"Broaden-and-Build": Positive Emotions are a Means to Many Useful Ends

Nothing is good or bad.
But thinking makes it so.

---Shakespeare

 

Shakespeare’s astute observations of the impact of how we think are as relevant today as four centuries ago. The “good” or “bad” show up as positive or negative emotions about an event. As thoughts determine our emotions and emotions drive motion, how we think matters. Good decisions depend on how we deal with the emotions associated with the issues at hand. Managers beware! You hold the emotional environment in your hands. Individuals beware! Your personal success depends on seeing the glass half full.

 

Environmentalists know this so well. Despite the proven reality of global warming and the detrimental impact of our throw-away society on the environment, our concerns far outstrip our actions to save the planet. The problem, according to branding experts, is that we don’t respond well to negative messages, especially those that seem beyond our reach. Futerra Sustainability Communications in its “Branding Biodiversity: The New Nature Message” offers these key messages to justify a positive approach to engaging people to act responsibly with respect to the environment:

• Loss is all about extinction.
• Love is all about awe and wonder at nature.
• Need is the economic benefit of nature.
• Action is messages that ask us to do something.

Futerra emphasizes that people have to be inspired and to see how they can act locally, within their own day-by-day realms.

 

Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden and build theory of positive emotions speaks to this. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researcher argues that “positive emotions… produce optimal functioning, not just within the present, pleasant moment, but over the long-term as well”. Positive emotions help people to engage and by association to produce more satisfactory, quality outcomes.

 

Harvard’s Teresa Amabile, who specializes in creativity (what it is, how it is squelched or nurtured), would agree. Her considerable research on how “affect” relates to creativity at work points over and over again to the same conclusions: “Creative activity appears to be an affectively charged event” influencing “task quality, productivity and efficiency”. Why? The positive feelings make us more open to exploring novelty.

 

While there is a role for negative emotions in our lives (for example, spurring us to quick action under sudden life-threatening situations), positive emotions build our personal resilience and resources. They literally widen our moment-by-moment array of thoughts-to-actions tool kit. Hence they increase the probability of achieving better results at whatever we are up to. Fredrickson calls this ability of positive emotions to open us up to more possibilities “the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions”.

 

What are the positive emotions that make up a “broaden-and-build” supply? Four primary ones stand out:

1. Joy spurs us on to play (unscripted), to reach beyond what we know and to look for creative options. It promotes skill acquisition.
2. Interest urges us to explore, be open to new experiences, possibilities and information. It spurs us on to investigate. Interest adds to our knowledge base.
3. Contentment is related to tranquility and serenity, savouring current life circumstances and recent successes. We feel more "together". The result is often a new sense of self and a new world view.
4. Love, which is a combination of many emotions sparked by safe, close relationships, generates the joy and interest precursors of action.

Fredrickson also mentions pride and gratitude as important catalysts of broadening and building enduring adaptability. The latter can be developed simply by writing down each day three to five reasons why we are grateful.

 

The impact of positive emotions are their greatest legacy: when life takes a turn for the worst, as it does on a regular basis, the personal resources accrued from practicing and creating positive emotions enable us to face any “threats” and “survive” well through the event.

 

Fredrickson sees this durability as evolutionary. When our ancestors faced threats to life and limb their greater individual resources improved their odds of survival and thus the opportunity to reproduce.

 

What is the key message for individuals? Work hard every day at seeing the silver lining in life’s encounters. The subsequent thought-to-emotion-to-motion chain reaction will build personal resilience and as a consequence a path of greater success and satisfaction than not.

 

Organizational survival is no different. Managers play a huge role in creating the context for positive emotions to take hold, multiply and feed innovation and well-being. One easy way is to support employees in making progress in their work every day. That feeling of progress produces “powerfully positive emotions”!

Michael Ignatieff is Appealing to the Wrong Part of Our Brains

If the media reports are any indication, the “get rid of Michael Ignatieff” sounds are becoming louder within the Liberal party. Bring in Bob Rae is the refrain. Will this fix the Liberals dismal showing in the polls?

In that Bob Rae is more “warm and cuddly” than Michael Ignatieff, this might work. Our brains prefer such warmth. But the cost to the Liberal party could be worse. Changing leadership three times in as many years does not sit well with the electorate (“Do these guys know what they are doing?”).

A better strategy would be to work on Ignatieff’s emotional messaging before giving up the ship. He’s not tugging at our hearts enough. That stern look and holding the government accountable for a report card don’t appeal to issues that are at the heart of our evolution like survival, the care of our children and extended families and the well-being of our local communities.

Too much reason from Michael Ignatieff, not enough emotion. He’s little different from Stephen Harper who, in fact, is warming up his image and delivery and distancing himself further from the opposition. We now have a strong image of Harper “letting his hair down” playing a Beatles song on the piano with some decent singing. The Liberals have been outmaneuvered by the Conservatives on reaching the right part of our brains first---that which appeals to our emotions.

From an evolutionary perspective, we reason with our emotions first then make choices based on facts, and figures. “Emotions provide a compass that leads us toward or away from things” as psychologist Drew Westen explains in The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

“Feelings” according to Westen are millions of years older than “reason” or conscious thought processes. They are hard-wired into human brains across all cultures. The evolution of our species has predisposed us to being moved by leaders with whom we feel “an emotional resonance”.

There is a caveat. We can easily become turned off by “bad” governance---again an emotional action supported by evidence (or quasi-evidence). The morality of not having the electorate’s best interests in mind eventually costs a political leader. So too in any organization.

Now is the Time for Managers to Ask About Feelings and Meanings

If you think life is always improving, you are going to miss half of it.

---David Whyte

Turbulent times call for special managerial skills---helping teams walk together through the chaos with the confidence that a new and stronger order will arise out of the ashes of the old. Just like a forest fire enables new growth.

This is life but we as a rule do not like such unpredictability and uncertainty. If we ignore the reality, we endanger our ability to cope and adapt. For our wellbeing at home and at work, a better way is to confront our heightened anxiety about the world around us. Let’s face it, the creative destruction of the financial markets coupled with the upcoming American presidential election add up to a great deal of edginess everywhere.

How does a manager help in these circumstances? Aside from the benefits of exercise, relaxation and fun, the critical antidote is dialogue. A good way to begin is to ask: “How are you feeling?”

If fears and anxieties can be addressed honestly and without judgment, the next steps present themselves. Hope and optimism begin to arise even when the markers are not clear. A renewed sense of “why we are here together to do something meaningful” shines through.

Margaret Wheatley in Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time has some other tips for use individually or as a team:

Start the day off peacefully
Suggestions include driving to work in silence, listening to soothing music, reflecting on a spiritual phrase or parable and starting a meeting with the first five minutes as silence.

Learn to be mindful
Keep yourself from instantly reacting. Pause so that your reactions and thoughts don’t lead you. Step back and consider other responses.

Slow things down
Take a breath in meetings when you feel your anger or impatience arising. Be proactive in slowing down the meeting, if appropriate, to think things through as needed.

Create personal measures
Know who you want to become. Ask yourself: “Am I turning toward or away?” from that aspiration for myself.

Expect surprise
Accept that life will keep interrupting your plans and surprise you at every turn of the way.

Practice gratefulness
On a daily basis, literally “count your blessings”. This helps grace, internal peace and relationships to grow.