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The below stories are submitted by readers (except the two at the bottom, which are from Profit from the Positive). Submit your story here.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” attachment=” name=’Ernie’ subtitle=’Educator, former trade association executive’ link=” linktext=”]
Planning before Doing
One of my local activities is to donate my time to worthy non-profit causes within my community. So, when asked by the director of our community library to assist them to craft communications about a new library to open in 2015 I accepted.
At our kick-off meeting with the director and board members no one, me included, knew where to start. Everyone wanted to focus on tactics and start somewhere in the middle. The tone was we need to move quickly and get things done. The beauty of this attitude was the group was anything but bureaucratic and I was pleased with their distinct bias for action. The “list” began to be compiled and assignments doled out. As I listened I was becoming increasingly frustrated and realized why I was there and how I could really contribute to this process. But, what should I do?
Then I remembered something I had read in Profit from the Positive about planning before that I thought might work. I interrupted: “maybe we need to put all of this aside for now and talk about what we want our end results to be.” It seemed logical, but the faces around the table went silent. Finally, a question: “what do you mean; we’re making progress.” I offered that maybe we really weren’t.” Let’s try laying out what we need to achieve, when and with whom. Great ideas, but let’s park them for a few minutes and put together our plan and our goals.”
Being polite the group grudgingly agreed, and, without going into the fine details of the ensuing discussion, it worked. As it turned out, this 90 minute meeting launched the library project in an organized and focused way while bringing our disparate group together as a working team. We were well on our way to a new county library.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Allison Holzer’ subtitle=’InspireCorps‘ link=” linktext=”]
How I Changed How I Give FRE
I heard Margaret speak at the HR forum in Hartford in June of 2014. I approached Margaret after the presentation with a sincere and enthusiastic “great job!”
The next day, I realized that my instinctual “great job” wasn’t the FRE method feedback I learned about in the workshop. So, I emailed Margaret later that day with a retry, intentionally practicing the type of FRE she taught in the course: “I loved the use of imagery (and minimal text) in your presentation; as a visual learner, this appealed to me and helped me absorb your content. Also, your language and description of the optimistic mindset is the most accessible and appealing I’ve seen (I’ve taught the optimistic mindset in my online courses and really struggle with the “internal/external” “stable/unstable” language – I think it’s hard for people to internalize). Finally, I really appreciated your humility and humor throughout the presentation; clearly, you are an expert and thought leader in this field and yet your openness and curiosity model to me that you have mastered being in the “learner” mindset.”
I appreciate that what I learned from the workshop made me rethink how I typically give positive feedback to others and inspired me to try a new method right away.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Chad Terry’ subtitle=’Branch Sales Manager, ifm efector, inc’ link=” linktext=”]
PREview–Don’t Just REview–Performance
I’ve read a lot of good books over the years but I must say that Profit from the Positive is really impressive. The ideas and strategies are simple but practical. I started trying some of the ideas right out of the gate 20 pages in and am seeing some small improvements already. For example, the idea to preview rather than just review performance. I have to say it was really powerful going through that exercise with one of my sales guys….a little awkward at first, but we were both really digging it by the time we wrapped up the discussion. I like how Profit from the Positive really ties into what our President has been talking about and it gives me practical ways and methods to really begin to understand the strengths and passions of my team.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Brenden Millstein’ subtitle=’CEO, Carbon Lighthouse‘ link=” linktext=”]
30% MORE PRODUCTIVE IN LESS THAN A MONTH
I finished your book, and it was awesome. In less than one month I’d say I’m 30% more productive, and I was highly focused to begin with. The largest win for me was using “just plan it” to avoid the penalty between switching tasks. Specifically, every time I’d finish a task I used to go back to my task list, pick a new one, do it, then repeat. The problem is a lot of my tasks are <15-minutes, so picking a new task constituted a mental switch and then starting the new task was another switch. In planning my day now I group all like-tasks together — e.g. all sales calls happen in one long block — so even though I’m switching who I’m calling or emailing, I’m not switching brain centers. I’m more relaxed, save time by not rereading my task list every fifteen minutes, and save more time by not incurring mental change penalties every fifteen minutes.
So all this to say thank you. I haven’t read a book this useful in years.
We have a leadership team retreat next week, and we have multiple sessions based on Profit from the Positive. Our President has been reading a choice quote every Monday morning to the team. Thank you for summarizing all this research into such an easy-to-read, practical book.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Cathleen Swody’ subtitle=’Leadership Research Institute’ link=” linktext=”]
I COULD IMPLEMENT THE IDEAS EVEN BEFORE FINISHING THE BOOK
The ideas and suggestions from Profit from the Positive have been immediately applicable. I was easily able to implement 3 ideas – that worked – before even finishing the book.
1. Opening conversations by asking people about the best thing that has happened to them recently has led to better dialogues and positive momentum.
2. Using the SOAR model in place of SWOT has brought conversations and team focus from a tactical level to a strategic one.
3. Applying the Zeigarnik effect has helped me to be more productive and get more accomplished.
I’m looking forward to implementing more approaches and referencing this book in my coaching practice. Thanks!
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Amanda’ subtitle=’Medicity, a Healthagen Business’ link=” linktext=”]
MAKE HABITS, NOT GOALS
I remember being told by a coworker that when she first moved to a new city she decided to make some lifestyle changes because it is easier to change your routine when everything around you has changed. I thought about that this weekend, and I really understand her now as I am living in a new place for the first time in 5 years. I seem to have all this extra time on my hands. So what better than to follow her advice and make some lifestyle changes myself!
Another thing that popped into my mind when thinking about this idea is the concept of “make habits, not goals” which Margaret has discussed with me personally as my executive coach and writes about in Profit from the Positive. You need to establish a day, a time, and a place that you will do the activity. This helps you commit to the habit and it works for anything – from working out, to carving out time to spend with a friend or loved one, to always tackling the least favorite part of your day first. I brought this concept up as a discussion with some of my colleagues, and it is fun to see what everyone else is going to try to work on. For example, one coworker said that she wants to get back in the groove of meal preparation every week.
I have given myself 3 activities I’d like into make habits while I’m living in Salt Lake City:
• Run at least a mile at my apartment gym on Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:30PM
• Perform “the 7 minute workout” in my apartment Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 6:30PM
• Play volleyball at the University of Utah on Sundays at 1PM
I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to commit to the running so far, I’m still working on the workout piece, and I will start playing volleyball this coming weekend. Thank you Margaret and Senia for a great topic and interesting read!!
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Dawn Robertson’ subtitle=’Strategic Change Resources‘ link=” linktext=”]
THANKS! THE SOAR MODEL WORKS!
At the annual strategy session for an executive team of a petro-chemical company we used the SOAR analysis framework in a unique way. For the first time in the company’s history, four high potentials (referred to as leadership guests) were invited to attend the executive session in Singapore. Each of the four leadership guests have been coached by one of the members of the executive team. Each guest was ask to prepare a version of SOAR prior to the meeting. They listened to two outside speakers–an economist and an industry expert paint pictures of the future. The leadership guests were then ask to coordinate their individual SOAR analysis into one presentation. They had two hours to pull together a series of recommendations for the strategy of the company for the executive team.
SOAR in Action
Their presentation was structured starting with results that they were proposing going out 3 years, the aspirations that got them to think about the opportunities that the company could drive towards. As a result of their presentation, the executive team spent the next day talking about the ideas and exploring where they needed more information. They then gave the four leadership guests two weeks to pull together a more detailed presentation (30 minutes) based on their additional requests, and to prepare for a 90 minute conversation about their findings. The meeting has been held and the suggestions and recommendations of the four guests have been incorporated into the company’s strategic plan and will be presented to the board of directors. In summary, SOAR provided a very positive framework for the younger generation to challenge the thinking of the older generation and do so in a way that allowed their voices to be heard. Everyone is quite pleased with both the process and the results.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Vicki J. Gordan, Vice President, CFA ‘ subtitle=’Unum – Business Development, Planning & Metrics’ link=” linktext=”]
WE GET SO MUCH MORE FROM OUR PEOPLE WHEN WE BUILD THEM UP
I wanted to let you know how much I liked your book, Profit from the Positive. It was easy to read in small chunks – which is the way I most often have to read these days. I didn’t feel like I had missed threads because I had to pick it up and put it down at different times. I also really appreciate its message – we are so much more likely to get so much more from our people when we focus on building them up than on tearing them down – and on leveraging what they bring to the table, rather than looking for what is missing.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’A vendor who received positive feedback for her work’ subtitle=” link=” linktext=”]
GIVING FRE (Frequent Recognition and Encouragement)
(Editor’s note: A great example of how giving FRE, and in particular “Praise to the Back” (Chapter 6: Engaging Employees) works its way back to the employee).
“Dear [client],
I was called into my boss’s office today about a phone conversation she had with […] which I must admit concerned me as […] is my boss’s boss. I was assured nothing was wrong… and she went on to tell me of the conversation you had had with […]. I was so moved by your kind words and for taking the time to seek [my boss’s boss] out…
You are … kind … and it has been and will continue to be my pleasure to provide the best customer service … that I can. I thank you and want to wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
[Your vendor]”
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Jiaqi (Jacqueline) Wu’ subtitle=’P&G, PepsiCo, Sanofi’ link=” linktext=”]
TOP TEN LESSONS FROM “Profit from the Positive”
(Editor’s note: subtitles added and some wording and formatting changed for clarity).
During the holiday, I read Profit from the Positive for the second time and I have to write this post to let you know how much I enjoy reading the book and how much I hope I had had the opportunity to learn these theories and tactics when I firstly became project leader and people manager.
Me Early in My Career
When I read the issues you put upfront in each section, I saw myself in early years of my career – a crazy workaholic who even didn’t rest at lunch (and consequently miss opportunities to mingle with peers or recharge myself); an emotional manager who frowned a lot and inevitably spread negative energy at workplace; an unsuccessful hiring manager who focused on more hard skills than cultural/attitude fitness; and a brand manager out of solutions to motivate subordinates to pick up tough tasks. Indeed, I went through a long way with many torture tests to find out what did not work and what might work. In some few cases, we had positive leaders as our line managers for us to learn some positive skills from, but in the majority of the cases, we were part of a large corporation that focuses on provide technical skill training rather than professional and systematic coaching to build positive leaders and organizations.
How I Learned about Leadership
I observed and contemplated constantly what empowered the best team performance from all the leaders around me, even I wasn’t reporting to them. I felt naturally attracted to and fascinated by speaking with them and learning how they build their teams and how they strived for a balance between challenging work and a happy life – these are what guided me and shaped me to be a positive leader in the past 10 years. While I see myself fortunate enough to have been nourished and developed by these incredible mentors, I do see that many of my friends/colleagues lack the opportunity to master such tools/tips to make them work and live happily. That’s again where I see that this book will have a large impact on them!
My Top 10 Takeaways – Thank You!
Here are some of my top-of-mind take-aways from reading the book. These particularly echo how I grew and transformed, so I believe in them strongly and persistently!
1. Work less and accomplish more: Particularly for marketing and advertising teams, they need to recharge and freshen their minds for creativity! I transformed from a non-lunch eater to a manger who would spend time with my team during lunch and even during some after-lunch activities so we know each other better and recharge ourselves effectively.
2. SWOT -> SOAR: I agree with you 300%!! For a long time, I have believed that SWOT is a a waste of time as certain boxes repeat the other boxes just in a negatively repetitive way. I just hadn’t found the right framework to replace it. From now on, I will implement SOAR which is more forward-looking, actionable and good for setting a positive tone!
3. A contagious leader: Attend to and manager my emotion, and be a positively contagious leader in my team.
4. Learning mindset & explorer’s hat: For me to effectively enable / encourage my team to pick up new challenges!
5. Find solutions, not faults: I always valued the lessons and learnings from the past so that we know what works/doesn’t work and can be more efficient/effective for future application. However, I realized my communication might have put too much focus on finding out “fault” and its”owner,” which made team hesitate to share the truth or actively participate in analysis.
6. Hiring for attitude & soft skills: Important for me to learn some actionable techniques from the book!
7. Process praise vs. person praise: Sending gratitude and compliments is my natural act, but I’ve now learned how to make the praise most effective!
8. Endings matter: Despite the fact that I know that the ending of a presentation matters, and that Stanford Business School told us to give a “dessert” at the end of each speech, however, I hadn’t extended the concept to meetings. I am inspired by the examples shown in the book.
9. Asking further inspiring questions upon an initial refusal, such as “what could do without negatively impacting your work?”, “what could you do if you only spend five minutes?”: Many times, I gave up when respondents showed hesitation so the change didn’t happen. But your book showed me both the tactics and promising results if I were to take one step further.
10. Last but most important is to crowdsource in performance reviews to strive for an open, transparent, and fair evaluation.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Erneshia’ subtitle=’Aetna‘ link=” linktext=”]
ENGAGING EMPLOYEES: Pause, Reflect, and Give a Thanks
Reading this book has really encouraged me to stop, pause and reflect on practical leadership qualities and how they can be applied in the workplace. Recently, I led a meeting of my colleagues centered around the concept of thankfulness in leadership which ties in to FRE: Frequent Recognition and Encouragement.
Everyone was required to complete an assignment prior to the meeting. This pre-work consisted of them reflecting on why they were thankful the other 11 individuals were part of the group. Knowing the dynamics among the team have shifted from time to time, I wanted everyone to take a moment and reflect on the value each person has brought to them. I wanted this exercise to challenge them. Yet, this exercise was two-fold.
At the beginning of the meeting, I started by reading a statement for each of my colleagues so they would know what someone said about them. I did that for 2 reasons: (1) I wanted to set the stage for our discussion; and (2) I wanted everyone to feel good about themselves knowing someone had such positive things to say about them. After that, we talked about how thankfulness can be applied to leading teams and the inward and outward benefits of practicing this (e.g. better individual emotional well-being; more productive, loyal employees, etc). We also discussed ways in which we could “activate” thankfulness in leadership with the main takeaway being that thankfulness in leadership cannot be left to chance. It must be a conscious part of our day and as leaders we have an obligations to find reasons to express thankfulness and gratitude to our employees.
At the end of our discussion, we revisited the opening “thankfulness” remarks, this time disclosing who the originator of the statement was. The originator was then asked to elaborate on why they said that about their colleague. That was the most moving part of the meeting. Throughout this discussion, everyone was engaged despite our geographical limitations. Half of the group were in a room together and the remainder of us were spread out across the globe, joining in virtually. However, this did not lessen the impact of the exercise and we were all able to feel the virtual “hug” this exercise was intended to impart.
I received a lot of positive feedback from my colleagues on this exercise. The fact that they took the time to pause, reflect and send a note of thanks was evidence that my meeting was a success. The exercise was not only two-fold for them, but for me too. It felt AWESOME to make others feel good too! FRE in action.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Jerry Grad’ subtitle='”Thanks for Helping with My Proposal for Change”‘ link=” linktext=”]
PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
Your book was the basis for a proposal I made to the regional president of my Company (approx. 80,000 employees). It resulted in a challenge to “make it work” at my location as proof of concept. Performance reviews are just one of several changes i’ll be working on. The context for the work will be raising the level of engagement through strengths utilization and employee selection. I am profoundly grateful for your book and wish you both much success.
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Betsy Simnacher’ subtitle=” link=’http://longhornedit.com’ linktext=’Longhorn Editorial Services’]
THE CONTAGIOUS LEADER: “Moderate to Severe Humming”
In Profit from the Positive, the subtitle and text for Tool #3, “Tame Your Oscar the Grouch If You Need To,” reminded me of something I hadn’t thought of in a while.
Long ago, I had a supervisor who hummed when she was displeased with something or in a bad mood. It took me a while to realize that I was tensing up every time the humming started. But it turned out I was not the only one who noticed this.
One day I came in and asked a co-worker how the morning was going. She gave me a heads-up: “Moderate to severe humming.”
August 26, 2013
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Chip Conley’ subtitle=’Founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels’ link=” linktext=”]
MEETINGS: “The Last Ten Minutes of a Two-Hour Meeting”
Let’s see how Chip Conley … transformed Joie de Vivre’s executive committee meetings at their darkest hour. It was 2002, and committee meetings were downright depressing. Agendas were dominated by discussions on how to stay afloat in a bad economy and where to make cuts. Conley decided that it was time to break this negative cycle. At the next committee meeting, he was determined to try something different.
“Reminding ourselves why we’re in this business, let’s tell positive stories in the last ten minutes of a two-hour meeting. It doesn’t cut into the meeting and it helps end the meeting on a positive note,” Conley told us.
He ended the meeting by telling the story of a hotel employee who had gone above and beyond requirements and had done something wonderful for a guest. The following day, three managers told similar stories. The snowball effect had taken over.
July, 2013
From Profit from the Positive, p. 150
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[av_testimonial_single src=” name=’Carla’ subtitle=” link=” linktext=”]
THE PRODUCTIVE LEADER: “If You Had Just 5 Minutes…”
From the outside looking in, Carla seemed like she wasn’t able to consistently complete all her projects on time. But make no mistake: she was no slacker. It’s that Carla rarely got to the more strategic projects her boss was looking for her to lead, and that was hurting her career. Instead, she spent her day dealing with the crisis du jour. She came to us at a low point.
“I feel like things are out of control,” she said. “The faster I go, the behinder I get. I’ve got to make headway on this talent strategy, but I never have a chunk of time to work on it.”
“What would you do if you had just five minutes to work on it?” we asked.
“I need way more time than five minutes,” she countered, visibly annoyed that we would suggest such a lame idea.
“Sure you do, but what would you do if you had just five minutes?” we persisted.
“Probably jot down the people I need to get input from and set up a couple of meetings.”
“Good. That’s a start,” we said. “What else could you do to move the project along by only 1 percent? Or put another way, what’s the smallest step you could take that would have the biggest, most positive impact?”
“I guess I could pull up the template that’s out on our company’s intranet and start filling in what I already know,” Carla offered.
“Now, that’s a good start. When we talk next week, we will want you to brag about all the small steps you took to move this project forward.”
July, 2013
From Profit from the Positive, p. 16
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