers:

  1. Empathize: When strong feelings are involved and emotional reserves are running low, picture yourself, or the person or situation causing problems, as a small child and interact with it
  2. Explore: When the situation is complex or you want more information before making a decision, pretend to be a fascinated anthropologist and seek out info by asking questions
  3. Innovate: When the usual answers aren’t working, adopt an innovator’s mentality greet ideas with “yes….and….”
  4. Navigate: When faced with multiple options, “flash forward” and imagine yourself at some point in the distant future after having taken each path and consider how you feel in that future place
  5. Activate: When your Saboteurs are in control, preempt them by writing down everything they could say and recognize, respond, and thank it.

STRATEGY 3 – Strengthen your PQ brain

Your PQ brain is comprised of the middle prefrontal cortex, the right brain, the mirror neuron system, the ACC, and the Insular Cortex (these last three areas control your empathy reaction).

Strengthening your PQ brain is as “simple” as focusing all of your attention on your physical body and/or the experience of at least one of your 5 senses, for at least 10 seconds 100 separate times per day for 21 straight days

Yes, 100 times per days sounds like a lot, so Chamine offers some tip:

  • During Daily routines, for example when you’re brushing your teeth, focus on the feeling of the toothbrush against your gums
  • While working out
  • Before or when you’re eating
  • As you listen to music
  • When you’re playing sports (including e-sports)
  • Being with friends and family

 

Bottom Line

The data proves that Positive Intelligence has a real and tangible impact on your performance at work, in your relationships, and in life.  This book contains a variety of case stories to show the power of Positive Intelligence in action.  Even better, it offers an easy to understand framework and totally do-able approach to make Positive Intelligence work for you.

 

***

To learn more about Positive Intelligence, visit Shirzad Chamine’s site here.

To buy the book, visit you can buy it from independent online bookstores Bookshop or IndieBound, or at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

 

Innovation Starts with EPIC Conversations

Innovation Starts with EPIC Conversations

by | Jun 24, 2020 | Customer Centricity, Innovation, Tips, Tricks, & Tools

Innovation doesn’t start with an idea.  It starts with a problem.  Sometimes those problems are easy to observe and understand but, more often, those problems are multi-layered and nuanced.  As a result, you need a multi-layered and nuanced approach to understanding them.

You need to have EPIC Conversations.

EPIC stands for Empathy, Perspective, Insights, and Connection.  As my clients have experienced, conversations rooted in these elements consistently produce unexpected, actionable, and impactful insights capable of getting to the root of a problem and shining a light on the path to a solution (and meaningful business results).

 

EMPATHY for the people with whom you’re talking

According to Brene Brown, empathy is connecting to the emotion another person is experiencing without requiring us to have experienced the same situation.”

For example, I have a friend who struggles to stay focused and deliver on deadlines.  I can empathize with her because, while I have no problem focusing or delivering on deadlines, I know what it’s like to struggle with something that other people think is easy.

Take the time to connect with people’s emotions, to understand not just what they’re feeling but also why they’re feeling that way and to connect with the experiences in your life and work that led you to feel that way, too.

 

See things from their PERSPECTIVE:

When we’re working on something – a project, a product, even a task – it gets a great deal of our time, attention, and energy.  But it can lead us to over-estimate how important the work is to others.

Instead, ask people about the topic you’re interested in AND all the topics and activities around it.  Take the time to understand where the things you care about fall into your customers’ priority list

For example, when I worked on developing and launching Swiffer, all I thought about was cleaning floors.   One day, we had to decide whether to source the hair for the dirt that would be used in product demos from people, yaks, or wigs.  We obsessed over this decision, debating which hair would “resonate” the most with consumers.  Turns out, consumers didn’t spend a lot of time analyzing the hair in the demo dirt, they only cared that it was picked up immediately by Swiffer.

 

Be open to INSIGHTS

Most people use conversations to get confirmation that their ideas and recommendations are good ones.  They’ll spend time explaining and convincing and very little time listening.  And they definitely don’t like surprises.

This is wrong.  The most successful and impactful conversations as those in which you are surprised, in which you get an unexpected piece of information and has an insight, an “a-ha!” moment.

Years ago, while conducting research with people who self-identified as environmentalists, my team spoke with a woman who had the most sustainable house I’d ever seen.  Everything was reused, recycled, or composted and they generated most of their own power.  But, in the garage was a huge yellow HUM-V.  It would have been easy to dismiss it as an anomaly, until we asked about the contradiction and she explained that the reason she owned a HUM-V was the same reason she and her family lived such a sustainable lifestyle: her highest priority was keeping her kids safe.  At home, that meant doing everything possible to help the planet, but on the roads, that meant driving around in a tank.

 

CONNECT with the person you’re speaking with

It’s tempting to jump right into the conversation, to ask the questions that brought you together.  But that’s like proposing on the first date – you’re not going to get the answer(s) you want.

The best conversations aren’t information transactions, they’re trust building exercises.  Take time to get to know each other.  Make small talk, talk about the traffic and the weather, share a bit about yourself and ask about them.  Throughout the conversation, share a bit about yourself, commiserate over shared frustrations, and laugh at silly stories.

By sharing a bit about yourself, the person you’re talking to will share a bit of themselves, they’ll feel comfortable admitting to things that might not make sense, and to the feelings and rationalizations that drive their behaviors.

 

EPIC Conversations can happen with anyone anywhere from customers in focus group rooms to employees in conference rooms.  You don’t need an executive mandate to have one, so have one today and let me know how it goes!

Originally published on February 10, 2020 on Forbes.com

VTS with the Best: An Interview with Suzi Hamill

VTS with the Best: An Interview with Suzi Hamill

by | Jun 18, 2020 | Innovation

Last week, I wrote about Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a process of using art to teach visual literacy, thinking, and communication skills.

Typically, used in primary school classrooms, VTS has made its way into the corporate setting, helping individuals and teams to build and strengthen their problem solving and critical thinking skills, ability to communicate and collaborate, and effectiveness in delivering and receiving feedback.

While I did my best to capture the Why, What, and How of VTS in that post, there’s no substitute for learning from an expert.  That’s why I asked Suzi Hamill , former Head of Design Thinking at Fidelity and the woman who introduced me to VTS, to share her experience using the tool.

  

Hi Suzi.  Thanks for sharing your VTS wisdom and experience today.  I understand you’ve been doing a fair bit of VTS-ing lately.

Suzi: Yes!  Just a few months ago I was at Oxford University coaching 30 Chief Marketing Officers from large global corporations on how to apply Visual Thinking Strategies to their work and their teams.  And just last week, I led a session with a group of women on the West Coast of the US.

That’s one of the things I find so fascinating about VTS.  It was created to help people learn about art and was designed to be used in schools, but it can have such a powerful impact in a wide variety of businesses.

Suzi: Absolutely.  In a business context, there are massive systems and massive problems, and everyone has their own interpretation of what’s going on.  (imagine doctors deliberating over a diagnosis, investment analysts debating a company’s intrinsic value, retailers predicting the next fashion trend…) This creates conflict.  How do you pull together a range of people and ideas to forge the best path forward? VTS is a great, simple but rigorous method to help business groups look at big problems. VTS is a way to have open exploratory conversations with a diverse set of people

This is especially true in organizations that are very execution oriented. Often organizations haven’t developed the time, space or habit to work through ambiguity. VTS opens space for there to be ambiguity and dialogue.  It gives people permission to explore ideas, be wrong, and hear different points of view.

All of those behaviors are essential to making good business decisions.  I wonder, have you found that some people need “permission” more than others?

Suzi: I think everyone can benefit from the VTS experience and there are some circumstances where it can be transformational.

We are often taught not to question authority. But there is a delicate balance between challenging authority and understanding perspectives At Fidelity, our first experiment focused on using it as a way to prompt open conversation when there was a power imbalance in a room.  We rolled VTS out to our Design Team of about 100 people as a way to help junior designers to talk to the CEO or senior executives about their work and not get defensive.  We trained them to ask the VTS questions, especially “What do you see that makes you say that?”  We found that it was a great way for designers to learn how to get feedback on their designs.

Once we started having success with VTS, it was integrated into Fidelity’s 6-month long training program for the top 100 potential leaders.

That’s where we found the next circumstance – using VTS with leadership teams.  We found that VTS acts as a practical way to introduce the idea that you’re not just a do-er now, you’re a thinker and, as a result, you’re going to be faced with ambiguity.  Instead of shying away from it, you need to see that ambiguity is not only ok, but it is also fertile ground for us to grow our business.

That’s great but, as we both know, just because you learn something in training doesn’t mean you actually do it in real life.  Have you seen VTS make that jump?  Get people to move from knowing to doing?

 Suzi: I have.

At Fidelity, we would VTS customer research.  We would use the principle of VTS more than follow the strict methodology. We’d post our research on walls – sticky notes, photos of customers, flowcharts, everything, and we would bring in stakeholders and use the VTS process to tease out insights.  We give people time to LOOK and internalize what they were seeing before we told them what to think. By asking questions, we would discover what they were interpreting, identify unconscious biases, and learn what they already know or want to know about the customer.

At the event in Oxford, we VTS-ed the Business Model Canvas because most of the CMOs weren’t familiar with it.   Just by looking at it, they teased out its purpose, what was important and what wasn’t, what was confusing, and what wouldn’t work.  They walked away with a deeper internalization of its meaning

How is VTS able to do that?  To help people quickly internalize new insights or behaviors?

Suzi: The best way I can explain it is that VTS is like yoga.  When you teach someone yoga, with consistent practice they develop better posture and they walk and move fluidly and with strength.  So, when they’re going through their day, they become more aware of their posture and adjust but they don’t go into a whole vinyasa flow.

VTS is similar because when you use it with people, you’re teaching the mechanics of dialogue, of using evidence to progress, of managing ambiguity and conflict.

It takes time to tease out the power of the process but in the end, I’ve seen it help people realize that you don’t have to agree or disagree right away.  Instead, it gives them space to express an opinion and teaches them to ask questions and to ask for evidence in a way that is psychologically safe.

OK, but is it as simple as asking the 3 VTS questions?

Suzi: I wish.  You need somebody who is a skilled facilitator, who can keep the group moving forward and exploring ideas.

Leaders know they should stimulate conversation… solicit other people’s opinions, but they don’t know how. In meetings leaders will voice their own opinions, rely on the loudest voices, and steer the conversation. People will pick up on these signals. They will stop exploring and focus on giving the right answer.

Often, when people are running meetings they try to participate.  But that’s like trying to breathe underwater.  You can’t facilitate and participate.

What have you learned & applied?

Suzi: If you want to get people to engage in a great dialog, try giving them something to look at first. It can be a metaphor or real reflection. But give them something specific to point to anchor their thoughts.

Give people time to look and think before they speak or act. Silence is Golden. Silence is not the enemy. Give people time to silently observe something. Even 1 min can make a huge difference in how people respond.

You don’t need to compliment people on their thoughts to keep them engaged. Ask them for more… What do you see that makes you say that? What more can we find? People are not often asked for their opinions. That act alone is incredibly engaging.

As a leader it is just as important to get the obvious out on the table so that you can get to true insight.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT VTS OR TO EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF…
How Looking at Art Can Make You a Better Thinker, Communicator, and Leader

How Looking at Art Can Make You a Better Thinker, Communicator, and Leader

by | Jun 10, 2020 | Book Club, Innovation, Leadership, Tips, Tricks, & Tools

“It was quite a sight!  A dozen senior executives from a big, conservative financial services firm, all sitting on the floor in front of a painting, talking about what it could mean and why they think that.”

On a typical dreary November day, and Suzi and I were sitting in the café inside Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.  She had just left her job as Head of Design Thinking at Fidelity Investments and I was taking a sabbatical before deciding what would be next for my career.  Introduced by a mutual friend, we decided to swap stories over lunch and a walk through one of the museum’s special exhibitions.

She was describing a Visual Thinking (VTS) session she had recently facilitated and the nearly instant impact it had on the way executives expressed themselves and communicated with each other.  She saw them engage in a level of creative problem-solving and critical thinking that they hadn’t in the past.

Intrigued, I set off to learn more.  What I discovered was a powerful, proven, and gasp fun way to help my clients navigate the ambiguous early days of innovation and embrace their inner curiosity and creativity.

 

Why should you care about VTS?

Imagine someone says to you, “If you and your team spend 1-2 hours with me each month for 9 months, I guarantee an improvement in your abilities to:

  • Quickly gather and synthesize accurate and unique insights by listening deeply and re-phrasing what they heard ensure understanding
  • Think critically and creatively by examining information or an idea from all angles, rethinking it, and deciding whether to keep, revise, or discard it
  • Communicate more clearly, respectfully, and productively with a variety of people inside and outside the organization
  • Work cross-functionally because they can apply critical thinking skills confidently to topics outside of their expertise
  • Innovate and experiment because they have learned how to individually and as a team operate in uncertainty
  • Provide more effective feedback by phrasing criticisms as questions and engaging in collaborative discovery and problem-solving conversations

Would you make the time commitment?

Now, what if they said, “All you have to do each month is sit together in a conference room and take part in a conversation.  No travel.  No additional expenses.  Just turn off your email and your phone for one hour and have a conversation in a room you already pay rent on.”

Would you do it then?

Of course you would.

Because you’ve been to trainings that focus on only one of the items in the list above and those trainings are expensive, time-consuming, and not nearly as effective as they should be.

 

What is Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)?

According to the book, Visual Thinking Strategies: Using Art to Deepen Learning Across School Disciplines, VTS “uses art to teach visual literacy, thinking, and communication skills – listening an expressing oneself.”

Philip Yenawine was the Director of Education at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York from 1983 – 1993.  During that time, he noticed that despite the museum’s efforts to organize and craft detailed explanations and interpretations for each piece of art, visitors would still ask lots of “Why?” questions and would remember little, if anything, from their visit.

Frustrated but curious, he and his team began studying developmental research and theory and discovered that what MOMA visitors needed wasn’t explanations, details, and facts, it was “permission to be puzzled and to think.  Consent to use their powerful eyes and intelligent minds.  Time to noodle and figure things out.  The go-ahead to use what they already know to reflect on what they don’t; the first steps of learning.”

Philip and his team with MOMA partnered with cognitive psychologist Abigail Housen to develop and test a process now known as Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS).

In the 30 years since their initial experiments, Philip and Abigail’s work has been used in 28 countries and 58 museums, over 12,000 students have engaged in VTS discussions and 1,200 people have become trained facilitators.

 

 

How to do VTS

The secret to VTS’ effectiveness is in the facilitation so if you’re going to do this, invest in an expert facilitator.  An expert facilitator is the only way to get the results listed above.

 

Here’s how a VTS session works:

  • Facilitator shares a piece of art specially selected so that “the subjects are familiar… but they also contain elements of mystery.”
  • Attendees take one minute to silently focus on the art
  • Facilitator asks 3 questions over the hour:
    • What’s going on in this picture?
    • What do you see that makes you say that?
    • What more can you find?
  • As each individual answers a question, the Facilitator:
    • Points at what is being observed
    • Paraphrases what has been said
    • Links what has been said to what others have said
  • Facilitator wraps up the session by thanking everyone and sharing something s/he learned from listening. They do NOT give “the answer” because “this isn’t about right and wrong but about thinking and…that the students singly and together are capable of wonderful, grounded ideas.”

That’s it – 1 piece of art, 3 questions, and at least 5 major benefits if you commit to the process.

 

Seems like something worth sitting on an art gallery floor for, right?

To learn more, read Visual Thinking Strategies: Using Art to Deepen Learning Across School Disciplines by Philip Yenawine and visit the website Visual Thinking Strategies

Back to Basics: What is Innovation?

Back to Basics: What is Innovation?

by | May 27, 2020 | Innovation

When I worked on P&G’s WalMart sales team, one of my bosses was a big guy with an even bigger personality.  He shared his opinions loudly and broadly and one of his opinions was that we needed to stop using the word “breakthrough.”

“If I have to hear one more time about some new ‘breakthrough’ soap, I will throw you out of this office myself!” he would bellow.

Years later, I can’t help but wonder what he would think of the word “innovation.”

In May 2012, The Wall Street Journal published an article positing that, as the word “innovation” increased in usage, it decreased in meaning.  The accompanying infographic said it all:

  • 33,528: Times “innovation” was mentioned in quarterly and annual reports in the previous year
  • 255: Books published in the last 90 days with “innovation” in the title
  • 43%: Executive who say that their company has a Chief Innovation Officer or similar role
  • 28%: Business schools with “innovation,” “innovate,” or “innovative” in their mission statements

That may seem like a lot but, remember, that data is nearly 8 YEARS OLD!

The desire for and investment in Innovation in all its forms – accelerators, incubators, startup/venture studios, corporate venture capital teams – has only grown since 2012.

While this may seem like a good thing, the fact that the success rate of innovations hasn’t changed, means that most people react to “innovation” the same way my boss reacted to “breakthrough” – if you bring it up, they throw you out.

To avoid getting thrown out of offices, one of the first thing I do with my clients when we begin working to build innovation into an enduring capability within their companies, is re-establish what innovation is and is not.

Innovation IS something different that creates value.

When people hear the term “innovation,” they tend to think of new-to-the-world gadgets that fundamentally change how we live our lives.  Yes AND it’s many other things, too.  Let’s break down the definition:

  • “Something” includes products and technology, it also includes services, processes, revenue models, and loads of other things. Consider this, many would argue, quite convincingly, that the Toyota Production System was one of the biggest innovations of the 20th century
  • “Different” often surprises people. After all, even Merriam Webster defines innovation as “something new.” But here’s the thing, one of the most commonly cited innovations, the iPhone, wasn’t “new.”  Even Steve Jobs admitted it when he said, in his keynote speech, that Apple was introducing three products – a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a mobile phone, and an internet connected device.  The iPhone was, however, different because it combined those three devices into one.
  • “Creates value” is probably the most important part of the definition. All innovations solve problems.  Solving problems creates value.  If you solve a big problem, either because it’s a problem lots of people have or it’s a very painful problem a few people have or something in-between, you create a lot of value for others and for yourself.
Innovation IS NOT a one-size-fits-all term.

Think of it this way, both a Kia and a Maserati are cars, but you wouldn’t expect to pay Kia’s price tag and get a Maserati (and vice versa).  Similarly, both a convertible and a pick-up truck are automobiles, but you wouldn’t use your convertible to carry building equipment to a construction site.

With a definition as broad as the one above, it’s possible for “innovation’ to become even more meaningless as it gets applied to more things.  That’s why it’s important to identify different types of innovation.

There’s no universally accepted set of innovation types, which is why I recommend companies consider defining at least three types that reflect their business and forward-looking strategies.

One of the most common set of innovation categories is based on the degree of change required for implementation:

  • Core Innovation requires minimal or no change to the current business model (customers, offerings, revenue model, resources and processes). Also known as Continuous or Incremental Innovation, this is the unglamorous but deeply important work of constantly improving what you do and how you do it.
  • Adjacent Innovation changes a significant change to at least one element of your business model. It could be changing who you serve, like expanding from interventional cardiologists to general cardiologists, what you offer, like P&G’s expansion into “durable goods” when it launched Swiffer, or how you offer or deliver it.
  • Radical innovation is the stuff that gets all the press. These innovations fundamentally change the business, like IBM moving from computers to business services.  These innovations are high-risk and require a lot of time, money, and patience to see to fruition.  This type of innovation is also called “Breakthrough” but, for obvious reasons, I shy away from that term.

There are many things that need to be done to shift innovation from buzzword to business capability. Defining innovation AND at least three different types is only the first step in moving from innovation theory and theater to building innovation into a true capability that drives sustainable growth.

Or, as I would tell my old boss, “It’s the first step.  But it’s a breakthrough one.”

Originally published on December 30, 2019 on Forbes.com