The 84% Solution: Part 1

What is the most important research from positive psychology for those interested in school leadership? 

There are lots of candidates.  Martin Seligman’s explanatory style construct is powerful.  He’s written The Optimistic Child, and Karen Reivich, Jane Gilham, et al., have built off that construct to develop a resilience program for middle schoolers that helps avoid the onset of depression. Carol Dweck’s work on self-theories of intelligence was also inspired by Dr. Seligman’s insights, and that work is extraordinarily applicable to the K-12 environment.  And the late Rick Snyder’s work on hope has also been successfully taught in a school setting with measurable positive results. 

However, positive psychology’s main message to school leaders, especially superintendents, is in what I call “The 84% Solution.”  The 84% Solution recognizes that school systems require more leadership than one leader can provide.  So, how does the superintendent, at the system level, and the principal at the school level, create a highly effective team of engaged leaders?  Answer:  the 84% Solution. 

One prong of The 84% Solution is to invest time and attention on the ingredients of the solution: the formal and informal members of the leadership team.  This is what Jim Collins in Good to Great called “getting the right people on the bus” and in the right seats.  Larry Bossidy, former CEO, has written that he routinely spent 20% of his time on people processes, going up to 30-40% when he was re-building.  Positive psychology can help with this part of the process by providing a strengths-based way of looking at individuals and their capacities.  Both the Values in Action Signature Strengths Survey and Gallup’s Strengthsfinder 2.0 are valuable tools in this area, but the key is developing a strengths vision.  That is, superintendents and principals can improve their leadership qualities by learning to see and think about those on their teams, or candidates, in terms of strengths.  Some leaders have strengths that make this transition easy.  Others may need to rely on members of their teams who have clear strengths vision or get the assistance of tools like the VIA or Strengthsfinder 2.0.  But the clear message of positive psychology is that getting team members in positions where they can act and relate every day based on their strengths will significantly improve the performance of the team. 

The second prong of The 84% Solution is the ratio of positive to negative interactions in the team.  Marcial Losada’s work has established the applicability of non-linear systems to leadership teams.  After studying highly successful, moderately successful, and unsuccessful business leadership teams, he has identified the ratios of positive to negative interactions that open up the necessary emotional space for creativity and high performance. 

Success requires a minimum 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions.  That’s five statements or actions of support, interest, and encouragement for every one of criticism, hostility, or sarcasm.  Mediocrity can be achieved with about a 3:1 ratio.  Below 3:1 and failure becomes the “point attractor” toward which the actions of the team will spiral.  So, 5 out of 6 interactions need to be positive, or 5/6, or, rounding up because you do not want to be on the wrong side of this ratio, “The 84% Solution.”  (Some may want to know if you can get too positive.  Yes, but it seems to be at a ratio greater than 11:1.  If the interactions of your team are more than 92% positive, you may want to do a reality check – but given our societal bias that thinking negatively proves you are smart, it is unlikely this will be a problem for most teams!) 

So, how is your team?  How are the teams in your schools?  Are you injecting daily doses of positive interactions into your leadership environment?  Remember that for every dose of negativity you or your initiatives generate, someone has to come up with five doses of positivity to keep the team functioning at a successful level.