Short-term Gain: Could You Please Pass the Blame?

Short-term Gain: Could You Please Pass the Blame?

                                                                                    ~by Sherri Fisher, MAPP, M.Ed. 

Remember the game “hot potato” that you played as a kid? Blame is like that. No one wants to be left holding it, since you might get burned. As a result, we develop explanations for the innocence someone else will hopefully connect to us. You or a child you work with may have “reasons” for not having an assignment completed. “The dog ate my homework” comes to mind.

Inflating the Truth

Some reasons are somewhat “true”, at least in the eyes of the beholder. In the 1995 film, Clueless, here’s how one of the characters, Travis, passes the blame for being late: “Tardiness is not something you can do on your own. Many, many people contributed to my tardiness. I would like to thank my parents for never giving me a ride to school, the LA city bus driver who took a chance on an unknown kid and last but not least, the wonderful crew from McDonalds who spend hours making those Egg McMuffins without which I’d never be tardy.” Cher, the main character in the film, goes further when she fails to admit that she has run a stop sign. She uses reframing to put a positive spin on her faux pas when she says, “I totally paused” and then backs this up with an oblique explanation: “You try driving in platforms!”

The Passive Voice: Not-me, Always, Everything

All of us have times when we are clueless, and we, too, pass the blame to keep from feeling shame or embarrassment. Have you ever been late and blamed the traffic?  Your children?  Your spouse? Had a particularly tough day in the classroom and blamed the students? Their parents? Administrators? The economy? Do you find yourself using the passive voice, saying, “Well, yes, mistakes were made.” But by whom?

A key aspect of excuse-making is assigning control of the situation to extrinsic factors, thus shifting blame and, sometimes as a bonus, reframing oneself as a victim. This is short-term gain: It appears to solve a problem now, but does not deal with the actual one(s), or it creates new ones.

A teacher who says, “The students didn’t follow the directions” has passed the blame as adeptly as the student who says, “We weren’t warned that there would be short answer questions mixed in with the multiple choice.”  The teacher has missed the opportunity to examine the way directions are worded and the student has missed the chance to reflect on study strategies and comprehension of content. In this way it is possible to pass both the blame and the guilt with no resulting gain.

Why You May Need to Disbar Your Internal Lawyer

While reframing is often the best way to get out of your own way, the blame “reflex” may be preventing you from a necessary change.  Stop defending yourself; failing to accept responsibility keeps us from being able to change habits that impede our personal, academic and professional growth. Whether you are trying to change yourself or someone else (see Part I of this series, Turning around the Hidden Power of Blame), you already know that it’s very difficult. According to William James, three things need to be engaged for us to change: attention, habit and will. In other words, you need to notice what you are doing in order to stop doing it so much; you need to develop an alternate and more effective habit; and you need to develop staying power (often “won’t” as opposed to “will” power).

Cultivating Mental Balance

If you’re ready to swap blame for attention, habit and will, here are some Positive Psychology tools to help you.

 

• First, notice how often you find that you blame “circumstances” like the weather, as opposed to other people, for your inability to have more of what you want. You can’t change some things in your life, but you can nearly always change your response to them, whether things or people.
• Next, you need to attend to the habits of mind that are reinforcing your resistance to change and create new ones.
• Finally, you will need to have the will to stick with an empirically-based coaching program. Note that you may want the nudge of someone besides the face you see in the mirror.

 

 Sometimes you will need to stick with a program much longer than the six weeks it was tested and shown to have correlations to improved well-being. For example, I have been meditating for about seven years, preceding my MAPP program by a few years. Meditation in combination with other tools from Positive Psychology (Tell Me Something Good, Strengths Buttons, Mood Repair Tool Kit) has been more powerful and transformative than meditation alone in my experience.

 

According to Wallace and Shapiro (2006), there are four processes underlying mental balance. These are conative (becoming aware of and setting intentions, goals and priorities) attentional (mediating inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity as cultivated through mindfulness), cognitive (viewing the world without imbalances of thought or attention—See Penn Resiliency Program), and affective balance (cultivating loving-kindness, empathetic joy), equanimity and gratitude).

 

Making Change

Are you “totally pausing” through the stop signs of life? After she totally pauses, Cher goes on to side-swipe several parked cars and later fails her driver’s test which she then blames on the man testing her. It’s easy for us to see how she is clueless as she stands before her mirror.

But making changes of any kind is a balancing act. All behaviors, even ones with undesirable outcomes, often have a hidden benefit. Blaming, for example, has the benefit of letting one look into the “rose colored mirror” where you are the fairest one of all. Perhaps to receive this message you may pass the blame quite a lot, but not end up getting more of what you really want. Think about what you’d like more of, and how you can change your contribution.

 

References

Wallace, B.A. and Shapiro, S.L. (2006). Mental balance and well-being: Building bridges between  Buddhism and western psychology. American Psychologist, vol. 61, no. 7, 609-701.

 

Originally published as Short-term Gain: Could You Please Pass the Blame?  at www.pos-psych.com

Flourishing Schools Welcomes Louis Alloro, MAPP, MEd: An Interview

(Portions of this interview originally posted by Sherri Fisher at www.pos-psych.com)

Louis Alloro has joined Flourishing Schools

Louis Alloro, MAPP graduate and character education consultant to schools, has developed an innovative approach to helping you and your community thrive.

Social-Emotional Leadership (S-EL), his framework with which groups can contribute to their own positive change, is about developing new traditions, customs, agreements and language with those in our primary networks, from families to classrooms to the larger communities where we live and work. 

Woven into the transcript below are practical steps you can take to live as a Social-Emotional Leader, bringing attention and consciousness to the things that we all may habitually fail to notice—thereby increasing flexibility and accuracy within the ways we live.

Sherri: Louis, what is S-EL?

Louis: S-EL is a framework with which groups of people, even as few as two, can intentionally create their own betterment—and that of their relationship. The theory is simple: As Social-Emotional Leaders emerge to look out for the well-being of others, we will help each other become our better selves. In turn, becoming our better selves will make the groups we comprise stronger. As social beings, what Jonathan Haidt calls “hive creatures”, we need this support of others to contribute to our positive growth and evolution.

Sherri: How is this more than just being nice? What does that mean – “to look out for the well-being of others”?

Louis: It means being a true friend – inspiring, authentic, honest, comforting, challenging, hopeful, realistically optimistic, and wholly appreciative. It’s simply being an accountability partner. Consider a woman who needs to lose weight because it is affecting her physical and emotional health. A Social-Emotional Leader could be someone with whom she sets SMART goals and the resulting social accountability is what gives her the nudge to actually do it.

Sherri: Like the coach—or the reliable friend—we all could be!

Louis: Right. Individual Social-Emotional Leaders live in what Robert Quinn calls “the fundamental state of leadership.” This is simply a state of ever-increasing levels of integrity. Our Social-Emotional Leaders help us bring balance and focus to that task. They bring our actions in line with our values.

Sherri: In that sense, we all need Social-Emotional Leaders. And we all can be Social-Emotional Leaders, right?

Louis: Yes! And many people already are. Think about the mentors and coaches already in your life and consider the role they play in helping you build on your strengths and stay motivated. Sometimes they are your truth tellers, other times your cheerleaders and always possibility generators.

Sherri: What do Social-Emotional Leaders do? How can our readers become Social-Emotional Leaders themselves?

Louis: Social-Emotional Leaders take people already on their teams (at home, at school, or at work, for example) and ensure that they are all playing the same game. S-EL is the “game” that could help us evolve more positively—that is, to help each other become more virtuous as true “Aristotelian friends” would.

Sherri: So to recap, Social-Emotional Leaders nudge those they care about to operate from a positive paradigm. What are the steps involved?

Louis: First and foremost, they invite people into that possibility, very intentionally, and simply, through dialogue. Further, in every interaction, they use, model, and talk about their own strengths, so that others can potentially learn how to activate similar, complimentary strengths. Character strengths lead to integrity. We know from empirical research that strengths can be built.

Sherri: So Social-Emotional Leaders “steer” positive change by using an appreciative approach—building what is already good, making it better. How would a Social-Emotional Leader do this?

Louis: One way is to kindle curiosity with the people around them about what’s already good, thereby creating psychological and social capital to enable positive change. I think one of the first steps is to build authentic positive emotion. Who doesn’t like to have fun? Barb Fredrickson’s work can be applied here. The broadening and building effects of positive emotion can create the space to begin generative conversations about well-being, values, and strengths. As David Cooperrider says, “Human systems move in the direction of the questions they ask.”

Sherri: So, give us an example. I understand you have been conducting action-research with your family.

Louis: Yes, and I’m learning a lot which is helping me build the S-EL model. To thirty extended family members (and a family business), I offered the invitation, then helped create positive space, and now I am slowly introducing the tools that could enable our own flourishing. Baby steps are important, as is leveraging other Social-Emotional Leaders. We have a slew of them in my network and I bet you do too.

Sherri: What did you do with thirty people?

Louis: The first thing I did with my family involved setting up a Nintendo Wii tournament on Easter this past year. Instead of the normal eating and drinking that typically consume our family events, we stepped out of that box and created a new custom, which generated lots of positive emotion for all three generations attemding the party! We have since organized other fun and engaging events, like a field day this summer, which has created the space for us to have a more formal discussion using the VIA (which everyone took) and other tools of positive psychology.

Sherri: How do you see S-EL working at school?

Louis: Schools are an extension of homes and can teach the tools to emerging Social-Emotional Leaders. Imagine groups of families doing this type of work I am doing with my family and the collective efficacy that could result. Schools are a natural gateway for S-EL – the place where the tools of positive psychology could be disseminated in educational programs that transcend the walls of the school and into the homes it supports. It is the place from which a call-to-action could engage an entire community.

Sherri: Can you give us an example of a Social-Emotional Leader at school?

Louis: Imagine a girl trying to improve her grades but making excuses for why she can’t seem to get down to work. A Social-Emotional Leader would kindle curiosity by asking questions that she may not have considered, like, “What would it look like for you to succeed here and how can I help you make this happen?” As such, her Social-Emotional Leader could be a peer, her parent or a teacher—hopefully combinations of each. The tragedy is in letting someone like this fall through the cracks, growing up feeling like a loser or failure, because that is a real risk. Or a student in a school community working to become more “green” might ask another student, “Do you need that plastic top on your cup? Or that straw? You will only be sitting 20 feet from the drink machine. Perhaps we can save the plastic.” It’s a question, not a requirement. This sort of leadership lets a person choose positive social change because he can see his role in it.

Sherri: Tell us about your preliminary research with students.

Louis: We conducted interviews at an independent school in the US, and illustrated that some students naturally know how to be good Social-Emotional Leaders, but that they are often taking a risk in standing up for someone else (or the environment)—a risk that doesn’t necessarily involve a formalized and intentional or even widely accepted “way of being” in their community. But they do speak up and take the risk. 

Sherri: It’s all about giving people the choice – the call, the invitation to be, as Ghandi entreats us “the change they wish to see in the world.”

Louis: Exactly. Social-Emotional Leaders have the questions – not necessarily the answers. They help us envision what could be, and lead us in baby steps to get there. In other words, they help us see the abundance, the possibility, and the hope for a better, coactively designed future. They invite us into that possibility.

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Begin today!! –Invite someone you care about into an appreciative dialogue –Ask powerful and appreciative questions –See the abundance and possibility in a future you intentionally create –Model strengths through positive social change –Grow in integrity and flourish !

Here’s to you, Miss Robinson – Students love you more than you may know! Peak-End Rules and Our Teachers

Do you have a memory of a teacher who really made a difference in your life? For me, it was Miss Robinson, my third grade teacher.

I vividly remember one moment when she greeted me at the classroom doorway. She always had something nice to say to me, but that day was special. I don’t recall the words she said, but I can still remember the feeling, and smiling from ear to ear. She was probably capitalizing (active constructive responding) on something I said. I placed an anecdote about this moment in a book that Sherri Fisher, Dave Shearon, and I are writing.

This is an illustration of the peak-end rule, studied by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. He claims that people tend to remember and judge past experiences based what they were like when they were at their peak, and how the experience ended. The peak experience can be either pleasant or unpleasant.

In January, my father and step-mother called to tell me that they had been introduced to Miss Robinson by a mutual friend. Miss R. had retired about 10 years ago after many years as a teacher and building principal. Hearing the last name “Yeager” jogged her memory and she asked if they had a son. Then it all came together for her. “Yes, I had John in third grade. He was a very quiet boy.” She asked my father to please remember her to me, and to also ask me what I remembered about her class.

Soon after, I called Miss Robinson and told her how important that moment in the doorway was to me, and how much I still value the memory after almost 46 years. Her strong, low pitched voice echoed with gratitude. At age 77, she hadn’t lost the spark in her voice. Then, something very interesting happened. The sensory experience of hearing her voice transported me back to third grade and a time she held me responsible for some “off task” behavior in class. She was tough at times, holding us accountable, but was always fair.

Another example of the peak-end rule came from an unpleasant memory in first grade. The boys and girls in my class had all been escorted to our respective lavatories. Not needing to “go” at that time, I went in and just washed my hands. Twenty minutes or so, after returning to the classroom, my brain and body signaled me that it was time to go. So, I raised my hand and asked my teacher for permission to go to the rest room. Her answer was an emphatic “NO! You already had your chance.” Well, I showed her! Unfortunately, the shame of a yellow puddle under my desk wasn’t a memory I would choose to keep.

So, here’s to you Miss Robinson, my third grade teacher. And here’s to you, my first grade teacher. As an educator for the past 33 years, I have never once refused a student’s plea to use the rest room. Thanks for the memories!

(Text originally published 3/11/2009 at Positive Psychology News Daily. John writes on the 11th of each month.)

Building a Foundation For Well-Being: A Systematic Strengths-Based Approach

The Culver Academies –-rigorous co-educational, college-preparatory boarding schools in Indiana – are committed to integrating a systemic strengths-based approach to broadening and building character strengths and positive emotions in its academic, athletic, wellness, leadership, arts, and spiritual life programs. Providing the best “whole person” education available to its 780 high school students is accomplished through the tireless efforts of a dedicated instructional faculty and support staff that help guide students as they chart their course through adolescence to adulthood. 

With a strong commitment from Culver’s administration and its Board of Trustees, the school has ventured into a multi-year process that gradually instructs and informs students, faculty, staff, administration and parents with sustainable positive psychology strategies. To borrow the title of Robert Quinn’s book on leadership, Building the Bridge As You Walk On It; our “soft-sell” approach helps neutralize the traditional tension between process and performance by building high quality connections that bring out the best in students, faculty, staff and administrators. 

Faculty Training 

Over the past two summers, over one-half of the school’s 110 faculty members have participated in a three-day intensive seminar entitled “Building Strengths and Positive Emotions.” This program has been co-facilitated by John Yeager, Culver’s Director of the Center for Character Excellence, with Sherri Fisher and Dave Shearon.  

Faculty participants have learned

q      ways to broaden and build position emotion in themselves and their students;

q      strategies they can use with their strengths to become more optimistic and resilient; and

q      relationship-building approaches for building high quality connections at school.  

Faculty participants have identified

q      their own and student “signature” strengths, such as hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, responsibility and perseverance and

q      developed strategies to foster a strengths-based approach in the classroom, living unit, visual and performing arts and athletic arenas in the areas of motivation, optimism, resilience and savoring.  

By learning about character strengths and ways to build and apply them, teachers can be guided to acknowledge, own, and apply their own strengths, to value their authentic selves, and to increase both their collective and self-efficacy. This information is very valuable to faculty members who can then also have a better snapshot of individual, peer and student strengths. This is very helpful in working with groups of students in all phases of school life. As one faculty participant so aptly put it, “I now think differently about how I teach.” 

Faculty Performance Review 

Currently, the Culver Academies are developing a strengths-based annual performance review (APR) for faculty. Traditionally, faculty performance evaluation has been akin to “chewing tin foil.” By instead capitalizing on faculty members’ sense of meaning and purpose in what they do at Culver, and explicitly addressing the “engagement” component of their work, faculty and administration can have a more productive discussion about areas of strengths and challenges.  

The process is approached from a “malleable” or “growth” mindset where department chairs (the middle manager evaluators)

q      capitalize on faculty areas of proficiency – through process and product praise; and

q      identify and healthfully respond to patterns of faculty adversity. 

Student Strengths and Academic, Leadership and Wellness/Athletic Programs 

Embedded in Culver’s formal leadership program, student leaders are starting to frame discussions and behavior from a strengths-based perspective by participating in an “appreciative inquiry” process. Also, they are now discussing the power of positive emotions and explanatory styles to better know themselves and others in the quest of building high-quality connections. 

Culver’s progressive and sequential four-year wellness education program provides students with an opportunity to cultivate their optimism and resilience in the areas of 

q      nutrition

q      sleep

q      physical activity and

q      stress management.  

Through the mentorship of some of their coaches, student-athletes compare and contrast their strengths as part of the team-building process.

After being habitually exposed to a strengths-based approach, Culver’s rising seniors are better prepared to  

q      declare their strengths in their college essays and

q      carry those strengths to college and beyond. 

Integrating the principles of positive psychology is helping Culver flourish by focusing on identifying, broadening, and building the unique strengths of the faculty, staff, students, and administrators. We want all Culver stakeholders to be meaning makers and culture keepers by making positive psychology sustainable in all aspects of school life.

Measuring, Appreciating, and Building Character

Positive psychology offers schools values assessment without the negatives of value judgments. All people have strengths and, like intelligences and talents, they are present in different degrees in all individuals across social groups.  Identified strengths can be defined as those qualities which contribute to the fulfillment of an individual and help that individual operate positively and effectively in society.  

According to Martin E.P. Seligman and Christopher Peterson in Character Strengths and Virtues, strengths can be seen in examples of best behaviors, and they are valued by society and nurtured in individuals who display them. This cross-cultural consensus is an important aspect of positive psychology and offers a broad application for individuals without regard for the specific social setting in which they operate.  

How can learning communities agree on what constitutes the good of a person? Is it their academic skills? Community service projects? Athletic performance? And how do we identify the good of a teacher? Is it by teacher effectiveness scores? High-stakes testing outcomes? Availability to students before and after school?  Positive psychology has set out to identify the traits that are generally accepted across all literate cultures as the elements of values in action, to assess those elements in individuals, and to assist individuals in developing their strengths and virtues.  What’s more, learning to use these strengths in new ways in everyday life has been found to increase happiness.  Happiness likely causes success, and that is what we want in school—Success!

The VIA Signature Strengths Survey (VIA-IS) is a 240-item psychometrically validated test which identifies one’s strengths of character: values in action.  It is based on research of human strengths and virtues covering over 3000 years of the shared values of literate cultures world-wide. From this research 24 ubiquitous strengths of character have been identified which fit into one of six virtue categories. A person who takes the VIA is ranked on all 24 character strengths, for example appreciation of beauty and excellence, bravery, citizenship, gratitude, leadership self-regulation, and fairness.   

As a means of evaluating personal strengths as they add up to the traits of character, the VIA assesses what we value culturally, translated into what we value about ourselves. While all of the character strengths are present in everyone, the top five are the strengths that the person endorses as their main means of positively interacting with society.  

Teachers, taking the VIA-IS, as well as students, taking the VIA-Youth, can find this to be particularly useful as they define themselves.  This provides an avenue for positive goal setting, is inherently strengths-based and focuses on both teachers and students being themselves, at their best, in ways they might otherwise not have otherwise considered.  Using one’s strengths increases engagement, and provides a strengths vocabulary common to all, too.  

It is almost inevitable that without empirically-informed ethics, such as those assessed by the VIA, definitions of the good of a person will be informed by personal opinion.  Because the VIA uses a consensual classification of strengths and virtues, present in each individual, it avoids introducing a deficit model that defines some individuals as having good character and others as being without the elements of good character.   

Positive psychology can provide clarity in defining the good of a person.  The VIA can assess the signature strengths of individuals’ character, and positive psychology training can help to strengthen and further develop the strengths and virtues.  Thus begins a wonderfully positive cycle of well-being and success.

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.

John Yeager Featured Speaker at CAPP Conference

John Yeager is a presenter at 

The Center for Applied Positive Psychology:

April 18-20, 2007
 

University of Warwick, UK 

Topic: Building Strengths and Positive Emotions in the Schools: A Systems Approach to Positive Psychology in Education 

Registration Information:

http://www.cappeu.org/admin/res/File/CAPP%20Programme%20Flyer%20FINAL.pdf

Character: Leveraging Performance and Relational Strengths in Zero and Non-Zero Sum Climates

Cortland State’s Tom Lickona and Matt Davidson claim that character strengths fall into two categories:  performance and relational.   Performance and relational character are not mutually exclusive.  Lickona and Davidson suggest that performance character focuses on the diligence, perseverance, and self-discipline necessary to a commitment to professional, academic, athletic, and other areas of excellence.   Moral or relational character embodies the traits of “integrity, justice, caring, and respect needed for successful interpersonal relationships and ethical behavior” within a specific enterprise.  

Performance and relational character is alive and well in the competitive enterprises of business, education, sports, and the legal system.  Many of these ventures are considered to be zero sum games – characterized by situations where one’s gain always results in an opposing loss for someone else.  Alfie Kohn, the author of No Contest, calls this phenomena “mutually exclusive goal attainment.”  MEGA is commonly observed in sports as well as in business, education, and many other domains.  Chasing the brass ring in zero-sum mode is often what motivates many people to succeed. 

Robert Wright, the author of Non-Zero, has claimed that as societies become more complex, specialized, and interdependent, there is a movement towards finding non-zero sum solutions in enterprises.  A non-zero sum climate is characterized by win-win situations within business, education, etc.  As interdependence in an enterprise increases, we find that we do better when our fellow employees, students, and teammates also do better.  The non-zero sum environment enhances the attention and readiness to compete in zero-sum climates.   

The essential strategies that cultivate non zero-sum climates are provided within the emerging field of positive psychology, the study of positive and subjective well-being, positive character traits, and positive institutions.  It is about focusing on and leveraging what we do well – one’s strengths – as opposed to solely concentrating on deficiencies and weaknesses.    

Positive Psychology also strives to create the positive institutions within enterprises that allow all involved to grow and to experience the flourishing of personal virtues and strengths.  Focusing on strengths and positive emotions promotes individual and collective flourishing which results in the development of strong, supportive relationships and healthy traditions.  Martin Seligman (2002), a pioneer in the field, says it best: “We need a psychology of rising to the occasion because that is the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of predicting human behavior.”  

Positive professional and educational cultures can foster productivity, collegiality, support for hard work, high expectations for achievement, and the ethical high road.  Today, the field of positive psychology encompasses the work of a wide array of notable researchers in not only psychology, but also in sociology, health, medicine, organizational studies, business management, and other disciplines.  The field has economic consequences significant enough to have already garnered one Nobel Prize in economics.  Organizations as diverse as Best Buy, Whirlpool, and David’s Bridal, are implementing positive psychology-based programs that focus on leveraging employee strengths.   The field has become the subject of numerous articles in widely read publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Time, Scientific American, and Psychology Today and New York Times Magazine. 

By promoting a strengths-based approach in academic, leadership, fine arts, wellness and athletic programs, your school can make the mission-based connection between the mind, body and spirit come alive.  An awareness and understanding of character strengths and their relationship to well-being is a valuable tool for young people as they navigate their journeys through adolescence to adulthood.  Knowing what particular traits look like when they come alive may be instructive and informative for both educators and students.   

The cultivation of character strengths typically doesn’t happen in isolation, and the empirical research advocates addressing character from a multidimensional perspective. Each student has a unique set of combinations of signature (higher) strengths,  that in concert are uniquely valuable to his or her thoughts, feelings, and behavior.  These may include strengths such as creativity, persistence, integrity, vitality, fairness, humility, and gratitude. 

Ask yourself the following “strengths” questions: 

1. What are your strengths?  How do you know?
2. How often and under what circumstances do you get to do these things?
3. How can you increase opportunities to use and develop these strengths in everyday life and work?
4. What are your most powerful strengths combinations? How can you tell?
5. How can you use these strengths “teams” more often? 

 

Flourishing Schools can help you identify, develop and leverage your strengths.