Many companies make their profits through the unfair arrangements they ‘negotiate’ with their growers and suppliers. Its unfair because the power relationship through profit is weighted one way. Whilst the big companies attain profits that allow them to evolve, those who supply them their produce have no-win choices about the deals they are forced to accept.

In the past it has been accepted as good business practice to exploit, achieve high margins, guarantee supply. Thankfully one-dimensional economics and Executive careers are no longer the only drivers of international relations. New economics and new corporate responsibility are warmly received.

Fairtrade promotes fair negotiations that embrace pricing, working conditions, local sustainability, and mutual terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay sustainable prices, Fairtrade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives.

Cadbury have announced they will adopt Fairtrade principles in 2010. This is wonderful and they should be congratulated.
A factsheet tells you more.

The ones we love, closest to us, have the benefit of sharing our good points and enduring our bad ones. Intimacy is a two-edged sword – we love, we argue, we smell…
Psychological research constantly explores this realm, and here is a summary of 3 pieces of research to trigger some thought, workplace conversation and even humour.

Do birds of a feather flock together in China?
Is it really true that we marry our opposites? Perhaps we like or need the differences, both the admiration and the arguments they create, to keep us interested? Is marrying our ’soul mate’ the same as marrying someone a lot like ourselves?

What does research say is the criteria people use to marry? 3 factors dominate – demographic/social background, values and personality.

Is this true universally? For 2 out of 3 factors it seems to be – except for personality. It’s a common Western experience to marry their opposites – but Chen, Luo, Yue, Xu & Zhaoyang, (2009) have found that Chinese couples have a consistent and strong tendency to select similar personality types.

Are Serial Arguments your personal groundhog day?:
How many of us find that in our close relationships, we argue about the same things over and over, and in the same way? Serial arguments have a pattern before, during and after they occur. The authors found that there are several influencing factors: the belief whether it is resolvable, the importance of the issue at stake, arguing tactics, how much we stew over the argument before during and after it, and the motivation to argue (to win/lose, or gain the benefit(s)).

Why do we argue about things that don’t matter, that we believe we can’t resolve, using dirty tactics, replay it over and over in our minds, and then hide our real motivations?

To break out of an unhelpful pattern of arguing, engage in what systems thinking calls ‘double loop learning’. Reflect on the last argument, and then find a pattern amongst the last (say) 5 arguments (when, where, about what, how did they start, or finish etc).

Focus on the process, pay less attention to what they are about - this is often irrelevant. And don’t just review the big arguments, consider the small ones as well, where a spark is easily lit. I like this Chinese expression - máquè suī xiăo, gāndăn jù quán - 麻雀虽小肝胆俱全 - small as it is, the sparrow has all the vital organs - even small disputes will display a consistent process or pattern.

If you do this self reflection, you might make some new rules for yourself: concede on issues that don’t matter, don’t start arguments you believe you can’t finish, play clean (e.g. no personal attacks, stick with single issues), forget it once it’s done (kiss and make-up even), and be honest with yourself about what you (really) want.

Intimacy and Smell:
It’s a common event around our home, that our pet dog loves nothing better than to sleep on a pile of our dirty clothes (go figure). So when I stumbled across this item I just had to include it.

Do you ever smell the clothes of people close to you, especially while you are apart?
Shoup, Streeter and McBurney (2009) asked 128 people if they had ever intentionally smelled another person’s clothing, slept with another person’s clothing because of its smell, or given another person an article of their own clothing.
The answer is – women do it more often than men, and with more people. The romantic partner is most common, followed by family members.

Not everything about our relationships has to be understood mentally. Our instincts, our animal nature is still something to appreciate regardless of how ‘civilised’ we become. The sense of smell is a powerful emotional anchor, a lover’s perfume, the smell of fresh bread, a good wine, aromatherapy are wonderful pleasures.

One of the funnier Human Resources problems that come up from time to time is the complaint - “I work with a person who ’stinks’! How can I tell them to shower more often….?” Feedback with empathy can work wonders. Its real, could become discriminatory, but in the end, you have to laugh!
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Relationships are the basis of all companies, and the best relationships have elements of intimacy one way or another, whether its sharing a meal, close personal space, or letting others see your emotions.

Since reviewing the research on smelling clothes, I’ve seen the sense of smell portrayed on tv as someone in the process of falling in love. Research like this opens our eyes to what is going on around us. What will you start to notice now, about your teams, your arguments, your life partner?

When events in your (work) life are confusing, executive coaching can help you name these observations and plan some responses. Click here if you would like to talk something through.

Teams are everywhere - in sport, business, families. We join teams, get selected into them, and are even born into them. We can love them, hate them, and feel a great sense of belonging or isolation as a result of them.

A Chinese expression is:
一个中国人– 一条龙；一群中国人– 一条虫.
Yi ge Zhongguoren—yi tiao long. Yi qun Zhongguoren—yi tiao chong.
A single Chinese person is a dragon; a group of Chinese people is a worm.

Somehow, a group of capable people can fail when depending on each other. So what drives teams, how do they work? Does happiness cause success, or the other way round? Do results improve morale, or does the level of morale determine success? Which is the cause and which is the effect?

This knowledge would help us plan interventions. The next three articles offer some research insight along with simple suggestions for improving your teams.

Morale and Group Well-being
Groups of people, whether they be collected as teams, families, or communities deliver great pleasure and meaning to their participants. Peterson, Park and Sweeney (2009) propose morale is an indicator of group well-being, that we use it to measure how well teams are going. Morale was first used in the military as a way of managing soldier confidence levels. Demoralisation was used as a tactic to undermine an enemy army’s confidence. More positively, it can be used to develop the thinking, emotional and motivational energy of a team.
Morale’s value is, apart from feeling good in itself, that it promotes perseverance, resilience, sacrifice for the cause, courage and, of course, success.

Techniques to build and maintain morale involve anchoring the norms of the group around the recognition of strengths, and defining team challenges in optimistic terms (rather than cynical, unachievable terms). Somehow its often easier to find fault and predict failure, often to protect ourselves emotionally, or make ourselves look wiser - neither of which do anything to promote those benefits of morale listed above. It’s a subject familiar to us that has received very little academic verification.

Formulas for creating good Teams:
Which team is more likely to be successful – the team who likes each other or the team who respects each other? Prestwich and Lalljee (2009) researched rowing crews and found that while neither the presence of respect or of liking were able to predict success, successful teams put more value on respect than liking, when thinking back on their performance. A sense of belonging comes with liking, respect comes with achievements.

So at work, to associate yourself with success, provide awards for achievements and acknowledge skills. These things build respect for team members and indirectly strengthen inputs to produce better outputs. Social events and drinks after work are useful for building the liking, and thereby the sense of belonging. Both are useful. Don’t confuse a happy team with a successful team – they are created in different ways.

Forming Storming Norming Performing
If you are familiar with this model, you will have been told that successful teams pass through each stage consecutively in order to reach peak performance. That is, effective forming (commencement) produces effective storming (idea generation and leadership) which produces effective norming (decision-making), which produces effective performance outcomes – a linear progression.

Accordingly then, group strengthening may come through facilitated discussion, decision-models and so on.
Fullagar and Egleston (2009) studied ten 4-person teams in an air traffic control simulator, and learned that group performance predicts group cohesiveness, and not the other way round. This suggests the model is more iterative, self-reinforcing and not so linear.

When building cohesiveness in a new team, add small projects in the beginning to create a mini-portfolio of success, or make a big thing of their early successes. This will in turn improve the quality of the storming and norming for future projects.
It also highlights the value of a fifth phase - adjourning/mourning - where a team’s efforts are effectively debriefed at the end of a cycle. The performance-to-cohesiveness link, dare I say it, sounds like “learning”. People need it and so do teams. Help teams learn by debriefing well.

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I run lots of workshops developing teamwork all over Asia, which include some theory supported by indoor and outdoor problem-solving challenges. The dynamics during these challenges are always interesting.

Their success is mediated by so many variables – leadership, morale, overcoming obstacles, amount of creativity, use of resources (people, time), personality balance, conflict, and so on. Some groups are slow to take off, then accelerate all the way to the finish, (pluck victory from the jaws of defeat). Some groups do well in the beginning and then stall (pluck defeat from the jaws of victory).
Helping teams prosper often involves getting back to basics. Its common for people to “know what’s wrong” but be unable to influence the team to change. Skillbiz can help.
Click here to start the process of team improvement - right now!

I sat through an interview once, hardly saying a word. I was patient, respectful, listening. The curious part: it was a job interview and I was the applicant. I did not have to say anything - just be courteous - and finally I was offered the job.

This scenario describes the common use of “gut feel” in interviewing. Presumably, this manager saw on my resume enough technical skill and experience to warrant being selected, and I demonstrated enough courtesy to promote a good feeling between us. I could see it was going well, I chose to stay quiet.
What do you think… should I have taken the job? Should I have been offered the job?

This may be a good example of courtesy being too important, where the manners are considered more important than the content or substance of the discussion. All decisions have an emotional value, and courtesy is good at creating this. This also describes the potential power of courtesy, creating a personal connection that moves the relationship forward even before there is a content exchange.

Generally, people understand the principles of courtesy and building rapport. We all know it is important. However, when I observe negotiations in action, it is common to see the opening phase of a negotiation skimmed, rushed through and under-appreciated. “Hey, nice to meet you, nice day, here’s what I want.” An example is the ’spamming’ of business cards at networking events, esp. in China, where business cards can be thrust at people, left, right and centre, and before anyone has had the chance to exchange a “hello” or introduction.

When rehearsing negotiations, and when pressed into making sure the opening moves are done thoroughly, it is clear people have the skills – they know how, they can do it. But finding the balance is harder. Under pressure of time and multiple distractions, people can either skip it or dwell in it. It is visible through who does the talking, and through the types of questions asked (or not asked).

We might say in my recruitment example that I showed proper courtesy. I listened, I smiled and nodded. However what impact did the interviewer’s behaviour have on me – of constantly talking, of not asking me any questions? If I am honest, I felt I was treated quite impersonally. They were thinking aloud, not having a conversation. The job was quite good, however if this behaviour was an insight into their leadership style and the company culture, I could imagine quite a passive working experience without much freedom for creativity. (I did not take the job).

It serves as a good example of how the process of our interaction is a much stronger indicator of a relationship than the content. How we greet each other, how we take time to listen to the other person first, how we pace ourselves in timing with the other person in discussions and body language – these are the deep relationship-builders that help handle any content. They are under-valued and only require the determination to implement them – to make your own mind quiet in order to fully engage with what the other party is saying and doing. It is like doing a good deed.

Working cross-culturally especially requires a new set of customs to learn, but the fundamental courtesies are common to all people. I came across this expression on a lintel over a doorway in an ancient Chinese village, Dongxun, near Suzhou, China recently:
世德何求 - shì dé hé qíu - if you have done so many good deeds, you do not require any other character.

Let common courtesies be the cornerstone of your business dealings. Start well to finish well.

It may surprise you to know that “courtesy” is a very common coaching agenda. Anger management may be more familiar as a coaching topic. Using anger, losing one’s temper, is an emotional extreme – usually a very clear absence of courtesy.

What is the opposite of anger? You might expect it to be an equally extreme, positive opposite – like joy for example. Actually, indifference is its opposite - or lack of relational maintenance. All relationships require it. When there is no maintenance, when even courtesy is difficult to come by, the relationship silently suffocates. Lost courtesy is one of the poisonous indicators of indifference. Courtesy maintains relationships.
If I asked you whether men or women needed coaching around courtesy more, how would you answer?

Yes, it is the confident, intelligent and achieving “Alpha Male” who is most vulnerable to a lack of courtesy. He chases the thrill of success, unfortunately often at the expense of the behaviours that maintain relationships. This may seem not so hard to understand - big job, quick thinking, pressure decisions, and some colleagues who cannot cope with a tactless, leadership style. Falling into angry outbursts lies at the deep end of this challenge, but common courtesies can be the first casualties. How can you be a tough leader and retain a sense of courtesy and respect towards those around you? And why should you make the effort?

The rational thinking style that demands and delivers quick results can be so task focused that curiosity about people and their feelings can seem unimportant. Some executives may think, “employees get paid on results, not smiles”. When the pressure builds up, they can put the “pedal to the metal” and drive people as if they were machines. Machines do not need courtesy.

The trouble is this approach is successful, to an extent. Jobs get done, results achieved and promotions gained. The reason: the Alpha Male style works for middle managers. In broad terms, they oversee processes, drive company systems and guarantee implementation. W.E. Deming said processes deliver 94% of results. So why bother with courtesy?

Often, when Alphas get promoted, then the problems start. The role of Senior Managers is less about doing and more about inspiring – additional skills are needed – courtesy an absolute minimum. Suddenly, what got managers promoted (e,g, technical skills, driving systems) is not successful anymore – people are not inspired and motivated, and angry outbursts may become more common. Some people can be slow to forgive, and why should they?

Alphas often require skilled coaching because one side effect of the ‘big’ style they use is that it is hard to admit to being wrong or asking for help. And when they get feedback, they are poor at receiving it – stubborn and resistant, and it is hard for colleagues and team members to risk a backlash if challenging these behaviours. Often the offending lack of courtesy is small, but the impact is large.

The challenge is building their weaknesses, without distracting Alphas from their strengths or their focus on results - which is what they ultimately are hired for. They simply need to improve the relationships they use to achieve those results.

Does this mean that coaching is the answer to these problems? In coaching, we lead the coachee through their scenarios, helping them learn to see reactions, perceive emotions and then project some consequences. Most managers are so busy, that it is this reflective work that is most easily neglected. Coaching works because it becomes a disciplined self-reflection, a conversation with someone who has insight, and a chance to break out of automatic reactions into more thoughtful and productive ones.

To reduce angry outbursts, coaching is one solution. But prevention is better right? So we end up again at courtesy –the building block to good, long-term relationships. If you are young and commencing your corporate career, the people you meet on the way up may also be the people you meet on the way out. If they remember you with the same courtesy you showed to them – will that be a good thing or a bad thing? If you are in the middle or nearing the end of your career, lifelong learning suggests it is not too late to learn new tricks, or to remember them.

If you need help, an external, experienced coach may be a good first step.

The economy is slowing, many Senior Managers are looking at renegotiating deals with major suppliers, managing creditors and finding ways of retaining or growing business with key accounts.

Many business leaders struggle with balancing urgent and important drivers - working ‘on the business’ and ‘in the business’. Negotiations that are rushed, quick and dirty, and rubber-stamping exercises will deliver much less than is possible.

Click here to read and register for this breakfast, scheduled for Tuesday morning, March 10.
RSVP by March 6.

OUTCOMES FOR YOU
• Position yourself for a better result by reviewing your preparation strategies
• Self-assess whether you are applying all the skills you have learned
• Participate with other Senior Managers in your business community to (confidentially) share yours, and learn about their negotiation challenges.

ABOUT ENS
For over thirty years, ENS International has focused on empowering the negotiation success of our clients. ENS is a world-wide network of accomplished negotiation practitioners, which operate in over 57 countries. For more information about ENS, please refer to our website ENS International.
Tony Monaghan is an experienced business executive and negotiation strategist in the Asia Pacific region.

We all know the economic climate has fallen from a strong position. That is the truth! More businesses are closing down, more people are losing their jobs, and debts are mounting.

Is it better to call a spade a spade – “things are really bad” or to say “the good times are on their way back”? Perhaps you may even be philosophical -破财免灾 - pò cái miǎn zāi - you avoid some greater misfortune by losing some money.

There is certainly more than one way of handling the truth. The way you focus on it and how you communicate it to others leaves you with quite a few options. Your choice here will influence how you set goals and manage change. And if you implement early, you may prove quicker and smarter than your competitors.
Read on…___________

How would you describe the current business conditions? Might you say…“We are not skilled for this, the system is broken, our competitors are stronger, we are nearly broke. Good luck!”

Or…

“2009 will be difficult, but keep thinking, get out there and sell / cut costs / innovate, and we can still do well this year”.

The capitalist system readily acknowledges the boom and bust cycle. And most policy around it is designed to reduce the extremes, make events as predictable as possible. Through over-confidence (risky and greedy financial lending), the business system has lost control, at least for the moment. When will control return and how long will it take? These are the challenges facing us all.

While no one can deny the truth, we are being encouraged to defy the truth. Keep spending and do not let the downward spiral continue. Supply confidence even if there is justification for fear.
For change management, crises can be blessings in disguise. They force us to review. Success can blind us to opportunity, and numb us from innovation. Now is the time to plan some big changes. Logic says, minimise everything. Innovation says, go big and seize the opportunity.

To summarise this into a few take-aways:
1. Look reality in the face – briefly: How much do you need to know, looking at reports and data? You must do it, but this is only one type of information source, so research elsewhere as well. Your new ideas, solutions and energy will not jump out of a computer screen. Learn what you need to, and get out of the office and lead.

2. Keep setting goals: Working harder is one option, “go faster! go faster!” - and people sometimes do this to avoid the truth. Goals show that you are thinking, help you engage others, are a sign of confidence, and healthy for dispelling the gloom. Make them for both the short term (quick wins will encourage you and your team) and for as long term as your forecasting allows.

3. Manage change – and emotions: Making the business decisions is the first step, then comes the harder part – the implementation – often in the hands of others. If you change the business (technology, products, organisation, structure, etc.), do not assume you have changed the people.

You may be familiar with the mental and emotional path people take when confronting an unpleasant situation – denial (“this won’t affect me too much”), resistance (“I don’t like this”), acceptance (“what do I have to do”) and then commitment (“let’s go”).

Do not assume everyone understands your decisions or is in the same emotional stage. Actively assess how your teams are thinking and feeling. One person could be in denial, and the next person totally committed. Manage them in different ways. People will do as they are told, but if you want something more than grudging or fearful compliance, like creativity, then managing emotions is essential.

4. Change some habits - re-allocate your time: Disable your automatic pilot. You may not be able to do things the same way as last year. How did you spend your time last year, and doing what things? Where are you needed this year? Give time to people, building confidence and hope as you go.

Losing money is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Failing to learn from this situation is much worse. And failure to take hold of opportunity is a tragedy.

The Skillbiz Offer:
Throughout March 2009, Skillbiz is offering the first two clients to respond, a free 1 to 2 hour review and feedback on any people-related aspect of their business. Some suggestions include:
• Review your (or a subordinate’s) preparation and handling of a major negotiation
• Conduct a change management session with your team, to help you communicate, and help them embrace your decisions
• Plan your leadership actions from here – maybe receive feedback through a psychological assessment, discuss how to handle a difficult employee/situation.

Click here to briefly outline what you would like.

The current economic conditions are a challenge to goal-setting, aren’t they? What goals will we set this year? What would it be like to set goals, create an action plan, without hope – is that logical?

How many companies, and employees, already believe that they can’t achieve their goals this year, in spite of their action plans? Stretched goals often feel beyond our reach.

Hope is a key to achieving your goals – psychologists call it “self-efficacy” – your belief that you can have the impact you hope for. We achieve goals using three principles: goal (destination) action plan (roadmap) and hope (petrol in the tank).
So where do you want to go, and how will you get there - with HOPE?
Read more…_____________________________________________

As easy as ‘destination, roadmap and fuel’ sound, life experience tends to get in the way.
For example, New Year resolutions feel like a good idea:
• Goal - I will live more healthily;
• Action Plan - stop smoking, eat less and higher quality food, drink less alcohol, exercise more;
• But without hope, they are just indulgences - even as you set them, many know they will not achieve them. And if you make a habit of this, you might give up altogether!

Many people believe that hope is a part of someone’s character, either you have it or you do not – that our personality is formed as children, and therefore cannot be changed as adults.
If this is you – less hopeful ‘by nature’, or too hopeful – can you (learn how to) manipulate hope?

Firstly, some benefits of managing hope - high hope people can tolerate twice as much pain, for twice as long. Academic hope is a higher predictor of academic success than university entrance scores. Hope supplies the energy to help set the goal and action plan in motion. It is the fuel to start and finish.

At the same time, high hope people can over-estimate their chances of success, and undervalue risk and safety. Will you really double your sales with extra effort alone, or shave 10% off costs without new technology? Pessimism at times can be very practical!

Recently, Psychology Professor Rick Snyder conducted an experiment to demonstrate hope theory in action. He had three individuals - a TV show host, a medical expert, and a TV weather guy - dunk their right fists to the bottom of a tank of freezing water for as long as they could stand it – live on-air. The weather guy removed his hand first. After a battle of wills, the medical expert gave up next, followed long after by the TV moderator. Professor Snyder had predicted these results. How so?
The participants had taken a hope scale questionnaire prior to the experiment and the ranking of their scores accurately predicted how long each would be able to withstand the numbing pain of the cold water, before calling it quits. Levels of hope significantly influence results, even when the goal and action plan are easily achievable.

Hope building strategies
Do
• Learn to talk to yourself in positive voices (e.g. “I will find a way”).
• Recall previous successful goal pursuits, particularly when stuck (“I’ve done it before, I can do it again!”)
• Be able to laugh at yourself when things go wrong. Nobody’s perfect!
• Regularly reward yourself and congratulate yourself on your efforts.

Don’t
• …allow yourself to be surprised repeatedly by roadblocks that appear in your life. Learn lessons once!
• …try to stamp out negative thoughts - this may only make them stronger. Like judo, step aside and just let the energy sail past.
• …conclude that things never will change, especially if you are down, or fail to see early results.
• …engage in self-pity when faced with adversity (e.g. don’t conclude you are lacking in talent or are “no good” if the initial strategy fails).
• …get into friendships where you are praised for not coming up with solutions to your problems.

Goal-setting strategies:
• Break a long-range goal into steps or sub-goals. Begin by concentrating on the first sub-goal.
• Progress is rarely smooth sailing. Name common obstacles – expect them by developing different routes/roadmaps to your goals, then allow the benefits to drive your motivation
• Mentally rehearse scripts for what you would do if you encounter an obstacle.
• Challenge yourself – “can I?” If you need a new skill to reach your goal, learn it.
• Find a substitute goal when the original goal is blocked solidly.
• Cultivate two-way friendships where you can give and get advice.
• Review progress when needed, not constantly. Use reminders, place stickers or notes in locations where you’ll see them, but otherwise, get on with it!

What to do now?
If you would like to complete a hope inventory, then email. The first person is free.

Christmas! Hampers! Happiness!
3 great words - how much fun they are!

Let’s play with the punctuation…
“Christmas hampers!* Happiness!” Sensational! We love gifts of food and wine.
What if we take all the punctuation away?
Christmas hampers happiness. Now I’m being a real killjoy.

The Psychology of Happiness has a lot to do with Christmas.
Read on…
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The study of Psychology has developed over the last 100 years in a medical mindset, trying to fix the people who are sick, trying to understand the people that no one else can understand. Consequently, the target audience has been small, and the culture of psychology academic, and tainted by its associations with ‘crazy people’ – “if I’m seeing a psychologist, I must be crazy”.

Psychology has tried to understand challenges such as sadness, depression, hysteria, and has neglected the more positive emotions, such as one we all treasure – happiness – until now. Positive Psychology has some very interesting things to say about happiness and where we find it. And Christmas seems to be a time when spending money and giving gifts is designed to create happiness. Wealth buys happiness, right? Rich people are happy, right?

Fifty years ago**, the average American family lived in a 1200 square foot house, there was one car per family, and one out of five family members went to college/university. Today the average American family lives in a 2500 square foot house, there is more than one car per licensed driver, and one out of two people go to college. If you had told those parents this (living in their 1200 square foot house), they would have said, “that will be paradise!”

But modern America is not paradise. In spite of the tripling of real purchasing power in the last fifty years, life satisfaction has not budged and depression is ten times more common now. Ten times! This is the only tenfold change in mental illness of the twentieth century. This is called the “Easterbrook paradox,” after Gregg Easterbrook’s revealing book, The Progress Paradox.

When we have buying power, we have choices about where to spend it, and why we spend it. Sales people often say, “Decisions are emotional”. Products may be cheaper, more useful, or higher quality, but in the end, its how they make us feel that is the final criteria. We can use money to buy positive emotion. And at Christmas, this is heightened by the desire to create positive emotion in ourselves and also in others.

Unfortunately, this ‘buzz’ of happiness is constructed the same way as addictions are. They feel great in the beginning, but the pleasure evaporates and requires more and more maintenance. When the buzz is gone, I don’t just feel neutral, I feel bad, and need another buzz to ‘stay normal’. The expression ‘retail therapy’ may serve this purpose for many people – shopping to avoid feeling sad or bored – and to purchase positive feelings. We sometimes talk about buying things we never use, “why did I buy that”? Or we may buy gifts that nobody wants. As a lifestyle, it is ‘bad consumerism’; good for shops, unhelpful for our emotions and life satisfaction.

Positive Psychology talks about 3 types of happiness:
The Pleasant Life: enjoying the moment, measured by the 5 senses, but repeat experiences lose their value, requiring more and more to sustain them. Typically used as shortcuts to happiness.
The Engaged Life: a life spent drawing personal satisfaction from using your strengths, measured by your achievements. (This is a worthy lifestyle, but in spite of it, depression is still high amongst even the highest of achievers.)
The Meaningful Life: a life spent using your strengths to achieve goals, to find personal balance, and to satisfy others – people or causes outside yourself / larger than you.

Can the Engaged Life and the Meaningful Life be bought? Can we spend our funds on getting more ‘flow’ and more ‘meaning’? The answer is a definite ‘Yes’, and you might consider this for Christmas this year.

Give gifts to people that will add to the amount of flow or to the amount of meaning in their lives. Doing this will add meaning and engagement to your own life.
In general, the key to this is giving activities not things. Follow the effects of your gifts and write them down to use next Christmas. A few examples:

• Pay the travel costs for a friend to visit someone they love, but has not seen in years.
• Adopt a student – in China, you can sponsor / purchase a student’s school or university education, build a friendship with them, and follow their progress. Check out these websites that offer Hope: China Youth Development Foundation (english) ; (chinese)
• Donate bees, goats, llamas to friends through World Relief Agencies. Examples include: Heifer Project; TEAR Fund
• Make a “treasure chest” for your child, with coupons redeemable for one reading hour with you, one trip to the movies, one meal at a restaurant of their choice, one walking/cycling expedition.
• Give pots of herbs and berries or hundreds of flower bulbs (e.g. daffodils) to brighten someone’s home or office.
• Give your child a complex Lego set or computer game that requires building/playing over weeks - with you!
• Give dance lessons / musical instrument lessons, or yoga lessons, to people you love, who do not dance, play music or meditate.
• Make the gifts yourself (e.g. cakes, clothing) and make the cards yourself. It is time consuming, personal, and it gives the people you care about the most precious gift of all - your time.

If you try some of these, I would love to hear the results. Send me an email, or add a comment…

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* The word ‘hampers’ in English has two meanings. As a noun, it means a basket of fruit, wine, and other yummy foods. As a verb, it means to hinder, obstruct, or restrict.
**This article is drawn from the work of Martin Seligman of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA), which has been adapted to suit this newsletter structure.

I find Christmas confusing… it’s a religious celebration, a holiday from work, a reason to have a party, a shopping frenzy, an exchange of gifts and greetings, a long-standing cultural tradition, and it is also ignored by many people. And it comes around so quickly every year, seemingly catching us unprepared each time.
What do you value about Christmas? And more broadly, what are values anyway?
__________________________________________________
Looking back through history, the original Christmas event occurred in the Middle East about 2000 years ago, where Jesus Christ was born during a time of lost hope for those believers in God.
“Here is the saviour”, they said. His birth was set to restore new faith in God, so that in both life and death people could experience the presence of God.
Jesus’ message was, where access to God was traditionally funnelled through spiritual leaders, everyone now had access to God directly. For them, it was a kind of turning point.

Celebrations today may, or may not, value this meaning of Christmas. Some people value the traditional meaning. Others value Christmas as a family festival, others, again, as a party time. Three values – tradition, family, fun.

And there are many other values relevant to all parts of life – independence, authority, teamwork, creativity, discipline, compassion just to name a few. There are many, many different values.

One of the challenges with values is keeping them consistent. The field of psychology often helps people think through the consequences of their values. Life creates so many situations that cannot be predicted. For example, a Christian values forgiveness, but may be so offended that they cannot offer the forgiveness needed. A policeman commits a crime. A vegetarian eats meat. A teacher resists being taught.

In all these situations, the people have certain values – forgive others, obey the law, eat with respect to animal rights, and everyone can learn. But we also see that people sometimes cannot keep to their values.

Firstly, why bother with values at all? What do values achieve? Can’t I just live day to day, make whatever decisions I like, and keep going?

When running a careers workshop in China some years ago, I asked the group for three values that guided their lives (which we could use to help guide them towards a type of job they might be interested in). This was a question they could not answer. Not so many modern Chinese grow up with this kind of thinking.

So, what are the benefits of values?
• Guidelines for decision-making – whether you feel happy / sad, confused or clear, values simplify decisions, making them quicker and more consistent, and generally reliable.
• Community of believers – encouragement - when people meet, they can help each other make decisions, because they look at challenges or situations in life the same way, using the same principles, developing a language they find easy to understand.
• Give us confidence for the future (it has worked before, it can work again).
• Can act as motivators to initiate action (if I value this, then I should do that…).

And the difficulties?
• There is more than one set of values. Sincere people can value opposite things. Which is the right one? This can be both confusing and a cause of conflict.
• Accurate descriptions of values can be difficult, leading to lack of clarity, misinterpretation and misguided actions.
• People may adopt one values position and never shift / become closed to new information or alternatives. (All values are changing as the world develops - maybe this is a good thing?)

From a psychological pespective, coaching can help people when they realise they have a problem with values. This may happen when they catch themselves saying and doing things that they would criticise others for. Or they may get caught up in conflicts they do not understand.

• Take time to meditate or reflect on each day or week as it passes. What did you do well, what might you do differently?
• Ask yourself – “What is the one constant motivation for my actions?” Common answers to this are: feed my family, earn money, be successful, enjoy work, be independent, act first-think later (”do it now”). Everyone has a slightly different one – what’s yours?
• Identify what you can control and what you cannot. Relax about things outside of your control.
• Allow people the freedom to think their way, just as you want the freedom to think your way (unless the actions from certain values do harm to others).
• Ask people about what they ‘value’ and listen – don’t judge – try to learn.

And this Christmas is a good time to start. Becoming more clear about your values does not mean things will change necessarily, but you may see threads of meaning in your life, that before you thought were random.
Keep and appreciate the good ones, and plan changes to the others as needed. Drop me a note if you want to talk something through…