“Profit from the Positive is a thought-provoking and practical guide to applying insights from positive psychology to the workplace. It’s an invaluable resource for anyone seeking better satisfaction and performance at work.”
—Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before

 “Executive coaches Greenberg and Maymin offer over two dozen practical tools for running a more profitable business. All of their advice is backed up by science, tested in businesses large and small, and doesn’t cost a dime to implement. The suggestions in Profit from the Positive are what business schools will be teaching in ten years.”
—Shawn Achor, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage
 
 “Greenberg and Maymin have built an exciting and important bridge between compelling evidence and actionable practice. Profit from the Positive is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to boost organizational productivity and the quality of work life.”
—Adam Grant, professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals
 
 “Profit from the Positive gives the busy executive ways to improve performance immediately—in some cases by up to 50 percent!—without restructuring the organization or bringing in any consultants. Finally, a leadership book that bridges the chasm between what science knows and what business needs!”
—Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels and author of PEAK and Emotional Equations

 “An excellent resource for leaders who want to fulfill more of their own and others’ potential, Profit from the Positive is accessible, interesting, and based on solid research that can, and will, make a difference in you and your environment. If you are a leader, or would like to become one, the best advice that I can give you is to follow the advice in this book.”
—Tal Ben-Shahar, author of Happier and Choose the Life You Want

“Profit from the Positive is a straightforward business book with tools that anyone can implement.”
—Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, Inc., and New York Times bestselling author of Delivering Happiness

“So many people are working from the negative side of the coin these days. Greenberg and Maymin have given you lots to implement here. Don’t simply read this book. Absorb it.”
—Chris Brogan, CEO of Human Business Works and author of Trust Agents

“As the third-generation president and CEO of our family company, I am a true believer in using positive leadership to help drive our company forward. This book provides some wonderful reinforcement for leaders to read as a reminder of how we should work with our teams.”
—Cindi Bigelow, president and CEO of Bigelow Tea

“In their book, Profit from the Positive, Margaret and Senia offer some innovative ways for transforming a team, a department, even a company, to be more productive and profitable. They have turned some traditionally held notions on their heads, replacing them with ideas that turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones. Better yet, their ideas don’t require any capital outlay or long-range planning. In many instances, after reading these inspirational suggestions, a business leader can implement them right away—that same day—and reap the immediate rewards of having a more engaged workforce and improved business performance.”
—Greg Tranter, EVP, CIO, and COO of the Hanover Insurance Group

“Don’t go to work without this book! Profit from the Positive is a revolutionary, science-based road map to business success. If you want to amp up your success, follow Greenberg and Maymin’s unique prescription for driving phenomenal business results through the development of extraordinary employees. Get this book for yourself and every member of your team!”
—David J. Pollay, author of The Law of the Garbage Truck

“There are so many good and useful business and leadership books available. But this book is different! The authors cut to the heart of leadership attributes that can drive both results and team energy, create a focused, contagious atmosphere that leverages the strengths of employees, and inspire leaps in performance effectiveness and success. If you are a leader or aspire to be one, Profit from the Positive is indispensable reading.”
—Kevin McCarthy, president and CEO of Unum US and EVP and COO of Unum Group

“A great read! The research on how our moods and emotions as leaders influence our team’s productivity struck home for me. Being aware of this is more important than most of us realize. I found the techniques to neutralize a negative mood enormously helpful.”
—Leslie Ashford, AVP of executive development at MassMutual Financial Group

“This book is engaging, enjoyable, and practical. Especially intriguing is the notion of turning performance reviews into positive events, borrowing from sports psychology by positively visualizing the year ahead and setting up the conditions for success!”
—Debra Palermino, EVP of human resources at MassMutual Financial Group

“Profit from the Positive is a must-read for managers at all levels. Using case studies from their coaching experience, Greenberg and Maymin demonstrate how to avoid costly hiring mistakes and create an engaged workforce—and they have the data to prove it. Profit from the Positive is written with the needs of today’s world in mind. The practical and proven tools contained in this book, combined with its timeless wisdom, will inspire you for years to come.”
—Laura A. Belsten, president and CEO of the Institute for Social + Emotional Intelligence

“Profit from the Positive is full of realistic, creative, practical, and effective strategies for leadership in the post command-and-control business world. It is a transformation handbook for leaders, teams, and organizations.”
—John P. Tarpey, COO of Balfour Beatty Construction, US

“Greenberg and Maymin have written a must-read on how to power yourself, your team and your organization with easy to read and easy to implement strategies. As Aetna’s chief culture officer, I apply many of the concepts, best practices, and action steps within our culture transformation efforts.”
—Laurie Brubaker, CCO at Aetna

profit from the positive

Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business

McGraw-Hill Education

Contents

CHAPTER 1

The Productive Leader:It's More Than Time Management

Seventy percent of Americans report that work is a significant source of stress,according to the American Psychological Association. Additionally, Americans onaverage work eight hours more per week than their German counterparts, yet theyare no more productive. For the last 50-plus years, sociologists have beenasking people to keep time diaries of their activities. Surprisingly, peoplereport only one more hour of free time today compared with 1965. We're busierthan ever, yet we seem to be accomplishing less and less.

We already know about setting priorities, making to-do lists, and accomplishingbig goals by breaking them into smaller chunks. However, many of us undervaluesetting aside time to plan our work. We know what we should be doing, butsometimes we can't seem to get out of our own way. In coaching hundreds ofbusiness owners and executives, we've found three common drains on ourproductivity: we're overworked, we multitask, and we procrastinate.

We're overworked. One of our clients, Paul, heads a data services departmentthat provides support for offices around the world. He's not only overworked,he's exhausted. "We have seventeen offices located on three continents andoperating in eight time zones, which makes it really hard to unplug," helaments. Paul is not alone.

Nine to five has been replaced by 24/7. In an informal survey of a dozenMillennials, Margaret asked, "What does nine to five mean to you?" The mostcommon answer? The score of the previous night's ball game.

For most of us, 40-hour workweeks are a thing of the past because of twocolliding forces: a global economy and access to technologies that allow us tobe available around the clock. We used to think that having operations on bothcoasts was a challenge. For businesses that operate globally, even scheduling aconference call can be a challenge. No matter how you juggle calendars, someonehas to get up in the middle of the night to participate.

Paul describes a typical day: "I try to force myself to leave the office by 7p.m. at the latest and limit the amount of work I do from home. This is a bigshift from my prior roles, where I would work from 7 a.m. until 8 or 9 p.m., goback to work at midnight, and stay until 5 a.m. That said, I think I fail on apretty grand scale in terms of maintaining a balance between work and the restof my life."

Even if your business operates domestically, chances are that you're stilloverworked because of constant access to technology. Our clients often complainabout the time it takes to keep up with the barrage of emails that assault theirin-boxes. An 11-hour workday is the norm for our client Ellie, who leads anintegration team for a newly acquired financial services company, and those 11hours are merely the time she spends in the office: "I typically leave workaround 6 p.m. so I can be home in time to have dinner with my husband and kids.Then, once the dinner dishes are cleaned up, the homework finished, and the kidsare tucked in, I log back onto email for a few hours before going to bed. Thenext day, it starts all over again."

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer stated previously, "I do marathon email catch-upsessions, sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday. I'll just sit down and do email for10 to 14 hours straight." Mayer describes regularly working 90-hour weeks andtaking a one-week vacation about every six months.

We multitask. While our client Eddie waits in line to pay for his turkeysandwich, he scrolls through his in-box on his phone and listens to a voicemail. "You forgot your change," the cashier yells as Eddie makes a mad dash forhis office, arriving barely in time to log on to a 12:30 conference call withhis boss and the rest of the team. After announcing himself, he hits the mutebutton and replies to a couple of the emails. In the middle of the third emailhis cell phone beeps, announcing that he has a text message from his golf buddy.As he's typing his reply, he hears his boss: "Eddie, are you there? Eddie?" Heunmutes himself. "Ah, yes, I'm here." "What ideas do you have to solve thisproblem?" his boss asks. Ideas? Eddie has no idea what the team has beendiscussing.

Many clients tell us they are so busy that multitasking is the only way they canaccomplish everything. They participate in conference calls while driving, doInternet searches during meetings, and respond to emails while talking on thephone. Multitasking has become associated with being more productive, but thiscouldn't be further from the truth. The biggest hit to your productivity frommultitasking is what we call flip-flop costs. It takes effort to flip-flop orswitch from one focus to another. In fact, we lose up to 40 percent of ourproductivity from flip-flopping between tasks. In a typical eight-hour day,which we know is no longer typical, that translates into three lost hours.

A study conducted in 2007 calculated the loss of productivity and innovationresulting from social media interruptions at 650 billion annually. Answeringemails as they come in has been estimated to cost U.S. businesses 70 billion ayear.

Imagine that an email pops up while you're drafting a presentation. You answerit and then go back to the presentation. Next, a text comes in, and you reply.When you return to your presentation, research shows that it will take youlonger to regain your focus and finish your work than it would have had youstayed with that one task. That's a flip-flop cost.

When we don't flip-flop between tasks, we often get our best ideas. For example,Jeff Taylor, founder and formerly Chief Monster of Monster.com, got the idea forhis online job board company while he was sleeping. In fact, he claims that he'shad some of his best strategic ideas when doing nothing at all, not whilemultitasking. Executives we coach often tell us that they found the solution toa particularly nagging problem after a jog or a swim.

Flip-flopping can also have a hidden cost: damage to your reputation. RememberEddie? He later told us how embarrassed he was at not being able to contributeto the conversation: "I looked like a jerk to my boss and the rest of the team,and lost some of their trust and respect, which will take time to earn back."

We procrastinate. Being productive is more than simply practicing good timemanagement techniques. Sometimes we procrastinate the way Tracey does. Tracey isa busy director for a financial services company. She travels the countryhelping satellite offices implement a new product portfolio. At the start of thenew year, Tracey's boss gives her a special project: develop a phase II rolloutstrategy with estimated resources. It is now almost the end of the firstquarter, and still nothing. Tracey knows that her boss is waiting to see herplan, but she wants to use what she's learning in phase I to get it just right.Tracey is a perfectionist.

Perfectionism is the enemy of productivity. If you procrastinate, you areprobably a perfectionist. If you tend to put off some tasks or projects, thereis a high chance the reason is that you want to "do it right." Researchers havefound that perfectionism results from one of three types of thinking: expectingperfect results from yourself, expecting perfect results from others, orthinking that others expect perfect results from you.

Being a productive leader is about creating a mindset that allows you toefficiently accomplish your work. It's about getting your work out the door sothat you can get out of the office at a reasonable hour. In this chapter, weshow you four evidence-based tools to make you even more productive: replace"just do it" with "just plan it"; trick yourself into getting started; sethabits, not just goals; and work less to accomplish more.

1. REPLACE "JUST DO IT" WITH "JUST PLAN IT"

We all know the Nike mantra, "Just do it," and have come to believe that this isalso the path to greater productivity. Wrong. Although "just do it" works insome situations, research shows that it should be replaced with "just plan it."Creating a brief plan before diving into your work actually improvesproductivity.

Two Days After Christmas

Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer of Columbia University wanted to learn what movespeople to action. He recruited university students to participate in anexperiment. Half the students were simply told to write a report about how theyspent their Christmas Eve and send it in to the researchers by December 27. Theother half were given the same assignment, but in addition, Gollwitzer askedthem to identify exactly when and where they would write the report. Studentspicked a specific time (such as after breakfast) and a certain place (such asthe quiet corner of the living room). In effect, these students had set what wecall a triggering event. What happened? Seventy-one percent of the students whoidentified up front when and where they would write the report mailed it in bythe due date. A meager 32 percent of the other group turned the report in ontime. Gollwitzer's study has been replicated about 100 times in dozens ofsettings. The bottom line? You may be twice as likely to accomplish your work ifyou decide up front when and where you will do it.

Increase Your Odds

Often we are in roles in which we need something from one of our employees,peers, or business partners to get our own work done. Using the when-and-whereresearch, a useful corollary is that it is easier to get people to do a taskwhen you have set a triggering event in their heads or, better yet, when youhave agreed with them on a particular when and where. For example, making arequest such as, "Joe, could you bring me that report to the conference roomafter the 10 a.m. meeting?" is more likely to get you that report than is ageneral request such as "Joe, could you bring me that report tomorrow?"

What We Can Learn from Smokers

After studying 30,000 smokers who successfully kicked the habit, thepsychologist James Prochaska developed a model for the ways people create changein their lives. One of his most significant findings is that people often rushinto action ("I will stop smoking tomorrow") before they've set up the necessarygroundwork for implementing that change (such as throwing away all theircigarettes). Intentions may be sincere, but without the proper planning, thereis little chance of success. Therefore, before you rush to action, take time outand plan the day, week, or month ahead. Also, in planning your actions, settriggers for yourself.

2. TRICK YOURSELF INTO GETTING STARTED

In the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report, the PreCrime unit knows about a crimebefore it is committed. What if you could know what you're going to accomplisheach day before you actually accomplish it?

Margaret did exactly that in writing this book. Nearly every Friday, she workedon a section of the book, and at the end of the workday, she sent Senia an emaildescribing her progress and attached the latest version. But when did Margaretwrite the email to Senia? When she sat down at her computer, first thing in themorning. Even before working on the sections, she drafted the email—in the pasttense—describing what she had completed that day. In a sense, Margaret wastricking herself into getting started. Here are two more techniques to trickyourself into getting started: use the Zeigarnik (pronounced Zay-gar-nick)effect and use Tina's ta-da! list.

The Zeigarnik Effect

Research that's almost 100 years old has been a bit of a productivity secret.The psychology researcher Bluma Zeigarnik discovered that not finishing a taskin one sitting can be a good thing. Imagine that you agree to participate in astudy in which a researcher gives you about 20 tasks to complete one by one (thetasks include making a clay figure, doing arithmetic, making a cardboard box,and completing puzzles). But while you are working on those tasks, he interruptsyou on half of them before you have a chance to finish them (the order ofinterruptions was made to appear to be random). At the end of the study, theresearcher asks you to tell him which tasks you worked on. Will you be morelikely to remember the tasks you were working on when you were interrupted orthe ones you had a chance to complete? Intriguingly, interrupted tasks arebetter remembered.

How can you apply this to your work? Leave a project only partly finished onyour desk so that when you approach it the following morning, there's somethingto work on immediately. This is the Zeigarnik effect. Leave yourself loose ends:outlines before full paragraphs or draft presentations before the finishedproduct.

One of our clients, Sanjay, was not a morning person. He often had a hard timegetting started in the morning. He also hated wasting time. The Zeigarnik effectwas just what he needed. Sanjay had decided to restructure his informationtechnology department to better align it with the various lines of business hisorganization supported. "I've talked to all the key stakeholders," he told us,"but I need to send out an email announcing the changes before I hold my townhall meeting tomorrow afternoon." We asked, "What if you drafted theannouncement this afternoon but waited to reread it one last time before hittingthe send button in the morning? That way you would have something to do firstthing when you arrive." Not only did Sanjay try this technique, but we laterlearned that he left something unfinished nearly every day so that he hadsomething to jump-start his morning.

What's necessary for the Zeigarnik effect to work is to start something. Forexample, say you want to approach a potential client but are not sure how. TheZeigarnik effect does not work if you merely think, "I should approach thisclient." You need to start an action in order to leave some loose ends. Writeout some bullet points for the way you will approach the client or do anInternet search to gather some information about the company. Then stop. Comeback to it later and you'll be even more productive.

Will You Be More Likely to Wash Your Car for the First Time or the Third Time?

Another way to trick yourself into making progress is to pretend that you havealready started. Two researchers ran a study at a professional car wash. Aftertheir first car wash, 300 customers received a free loyalty card. Half of thosecustomers got a loyalty card with spaces for eight stamps. The deal was this:purchase eight car washes and get the next one free. The other half got aloyalty card with spaces for 10 stamps, but the first 2 stamps were alreadyaffixed (such that one-fifth of the card was already complete). Over the nextnine months, the car wash tracked how many free washes were redeemed. In theeight-stamp group, 19 percent of the customers completed all eight stamps andreceived a free car wash. In the 10-stamp group with 2 stamps already affixed,32 percent of the customers completed the remaining 8 stamps and received a freecar wash. People persisted more when the task had already been started for them.

How can you focus on being in progress on a project or task as opposed to beingat the beginning of it? Try what we call Tina's ta-da! list trick. One of ourclients, Tina, writes a couple of items on her to-do list that she has alreadyaccomplished and then immediately crosses them out. Ta-da! "Nothing feels betterthan seeing a couple of strikethroughs on my to-do list," she confesses. Soundscrazy? Maybe, but it works.

One Minute in Front of the TV

Julie is the pseudonym of a patient of Robert Maurer, a psychologist at UCLA.Julie was an overweight, overworked single mom with diabetes. Maurer knew thathis typical advice (get 30 minutes of exercise per day) would probably not workfor Julie. Instead he asked, "Do you watch TV?"

Julie looked at him quizzically and answered, "Yes."
(Continues...)Excerpted from profit from the positive by MARGARET GREENBERG, SENIA MAYMIN. Copyright © 2013 Profit from the Positive, LLC. Excerpted by permission of McGraw-Hill Education.
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