The resilience advantage

The Resilience Advantage by Margie Warrell 

In the grim backdrop of COVID-19 since December 2019, controlling the spread of the viral pandemic and lockdowns completely overhauled our habits and how we worked. No one is spared in the sprawling economic effect. Margie, who is the author of 5 best selling books, an advocate for gender equality, women in leadership and women's empowerment, was an invited speaker in our workforce and shared key principles on how to turn around a bad situation into one that you can glean from.


When we are feeling the impact of all that is going on, Be radically disciple in managing ourselves. Our circumstances don't have the power to determine how we are going to show up to the world. We emote before we reason, we cannot control our circumstances and our immediate feelings. We can regulate our emotions.

Extracted from Margie web podcast here :
1) Double down on what strengthens you. 
Stand guard against things that fuels anxiety and stress.
Prioritise mentally what is most important to get done. What strengthens you. Feeds my soul.
Guard our time.
Be careful not to let our time to be wasted sucked in.

2)  Stand guard on your energy. Positive energy in and positive energy out!
"We are 100% responsible for the energy you put out and the energy we let in" - Oprah
Be careful of where you are putting your energy, It expands.
Setup firm boundaries for yourself
"Catastrophizing"
"Fearcasting"
"What ifs"

3) Anchor yourself on your core values.
We know who we are, I can control who I am, and who I am being. What others can count on me for.
Who do we want to be?  Someone who is lifts other people up. Someone who makes others feel valued and taken care of.
The idea of self-certainly, and you can be that person for yourself!

Ellen Lange, a professor of positive psychology and mindfulness at Harvard University;

"There is always a way to turn things into a win."

Other Notes 

• We often underestimate our ability to deal with difficult situations challenges. We have a greater capacity for life. Trust more in our innate capacity to deal with life. Choose the path of faith over fear. 
• Remember that emotions are contagious. Don't spread your stress!
• Be agile and flexible. 
• Denial, resistance, fighting against reality is an energy waster. Letting go of attachment faster allows energy to flow in another direction. 
• We only need to deal with one moment at the time. 

How do I need to show up today?

10 things your employer want you to learn in college

I may be late in the game as I graduated over 10 years ago.  I stumbled on this career guide book published in Year 2002.

"It’s very important to me that their personal mission is aligned with KonMari’s—meaning they have a sense of purpose, listen to their heart, and lead a life that sparks joy."

Key takeaways of Identified know hows 

Established work ethnics

"87% of people lose their jobs or failed to get promoted were found to have improper work habits and attitudes rather than insufficient skills or knowledge." 

1. Decide if this matter is important.
2. Choose targets of ambition wisely and pursuing them relentlessly. 
3. Defer gratification 
4. Not giving up 
5. Fight procestination 
6. Firm decision and swift action
7. Sheer hardwork, energy and confidence
8. Turning up
9. Integrity : honesty to self and others. Being trustworthy. Recognize that dishonesty is wrong. Cope with pressure to cut corners. 
10. Time management : About testing your priorities under pressure. Devising your priorities comes from knowing your destination and understanding your direction. 
11. Watch out for red flags such as fretting over how much to do, or not done. 

Realised Action points

1. Break the habit of negative thought and speech.

"Speak not but what may benefit others and for yourself" - Benjamin Franklin

"We are what we constantly do.." - Aristotle

1. Practice good note taking 

"He listens well who takes notes" Dante

The key to speak effectively, is the critical skill of not being fearful [of crowds]. Keep stock of your behavior under pressure. 

Unspoken : Power and politicking

Part I: Power

A famous philosopher, Plato, once said, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”.

There are five bases of power, such as (i) coercive power, (ii) reward power, (iii) legitimate power, (iv) expert power, and (v) referent power (Robbins & Judge, 2013).

Coercive power derives from the fear of negative results due to failure to comply. It can appear in many forms, which includes infliction of physical and emotional pain, restriction of privileges, or controlling of basic psychological and safety needs. Coercive power does not necessarily be a downward influence, but it can take place laterally or upwards as well (Robbins & Judge, 2013). For example, if the subordinate has criminal evidence of his supervisor, the subordinate can coerce the supervisor into providing a promotion or salary increase without due cause.

Reward power, on the other hand, is the opposite of coercive power as reward power focuses on the ability to offer rewards, which often result in higher job satisfaction and improved job performance (Ward, 2001). Rewards can be tangible such as salary increases and bonuses, or intangible such as recognition, preferred work assignments and shifts (Goodwin, 2004; Robbins & Judge, 2013).

Legitimate power represents the formal authority based on the organisation’s structure hierarchy (Robbins & Judge, 2013). For legitimate power to take place, the target must believe that the powerholder has the authority or right to prescribe a specific behaviour (Carson et al., 1993).

Expert power derives from the perceived expertise, experience or knowledge of the powerholder (Humphreys et al., 2009). It is a form of personal power that comes from an individual’s unique abilities. For example, a Director of Food and Beverage depends on the expertise of the Executive Chef to design a new menu to attract new diners. Although the Director of Food and Beverage is the overall in-charge of the food and beverage operations, he may not have the expertise of creating new recipes or dishes for the restaurant. Expert power can also derive from past knowledge and experience of having done it before (Humphreys et al., 2009). Having such critical past information creates a dependency on the power holder to effectively achieve the goals.

Lastly, referent power refers to the influence of a powerholder due to his desirable resources or personal traits (Robbins & Judge, 2013). Referent powerholders frequently relies on charisma rather than authority or participation to influence (Yukl, 1989). As supported by Greenberg (2005), charismatic leaders are highly influential and inspire others to do things.

Interestingly, it is worthy to note that power and leadership are not the same (Goodwin, 2004). Power is different from leadership in three areas: (i) leadership requires a common goal while power requires dependency, (ii) leadership focuses on downwards influence while power can work laterally and upwards as well, and lastly, (iii) leadership focuses on styles while power focuses on techniques to gain compliance (Robbins & Judge, 2013). Furthermore, Goodwin (2004) explains that powerholders are not necessarily leaders, but leadership frequently implies power as they are characterised by asserting influence over the outcome.

As indicated by Robbins & Judge (2013), the most critical aspect of power is dependency, which is described as someone having to rely on another person for a unique type of support. This is further supported by Emerson (2007) who states that power is implicitly granted when there is dependence on the other. For example, in many organisations, promotions and salary increases are often dependent on the immediate supervisor’s approval. According to Robbins & Judge (2013), three factors create dependency, being the importance of the resource, the non-substitutability of the resource, and the scarcity of the resource. For example, although the General Manager of the hotel has the highest authority and legitimate power, he is also heavily dependent on the Hotel Manager to run the daily operations of the hotel in order for him to focus on the more strategic goals of the hotel. 

Secondly, when a resource is non-substitutable, the organisation will have a competitive advantage over the rest (Hillman et al., 2009). Lastly, the idea of scarcity can be drawn from the seminal work of Pfeffer & Salancik (1978). According to Pfeffer & Salancik (1978), the more critical and scarce the resources are, the more power and control the holder has over others. To counter the effect of dependency, Pfeffer & Salancik (1978) suggested two methods. Firstly, a person can buffer the dependency by developing a substitute as a replacement for the resource. Secondly, a person can consider diversification to reduce the reliance on the resource.

Part II: Politicking
With power, comes politics and everyone differ in their political skill (Robbins & Judge, 2013). As explained by Robbins & Judge (2013), political behaviour consists of activities that are not required as part of an individual’s formal role but attempts to use some form of power bases to influence decision making. In a research paper by Buchanan (2008), it was reported that most managers perceive political behaviour as necessary, and political tactics such as networking, making friends with power brokers, bending the rules and self-promotion were common. On the other hand, dysfunctional behaviours were also identified such as misinformation, spreading rumours and blackmailing were rare, but not unknown. Political behaviour can be influenced by individual factors, such as high Machiavellian personality, and organisational factors, such as role ambiguity, which could lead to higher politicking outcome (Biberman, 1985; Ham & Vonk, 2011; Robbins and Judge, 2013).

Robbins & Judge (2013) identified nine power tactics that can adopted to influence decision making being (i) rational persuasion, (ii) consultations, (iii) legitimacy, (iv) personal appeals, (v) ingratiation, (vi) inspirational appeals, (vii) coalitions, (viii) exchange, and (ix) pressure. Firstly, rational persuasion is the ability to present logical arguments and factual data to support a claim to be reasonable. Secondly, consultation involves the target in making joint decisions so as to get his buy-in in the idea. These two methods are the most effective if the target is highly committed to the outcome of the decision-making process. However, if the decision-making process is routine at best, legitimacy is often used to rely on one’s authority position. Within the nine tactics, there are softer approaches that appeal to the emotions of others. For example, personal appeal uses friendship or loyalty to ask for compliance whereby ingratiation uses praises and flattery to build rapport before making a request. Also, inspiration appeals stir the emotional aspect of the target’s needs, values and beliefs and coalition involves enlisting the help of others to persuade the target to give in. To add on, an exchange is another method that benefits the target in the exchange following a request. Lastly, the least effective method is pressure, which is to use threats and warnings to coerce the target, which could easily backfire due to the negative effect on employees’ satisfaction and commitment (Carson et al., 1993).

The outcome of political behaviour can be favourable with rewards or avoiding punishment, but for most people who have moderate or low political skills, they may be unwilling to play the political game. Based on research findings, it was concluded that perceptions of office politics could negatively affect job satisfaction, increased anxiety and stress for the employee, reduced in performance, and increase in turnover (Ferris et al., 1996). Eisenhardt & Bourgeois III (1988) further supported the claim that office politics can lead to communication barriers, creating inflexibilities, restricting information flow and consuming time. In addition, Ashforth & Lee (1990) also shared in their research that when employees see politics as a threat, they may display any of the 14 defensive behaviours such as (i) overconforming, (ii) passing the buck, (iii) playing dumb, (iv) depersonalising, (v) smoothing and stretching, (vi) stalling, (vii) buffing, (viii) playing safe, (ix) justifying, (x) scapegoating, (xi) misrepresenting, (xii) escalating commitment, (xiii) resisting change, and (xiv) protecting turf. These behaviours lead to the process of people attempting to control the impression of other through impression management techniques such as conformity, favours, excuses, apologies, self-promotion, enhancement, flattery and exemplification (Robbins & Judge, 2013).

Conclusion
In conclusion, power and politicking practices are common in the workplace but often unspoken. As the old saying goes, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!”. Therefore, it is essential to identify the type of power base that one has in the organisation, before deciding which politicking method to adopt to achieve one’s goal in the company. Which of the above have you encountered in your workplace? (Which is a politically correct way of phrasing, “Which of the above methods have you cleverly or unscrupulously manipulated in your workplace?) – Just kidding. =P

-Richmond Kok

Hotelier by day, student by night

Project Oxygen

Project Oxygen
Investigating why Managers Matter and what best Managers do

- Good Managers demonstrates 8 common behaviours
- 3 pitfalls to avoid
- Good management pays off.
Data on managers and Googlers how good managers have lower turnover, happier Googlers, and higher performing teams.

Methodolgy
People managers were grouped into quartiles based on Googlegeist and pref scores:
- High-scoring managers were thise in top quartile of both measures
- Low-scoring managers were those in the bottom quartile of both measures

To determine what our best managers do, 4 qualitative research data sources were used to identify patterns:
1. Googlegeist comments
2. Great Manager Award nominations
3. Performance reviews
4. Interviews with managers

8 Attributes of a High Scoring Manager :

1) Is a good Coach
2) Empowers the team and does not micromanage.
3) Expresses interest / concern for team members' success and person well-being
4) Is productive and results-oriented.
5) Is a good communicator - Listens and shares information
6) Helps with career development
7) Has a clear vision / strategy for the team
8) Has key technical skills that helps him or her to advice the team

Pitfalls : What cases a good manager to struggle ?
1) Has a tough transition (suddenly promoted, hired with little training)
2) Lacks a consistent philosophy / approach to performance management and career development
3) Spends too little time on managing and communicating

Payoffs to Good Managers behaviours
Googlers reporting to strong managers have lower turnover and score higher on Googlegeist.

Tough love and self discipline

Rule #4. PRACTICE TOUGH LOVE

The golden thread of a highly successful and meaningful life is self-discipline. Discipline allows you to do all those things you know in your heart you should do but never feel like doing. Without self-discipline, you will not set clear goals, manage your time effectively, treat people well, persist through the tough times, care for your health or think positive thoughts. 

I call the habit of self-discipline 'Tough Love' because getting tough with yourself is actually a very loving gesture. By being stricter with yourself, you will begin to live life more deliberately, on your own terms rather than simply reacting to life the way a leaf floating in a stream drifts according to the flow of the current on a particular day. 

As I teach in one of my seminars, the tougher you are on your-self, the easier life will be on you. The quality of your life ultimately is shaped by the quality of your choices and decisions, ones that range from the career you choose to pursue, to the books you read, the time that you wake up every morning and the thoughts you think during the hours of your days. When you consistently flex your will-power by making those choices that you know are the right ones (rather than the easy ones), you take back control of your life. Effective, fulfilled people do not spend their time doing what is most convenient and comfortable. They have the courage to listen to their hearts and to do the wise thing. This habit is what makes them great.

"The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do," remarked essayist and thinker E. M. Gray. 'They don't like doing them either, necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose." 

The nineteenth-century English writer Thomas Henry Huxley arrived at a similar conclusion, noting: "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.' And Aristotle made this point of wisdom in yet another way:

'Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we come to be brave.'

Excerpt from Life lessons from the monk who sold his Ferrari

The business of Mindfulness - The Straits Times

Embraced by the corporate world, the movement also has its critics

Vikram Khanna
Associate Editor

That is the startling conclusion of the Gallup Organisation's 2017 State of the Global Workplace report, based on surveys done in 155 countries.



For Singapore, the figure was 23 per cent - slightly better than the global average, but still quite dismal. More bad news: A 2016 study by McKinsey & Co of 52,000 corporate leaders showed that while 86 per cent rated themselves as inspiring role models, their staff did not agree. A Gallup engagement survey the same year found that 82 per cent of employees considered their leaders "fundamentally uninspiring". In fact, another study by Mr Rasmus Hougaard, co-author of the recent book The Mind Of The Leader together with the Harvard Business Review, found that 35 per cent of employees would be willing to forgo a pay rise to see their bosses fired. The research also found that 73 per cent of leaders feel distracted from their current tasks "some" or "most" of the time. Two-thirds of leaders admitted that their minds were cluttered with lots of thoughts and a lack of clear priorities, and that they failed to complete their most important tasks.



LEADERSHIP IN CRISIS 
If these ground-level findings are any guide, it would seem that corporate leadership is in a state of crisis, despite some US$46 billion (S$63 billion) being spent every year on "leadership development" courses. According to Mr Hougaard, co-founder of The Potential Project - which provides mindfulness training to companies around the world - the big problem is that corporate leaders often ignore the fact that the key to leadership lies in the mind, that their mind creates their reality and that they often unknowingly make choices based on their history or emotions which are then rationalised ex-post, and most importantly, that they first need to lead themselves more effectively before they can lead others.

He explains: "Everything we do in a company comes from the mind. Our performance comes from the mind. lf our mind is not present when we're doing things, we don't perform well. Innovation, creativity, resilience - all of these come from the mind." Most companies do not seem to see the significance of this connection, he points out. "So when they try to change their culture, they rely on tactical things - like changing their policies, their incentives or changing the layout of the office. It's never about changing the mental make-up of people." The Potential Project has worked with more than 350 companies around the world, including household names such as Accenture, American Express, Carlsberg, Cisco, Google, Ikea, Lego, Marriott, McKinsey, Microsoft and Nike. The results, Mr Hougaard claims (and which have been confirmed by many of the companies as well as academic research), include better focus and clarity, more effective prioritisation, less unproductive multitasking and lower stress levels, as well as improvements in creativity, memory and sleep quality.

Mindfulness is a thousand-year-old practice, a form of meditation that essentially involves a focus on the present - a moment-by-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, sensations and the environment. It has become something of a cult, embraced by thousands of companies and millions of individuals. It has some scientific validation. MR1 scans have showed, for instance, that in people who practise the technique, the pre-frontal cortex of the brain -which is associated with functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making, as well as problem solving and regulating emotion - becomes thicker. Many successful leaders have practised mindfulness. In an interview with me in 2014, the world's biggest hedge fund manager Ray Dalio credited many of his best investment ideas to his mindful meditation, which he had practised for 25 years. New ideas bubble up from his subconscious, he said, and then he validates them with his conscious mind. If they check out, he acts on them. Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs credited his mindful meditation with many of his successful products, including the iPhone. Another daily practitioner, Mr Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, revealed that Mr Jobs advised him to "be mindful and project the future". Prominent meditators in Singapore include Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and former GIC chief investment officer Ng Kok Song. Mr Lee Kuan Yew also became a practitioner late in his life and found it beneficial.

Mindfulness is even taught at business schools, including Singapore Management University (SMU), which offers courses in mindfulness for the public, which are approved for claims under the Government's SkillsFuture Credit subsidy scheme. I met Mr Hougaard at SMU, where he delivered a talk on mindfulness. My first question to him was, having worked with hundreds of companies, why does he think corporate leadership is in a state of crisis? He pointed out that one important maxim that many corporate leaders ignore, or do not realise, is that, as the former managing partner of McKinsey Dominic Barton put it, "leadership is less about what you do than who you are". He explained that when we are promoted to our first managerial role, we need to show we are effective and we can execute. So for most managers, leadership is a lot about executing well.

"That's important, but as you get to more senior levels, leadership is less about what you do and more about how you engage your people - how you empower them, how you create teams, how you create structures for the company. That involves the values you bring, rather than just your ability to execute." The practice of mindfulness can help change leaders' perspective and mental make-up, increasing their clarity of thought, their compassion and the quality of their decision-making. This also applies to big strategic decisions. Many leaders lack what Mr Hougaard calls "the beginner's mind" - that is, the ability to see things afresh, which is "the first step towards an innovative mindset".

"We often don't actually see what's in front of us," he said. "What we see is the reality created by our mind. based on our history, not actual reality." As an example, he cited the famous quote from then Nokia chief executive officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, in response to the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 when Nokia was the market leader: "From a competitor point of view, the iPhone is nothing but a niche product." He just did not see the real potential - or threat - of the 'Phone (which was a major cause of Nokia's market share in mobile phones crashing from 49 per cent in 2007 to 3 per cent in 2013). He lacked the beginner's mind, said Mr Hougaard. 

MANAGING TIME 

A common problem in the workplace is that people spend 80 per cent of their time on activities that generate 20 per cent of outcomes - known as the "Pareto Principle" in management theory. Mr Hougaard puts this down to what he calls "action addiction". "We're addicted to doing things, not achieving things," he said. "And we do things not because they're important, but because we want to feel important. "A neurochemical called dopamine gets released in the brain when we do something, which makes us comfortable, and it's very addictive. Every time we achieve something small - like replying to an insignificant e-mail, a little dopamine is released. That's what makes us keep doing small things at work and not getting to what is most important." One of the insights of Mr Hougaard and his team -elaborated in another book One Second Ahead - is that delaying certain actions by even one second can make a difference to the quality of those actions. He explained: "The busier we get, the more reactive we become, because we don't have the space to think. Mindfulness gives us that space, that one second, where instead of going into reactive mode when we are confronted with something as mundane as an e-mail, we have that second to think, 'Should I engage with this? How should I engage with this?' It enables us to observe ourselves, rather than being instinctively reactive." 

UNPRODUCTIVE MEETINGS

Another common problem in the workplace, which applies especially to CEOs but also to lower-level managers, is the ineffectiveness of meetings. This is because people are often not present, other than physically. They are distracted - for example, checking their mobile phones or absorbed in thoughts unconnected to the meeting. They are not mindful, improving the quality of meetings can make a big difference to company performance, he said.

"Carlsberg. one of the companies we worked with, ran some numbers on this and they found they saved 35 per cent of meeting time. Most meetings are scheduled for an hour, but they don't need an hour:- Management guru Michael Porter and Harvard Business School dean Nitin Nohria did a major study on meetings and CEOs, which was published in the Harvard18). The Business Review (July-August 20 found that, on average. CEOs spent 72 per cent of their time in meetings. Their main conclusion: Shortening meetings can significantly enhance a CEO's efficiency. "In our debriefs, CEOs confessed that one-hour meetings could often be cut to 30 or even 15 minutes," they pointed out. 

BEWARE OF MCMINDFULNESS 

As happens with anything that takes on cult proportions and becomes a multibillion-dollar industry, the mindfulness movement has attracted its share of critics, some of whom refer to it as "Mcmindfulness". They allege that it has been stripped down and secularised to make it more marketable in the process, diluting and distorting what it was meant to be. For instance, many mindfulness courses are not anchored in deeper ethical values. Buddhist scholars point out that the way it is now taught often fails to distinguish between "good mindfulness" and "bad mindfulness", which makes it possible to create not just more mindful workers and executives, but also more mindful terrorists and white-collar criminals. Some therapists caution that mindfulness might be contraindicated for some individuals, who may not be able to deal with the difficult thoughts and emotions that the practice can bring to the surface. They note that many of the people who teach it have no formal training in mental health. Others point out that the mindfulness movement skirts the issue of why so many corporate environments are stressful in the first place. "Corporations have jumped on the mindfulness bandwagon because it conveniently shifts the burden onto the individual employee," said Dr Ron Purser, a professor of management at San Francisco State University, and Mr David Loy, a Zen teacher. "Stress is framed as a personal problem, and mindfulness is offered as just the right medicine to help employees work more efficiently and calmly within toxic environments". Some of these issues deserve to be taken seriously and the mindfulness movement will no doubt evolve. But meanwhile, for better or worse, its popularity is continuing  to spread. 

vikram@sph.com sg