Gratitude, the Key to Happiness

Last Monday started off more hectic and scattered than most days. It had been a very busy and over scheduled weekend, after an exhausting week of travel the week before. The weekly sales numbers had come in softer than expected and the level of urgent AND important (see the blog essay “The Tyranny of the Urgent”) email traffic that morning had hit a fevered pitch. The week ahead also seemed daunting, heading west later that day for key customer and planning meetings throughout the week, looking to arrive back in Atlanta by 11pm Friday night. Just reflecting on last week quickens my pulse and raises my blood pressure, ha!

Well with that lead-in, I was obviously not feeling very grateful or happy when I drove off to grab a quick lunch with an old friend, before heading to the airport last Monday afternoon. We sat down and quickly caught up on what each of us were doing professionally and personally. Early on in our conversation it became clear that all the things I was griping about, (the business headaches, the travel, the upcoming planning meetings, etc.) all seemed to sound pretty good to my friend Sean. When I shared that later that same night I would be crashing at a hotel near our offices in Santa Monica, Sean’s eyes lit up remembering that same hotel and how close to the ocean it was located. I left that lunch nudged a bit by it all, trying to understand what I was missing. Was my day/week/weekend so terrible or stressed that I just couldn’t see how lucky I had it? Had I totally lost my perspective on all the tremendous things in my life because of a few tiring days?

As I headed to the airport, I checked in with my work partner and dear friend Cathy and as I shared my lunch revelations/musings she quickly commented that “you know Bill, Gratitude is the Key to Happiness.” As is often the case, Cathy is a source of truth and perspective and as my attitude and focus started to change /improve, I literally googled her quote and immediately found the following:

Gratitude: A Key to Happiness
William F. Doverspike, Ph.D.


Although happiness is sometimes viewed as a state that can be reached by achieving some goal or acquiring some possession (e.g., "I would be happy if only _____"), psychological research suggests that happiness is more related to being grateful for what we already have. Gratitude is a subject that has received considerable attention in psychological research. The efficacy of gratitude interventions has been studied in clinical samples (Duckworth, Steen, & Seligman, 2005), student populations (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006), and general adult populations (Seligman, Steen, & Peterson, 2005).

Gratitude visit. In a placebo controlled empirical study, Seligman, Steen, and Peterson (2005) validated the gratitude visit as a way of increasing happiness. Compared to participants who were instructed to focus on a time in life when they were at their best and to reflect on their strengths, participants who engaged in a gratitude visit reported more happiness for one month after the intervention. Participants were given one week to write and then deliver a letter of gratitude in person to someone who had been especially kind to them but who had never been properly thanked. They were instructed to perform the exercise for only one week. The gratitude visit involves three basic steps: First, think of someone who has done something important and wonderful for you, yet who has not been properly thanked. Next, reflect on the benefits you received from this person, and write a letter expressing your gratitude for all he or she did for you. Finally, arrange to deliver the letter personally, and spend some time with this person talking about what you wrote.
Using another intervention known as "three good things in life," Seligman, Steen, and Peterson (2005) asked a different group of participants to write down three things that went well each day. In addition, they were asked to provide a causal explanation for each good thing. The participants were instructed to perform the exercise every night for one week. At the one-month follow-up, participants using this exercise were happier and less depressed than they had been at baseline. More importantly, they stayed happier and less depressed at the three-month and six-month follow-ups.

Gratitude journal. Empirical studies have shown that those who kept gratitude journals felt better about their lives. Compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). A related benefit was also observed in the realm of personal goal attainment: Compared to research participants in the other experimental conditions, participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period.

A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) resulted in more positive effects that did the weekly intervention. A daily gratitude intervention resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness, and energy compared to a focus on daily hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others). Compared to participants who were instructed to focus on daily hassles or social comparisons, those who used the daily gratitude intervention were more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or having offered emotional support to another person (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

Suggested steps. Consider making a gratitude visit to someone who has been especially kind or helpful to you but who you have never properly thanked. Reflect on the benefits you received from this person, write a letter expressing your gratitude, and make arrangements to personally deliver the letter and discuss what you wrote. After making your gratitude visit, start keeping a daily gratitude journal of three things that go well each day. Reflect on three good things that happen each day as well as their possible causes, and write down these things in your gratitude journal at the end of each day. At the end of a month, review your journal, reflect on how you feel, and identify someone to whom you will make your next gratitude visit.

References
Duckworth, A. L., Steen, T. A., and Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Positive psychology in clinical practice. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1, 629-651.
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: Experimental studies of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 377-389.
Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. T., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60(5), 410-421.

Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How to increase and sustain positive emotion: The effects of expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves. Journal of Positive Psychology. Special Issue: Positive Emotions, 1(2), 73-82

I will let you all be the judge of Dr. Doverspike’s premise and whether his ideas of a “Gratiutude Journal” or a “Gratitude Visit” would work for you. What I do conclude is that all of us in our busy lives could benefit from just a few minutes a day to think about all that we should be grateful for in our personal and professional lives. By focusing less on the work/emails/texts/etc. that have not been accomplished versus focusing more on the people/accomplishments/special moments & memories from our lives I am confident that we will be more “grateful” in our day to day lives and ultimately happier!

The World Needs More Love

When I started out in early 2009 to share a few “lessons and stories of leadership and life,” I had no idea that now 89 essays later (yes this is #90!) I would still have a number of things to share, and maybe none more timely and important than this topic today. Over the years I have often jokingly shared in a moment of business strife , or petty personal turbulence, that “the world needs more love” ; trying in my own way to nudge the listeners of the moment to try to choose a more hopeful, maybe even a more loving solution to the issue at hand. Well surrounded and at moments engulfed in the violent madness of our times, this “quippy” admonition seems timely and very important.

It was two weeks ago that I landed in Boston, the morning of the marathon, to attend a 3 day global leadership conference. Our hotel was about a mile from the finish line and we had a member of our team running in the marathon that fateful Monday and a few of us were planning on going over to watch him finish. Due to some “required “rehearsals that afternoon, I stayed back at the hotel while a few members of our team headed over to the finish line. At 2:50pm that afternoon, everything changed with the twin explosions and the senseless injury and death brought on to so many innocent bystanders. Standing in the hotel lobby a mile away, I watched with the world the news headlines as sirens streamed by heading to the bomb site. Quickly armed police came to our hotel and everything went into a lockdown mode. Surprisingly quickly we were able to contact our friends who were over near the finish line. All were physically ok but it would take hours before they could work their way back to our hotel. Obviously so many others were not nearly so fortunate and over the past two weeks the violent and senseless madness of the Tsarnaev brothers has been evident to the world.

With that said, if you actually take a close look at the headlines over just the past two weeks, they are filled with violence and madness all across our world. Now it is so easy for me to say that “the world needs more love”, but I feel strongly that we are going in exactly the wrong direction. Regardless of creed, nationality, age, sex, or belief system, the world does not need more hatred or violence! It does not need more cynicism or critique! It does not need more maiming or killing of innocent children! It does not need more weapons or war! It DOES need more love!

Over the past 89 essays I have tried to keep my personal political and spiritual views on the sidelines knowing how divisive those topics can be. Instead I have tried to share my ideas and suggestions in ways that would, or at least could, appeal to a broad set of readers regardless of orientation or nationality. It’s actually very interesting to see that of the almost 15000 readers so far, there is a wide audience of readers from countries so varied as Ukraine, Iran, The Netherlands and Canada. It’s in that spirit that I want to quote a previous essay (The Golden Rule at Dulles Airport.) In looking over religions spanning across countries and continents, there is a strong common thread that we should treat others as we wish to be treated. Reflect on the commonality across so many traditions!

The Universality of the Golden Rule in the World Religions


Christianity All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:1
Confucianism Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state.
Analects 12:2
Buddhism Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
Udana-Varga 5,1
Hinduism This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.
Mahabharata 5,1517
Islam No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
Sunnah
Judaism What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.
Talmud, Shabbat 3id
Taoism Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.
Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien
Zoroastrianism That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself.
Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5



Now maybe my simple admonition might seem a touch naïve and that the idea that “the world needs more love” should be obvious to all. It is certainly clear from the headlines of our time that we need to work harder on this idea, actually working to turn this concept/idea/belief into real action; actually choosing paths and actions of love not hate rather than being the innocent bystanders on the sidelines of this race we call life.

Praise in Public, Coach in Private

Across a business career that now spans well over 27 years, I have had the chance to experience and learn a wide variety of lessons from a wide range of inspirations. In some instances it took me years to realize the power and impact of a key lesson (as described in a recent essay “Execution is THE Strategy) and in some situations I have been applying and sharing a lesson that I learned years ago, the source of which is now lost in the fog of time. Thus let me preface this essay to say that I am certain I owe the following idea to some historic boss, teacher, or peer and I officially apologize for not being able to more appropriately credit the source today.

As you can easily see from this blog, I believe deeply in the power and importance of Leadership and am always working on my craft in this area. It’s an honor and a privilege to lead teams and so often leaders literally blow it by thinking they can “drive” organizations to do their will, execute their strategies, and follow their directives. In my experience successful, engaged organizations are ones where the leaders follow the three simple principles of leadership; to educate the minds, inspire the hearts, and direct the hands and feet of their teams. (Learn more about these principles in the essay “Three Impact Points of Leadership”) it’s in this context that this simple of idea, to “Praise in Public, Coach in Private” comes to life.

There are so many “leadership moments” that occur every day in a leaders work life that it is impossible to pre-plan your message/tone/approach for every high impact moment. Certainly there are key meetings, presentations, speeches, etc. where pre-planning is a must; being intentional about your content, your context and your approach is not optional! It IS a requirement of leadership. My comments today are about all of those unplanned, unrehearsed moments that are high impact situations without the benefit of pre-planning. In my experience keeping the idea of “Praise in Public, Coach in Private” close at hand will serve all leaders well.

Praise in Public: in situations where you encounter positive outcomes or positive actions from your team, don’t shy away from praising the individual or the team publically. Whether live, on a conf call, or on a group email, let the team know WHAT you like in the situation and maybe more importantly WHY you like it! Let it out, don’t hold it in! Your team wants and NEEDS to know what you value and what great performance looks like. Across my years in business I have never been in a situation where I have felt an organization had too much praise, or had “become soft” because of excessive praise. Across all the engagement surveys and team input sessions, the lack of feedback from senior leadership was MUCH more common an issue.

Coach in Private: in situations opposite from the above, where the results and/or the approach to the work did not meet expectations try to avoid public environments for pinpointed/direct/negative feedback. If you really want that individual/team to learn from the moment, the last thing you want them thinking about is their embarrassment in front of their friends and peers. Equally for high performing associates who “got this one wrong”, you as the leader owe it to them to quietly and privately dive into the situation to see where they or maybe YOU got it wrong as well. Berating high performers publically is a typical first step for those associate to actually listen when headhunters call.

While it seems simple enough, I can promise you it is often hard to put into practice. Recently I participated in a board meeting where the leader became energized on a specific issue brought up by one of his direct reports. Rather than deciding to “Coach in Private”, he dove into the individual with a growing stream of critique and reproach. Not only did the other board members feel left out and ignored the individual in question (a high performer in the company) ultimately shut down and the discussion literally stopped. Was there learning? Was there insight? Was there progress?

Now I know there will be moments where all of us will struggle to bring this idea to life consistently. We will be tempted to “Coach in Public” and maybe “Praise in Private” or more likely to not praise at all. Keep the simple idea of “Praise in Public, Coach in Private” present as you go through your busy lives of leadership, and I am confident that not only will you be a more effective leader, your organization/team will be more energized, engaged, and your results will be more successful.

Advance Your Position

So many of us lead hectic work and personal lives, racing from one commitment to another, on one flight to another, one conference call to another, etc., etc, etc.. I am almost out of breadth just describing our normal pace of life! In previous essays I have shared my thoughts on taking a few moments to proverbially “smell the roses” ( Long Look Garden / Ode to a Shunpiker /The Big Spoon ) and while I am certain that I will write more on that again sometime in the future, this essay is about a simple idea that may help you navigate life in overdrive.

I often think about and try to plan out my calendar a few weeks at a time. I have found it a bit unrealistic to try to go much beyond 3 to 4 weeks out with the ever changing landscape of work commitments, customer meetings and the inherent travel related to these commitments. Even with all the best planning, the combination of my family commitments and my work obligations can at times feel overwhelming. I have found that one approach that helps me a lot is looking ahead at my commitments and working to physically and proverbially get one move ahead, e.g., “advancing my position.”
Here is an example of what I am talking about; every Tuesday I hold a weekly conference call with my team across the country. There is not a specific time slot for the call, due to my constantly changing travel schedule, but I have held it every Tuesday for the past 2-3 years. Well on many Tuesdays I have found myself with a morning customer meeting, the weekly call scheduled mid-day, then a flight off to another work commitment. In these situations I have found that if I move quickly from the morning customer meeting to get to the airport, move directly through security, then off to a quiet corner near my gate, I can lead my weekly team conference call with a little less stress…. again “advancing my position”. Sure it takes a few minutes of forethought, but taking the variable of a “backed up” security line and a possible missed flight out of the equation is a major stress reducer for me.

Equally this idea works as I think about flight schedules. Too many times over my career have I been at the mercy of flight delays and cancellations that have impacted my work obligations. In situations where I have an early meeting in a city that requires a flight, I don’t start looking at the flight that gives me just enough time to barely make the meeting. This essay is NOT titled “By the skin of our teeth”, ha! Instead, I have learned to take those variables out of the equation and if I have a significant meeting commitment, I often will fly into that city the night before, or in the worst case, I will work to book my flight one or two flights early JUST IN CASE something happens … because while we like to plan for best case scenarios, it’s naïve/foolish to do so all the time!

Remember we can’t control everything in our lives but we can control our personal controllables! Work to take the risks and variables out of your personal equation, giving yourself more room to execute the myriad of deliverables on your plate and increasing your chances for success. Try to “Advance Your Position” as you dive into the days and weeks ahead and see if this little/simple idea can be helpful to you to reduce stress and enhancing your chances of success!

It's Better to Know !

It was early in 2000, I had just moved back to Atlanta after a few years living in Baltimore, and it was time to get serious and find a doctor. I hadn’t quite turned 40, (that was in September 2001, fodder for a future story) and as a new father I was getting focused on four door sedans, life insurance options , and a full time GP. After a few enquiries with friends, I made an appointment with a highly recommended doctor at Piedmont Hospital who was still taking on new patients.


I had stopped by a week before my appointment to give blood so the doctor could do a full workup for my first visit. In normal fashion I arrived a few minutes early and I was impressed when they took me back to the exam room 5 minutes early. After the required measurements (height and weight of course) a nurse did a battery of x-rays as well as taking an EKG. So far, it all seemed very thorough and I was feeling like I was in the right place. Soon enough the doctor came in, introduced himself very professionally and let me know that we were both the same age and that he liked patients that he could relate to directly and very openly. I quickly agreed, saying that I was looking for a doctor that I could see regularly for my annual physicals and any issues that might pop up over the years.


After a few minutes of taking my family history, he asked me whether I thought with a few lifestyle changes I could get my cholesterol “under control.” Since at that time I had no earthly idea what my cholesterol metrics were, I said with an earnest voice that I was certain with a little exercise and by watching my diet I could get things in check. As if I pulled a trigger of some sort, he jumped up and said very loudly, “Mr. Levisay, you are a liar!!” Well I was ready for almost anything that morning but being called a liar by my newly met Doctor was not on the playlist! He exclaimed that my cholesterol number was 357, and that there was NO way with a little exercise and diet I would or could make a dent in it and that if I wasn’t ready to go on a statin drug immediately he would not take me as a patient! With that, he walked out of the exam room, leaving me bewildered in my boxer shorts.


Well the long and short of the story is that I did start taking a statin daily soon after, my cholesterol is now below 150 with a very good split of HDL and LDL levels, and I have a very active relationship with that same doctor, now entering our 13th year. The lesson that day that is certainly true in one’s health but also in your business life is “It’s better to know.” Sure I was living in ignorance before entering that doctor’s office more than 13 years ago, but it was better for me to actually know my cholesterol levels so I could actually DO something about it. This idea is easy to talk about but difficult at times to practice in business; but regardless if your situation SEEMS in growth mode or in trouble mode, “it’s always better to know!”


There is a famous quote from Warren Buffet where he suggests that the stock market is highly fueled by greed and fear and that one should “be greedy when the market is fearful and fearful when the market is greedy.” While a deeply wise idea regarding the stock market, this concept holds true in thinking about this idea of “it’s better to know.” My experience is that in business moment s when things seem to be going great, setting records and beating plan, it’s important to go looking for the areas that might show signs of early weakness. Look for markets or products or at innovation that are not meeting their success hurdles, often not easily seen because they are being eclipsed by the broader success. I use the phrase “look for the dark in the light” to describe this approach. Similarly you need to be able to “look for the light in the dark.” In situations where things are tough, maybe you are behind your plan targets and having significant competitive challenges, it’s easy to become myopic on all the things that are not working, rather than looking for glimpses of success and winning within the broader challenged context.


Just like my cholesterol score from years ago, this lesson that “it’s better to know” is a good adage for business and life. Regardless if situations seem very good or very bad, it’s always makes sense to understand them better; to dig deeper into the moment and seek to find the data to help illuminate the dark (or the light!)


Remember …. It’s always “better to know!”

Execution is THE Strategy

Execution is THE Strategy

Isn’t it interesting that sometimes it take us years to realize that the lessons we learned a long time ago are needed today? Well that ‘Insight”, if I can be so bold, is present in my work life today, literally going back to a book, a set of meetings, and some key lessons that occurred almost ten years ago.

It was in late 2003 or early 2004, when I was leading retail sales for North America at The Coca Cola Company, when we invited the famous consultant, business adviser, and author Ram Charan to be our keynote speaker at a leadership meeting held in Atlanta. Ram, along with Larry Bossidy, had just released their book “Execution, The art of getting things done” (http://www.amazon.com/Execution-Discipline-Getting-Things-Done/dp/0609610570) and Ram lead a very focused and energetic discussion around the singular concept of “Execution.” At that time the business world I was immersed in was looking for new strategic avenues for growth, thinking that new products, new ad campaigns, new markets, possibly new categories were all the preferred routes for growth. This idea of Ram’s around building a culture of “execution”, literally focusing on the operating system itself and becoming maniacal around measuring and improving a company’s “execution metrics” seemed too simple, or maybe that we “had been there & done that.” Well little did I know that almost ten years later I was digging out my copy of his book and finding it relevant and highly impactful to my business today!

I have been at Bolthouse Farms for almost three years now and I am so proud of this company, our wonderful healthy products, and the amazing team I get to work with every day! We have had a lot of success growing our business broadly over the past three years and I have had the chance to learn and grow in this role in ways I didn’t always anticipate. As a leader when you work with a talented, motivated, and focused team much of your work is done. Well that is my very fortunate truth! In that light, we have reached new heights in parts of our business not by exploring new team configurations, or new categories but by building our “Execution” muscles.

One specific example came to mind recently when we worked on ways of taking a historic successful promotion to new heights. We followed a few simple pathways that you might find helpful in your business:

1) Expand your “expectations” for success. It’s easy to think that your historic successes are “tapped out” and that your focus as a leader should be on the areas not working as well. Not so fast! Take your best performing situations (markets/brands/promotions/etc) and raise your own expectations for success. If it’s been that good in the past, maybe we could/should expect 10%, 20% or even 30% greater performance in the future.

2) Use your “best in class” performance to guide the average. In any situation the average of any performance is made up of high, mid and low performers, the typical “bell curve” reality. We looked inside of this strong performing promotion and looked for the best performing market in the past. With that as a model, we took the actions and practices form that market and started building the playbook for broader translation.

3) Nurture next phase “best in class” performers. Identify solid performing entities (markets/ reps/distributors) that are in the middle of the “bell curve” but that are open to new ideas/thinking/approaches. Use them as pilots to try ideas from your new “playbook” (see #2) and soon you have multiple entities competing to be the very best.

4) Correct the “bottom of the bottom”. Look hard at the very bottom of the “bell curve” and identify the absolutely WORST performing entities (markets/ reps/distributors). Take personal action; get involved to understand the situation and identify the core barriers of success and take actions to correct some of the barriers NOW. Maybe “best in class” is beyond expectations, but for the lowest performing entities, average performance looks great!


While these four ideas or pathways aren’t exactly found in Ram’s book, our focus on core executional principles rings very true to his principles. Through these four simple ideas, we have continued to create new levels of executional success and thus new levels of results for our business!

While it might indicate certain “slowness” in my leadership capabilities that it took me almost ten years to apply his lessons, I am certainly re-energized around the idea that “execution” in itself can be the central strategy for productive marketplace growth. Be careful not to be tempted to look only outside your business for the keys for growth. It’s is my experience that there are tremendous opportunities for growth and success by looking deeply at your execution metrics today and making that focus a core strategy for your business in the future!

Holiday Recipe Redux

As we close out 2012 I have one more family treasure to pass along. Yes, I promise to get back to the more pressing issues of leadership, performance management & execution in 2013 but for now, my focus remains on family and thoughts of holidays past present and future.

In my last essay I shared Jane’s now famous “Yum Yum Yam’s” recipe and indeed it graced our holiday table again this year. One additional holiday recipe tradition of my mother-in-law Jane (who passed away early in 2011) was her Turkey Stuffing casserole which was made every year a few days after Christmas to use up the leftovers. Earlier today I made that delicious dish, and we will enjoy it tonight for our dinner, with memories flooding back from casseroles made years gone by. The idea of being frugal enough not only to save the leftovers from a big family meal but to have “special” recipes for those leftovers seems a bit old fashioned in these days of excess. Well for my mother-in-law and certainly for yours truly and my family, this tradition while maybe a bit old fashioned is a sensible and delicious way for us to honor and celebrate the memory of a cherished family member. I hope that you have a chance to try this recipe either this year or after some holiday meal in your future, remember leftovers required!


Jane’s Turkey Stuffing Casserole

Ingredients:
4-5 cups leftover turkey white and dark meat (mixed or to taste) chopped
4-5 cups leftover stuffing
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp all purpose flour
2 cups milk
2 tsp season salt (Jane always used Lawry’s)
¼ cup sherry
Melt butter in a pot and add flour to make a paste. Add milk over medium heat and add seasoned salt and sherry and let simmer until thick. Add turkey to sauce mix and put aside. Butter a casserole dish and layer leftover stuffing first, then the turkey mix, then stuffing again using all of your ingredients and finishing with a layer of stuffing on top. Cover and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.


Enjoy!