“Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.”
John Wooden

Coaching has been around as long as anyone can really remember.  Executives have always had trusted advisors, mentors, Board Members and outside confidants to help them succeed. Mostly it has been informal but in the last few years coaching has become a common “perk” and accepted method of developing talent at all levels of the organization but primarily for those at the top.

However, as Alyssa Freas has written about in a recent Harvard Business Review article, it truly is a “Wild West” out there with a “buyers beware” attitude needed¹.  One of my publications in 2003 discussed the explosion in coaching and asked whether it is a fad or something that indeed adds value to sharpen the insight, skills and competence of leaders and non-leaders².

What Evidence Do We Have that Coaching Works?

From the survey of 100 respondents who received coaching, Manchester Consulting estimated that coaching resulted in an average return of 5.7 times the initial investment. Furthermore, coaching contributed to a perception of increased productivity for 53 percent of respondents and improved quality of work for 48 percent of the respondents. Of those receiving coaching, 61% reported a significant increase in their level overall level of work and job satisfaction.

Olivero (1997) demonstrated that a conventional management training program in the public sector, combined with eight weeks of one-to-one coaching, resulted in a significant increase in productivity of the program participants compared to a control group. 

Thatch (2002) tracked 281 executives participating in a six-month coaching and multi-rater feedback intervention.  She discovered that the combination of multi-rater feedback and individual coaching increased leadership effectiveness up to 60% according to direct report and peer post-survey feedback ratings.

Smither et al., (2003) studied 1,361 senior managers who received 360-degree feedback with 404 of these managers working exclusively with an executive coach to review their feedback and set individual goals. Managers who worked with an executive coach were significantly more likely than the other managers to set specific rather than vague goals, to solicit ideas for improvement from their supervisors and demonstrated greater improvement than other managers based on direct report and supervisor ratings. 

These studies are typically and frequently cited when someone asks about “evidence based” research suggesting coaching is effective.  It’s easy to conclude from these few studies that indeed coaching is as effective as practitioners and consultants would lead you to believe that it is.

What Evidence Do We Have That People Change?

A very recent thorough literature search on the topic reveals few well designed studies really demonstrating the overall effectiveness of coaching.

Most interestingly, meta-analytic evidence of over 600 studies by two researchers named Kluger and DeNisi suggests that one-third of all feedback interventions, a cornerstone of all coaching models, can actually cause a decrease in performance. So, obviously coaching may not always be the panacea to convert “competent jerks” into “lovable stars” or even uniformly effective³.

A recent meta-analysis of 26 longitudinal studies of multi-rater feedback indicated significant but very small effect sizes that suggest that performance improvements will be practically modest (statistically the effect sizes were very small) for those most motivated and capable of changing behavior⁴. Finally, Atwater, Waldman, Atwater and Cartier (2000) reported improvement following an upward feedback intervention only resulted for 50% of the supervisors who received it⁵.

Maybe if the right coach is lined up with the right client with right genetic predisposition to learn and grow and the right environment exists to support behavior change leaders will become effective.  At least three things are pretty clear based on the current evidence based research on coaching effectiveness:

1. People have natural “set points” for personality traits that are associated with leading and leadership effectiveness.
2. Motivated people do change but not dramatically over time (small effect).
3. Feedback to clients may do actual emotional harm that leads to disengagement and demotivation.

Let me know what you think….I’ve got to get back to another one of my largely ineffective coaching engagements….Be well….

Technorati Tags: emotional intelligence, leadership, talent management, born versus made, executive coaching, personality, happiness, heritability, leadership effectiveness, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

1. Sherman, S. and Freas, A. (2004), The Wild West of executive coaching, Harvard Business Review,. Vol. 82 No. 1, November, pp. 82-90 [↩]
2. Nowack, K. (2003). Executive Coaching: Fad or Future?. California Psychologist, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4, 16-17 [↩]
3. Kluger, A. & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, meta-analysis and preliminary feedback theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 254-285 [↩]
4. Smither, J., London, M. & Reilly, R. (2005). Does performance improve following multisource feedback? A theoretical model, meta-analysis, and review of empirical findings. Personnel Psychology, 58, 33-66 [↩]
5. Atwater, L.A., Waldman, D., Atwater, D., & Cartier (2000). An upward feedback field experiment. Supervisors’ cynicism, follow-up and commitment to subordinates. Personnel Psychology, 53, 275-297 [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: public speaking

Competency: oral presentations

Who benefits: those who make oral presentation or public presentations

Consultant Usage: self-development or coaching tool

What’s it about? One of my all time favorite opinion polls was conducted many years ago by a major newspaper in London.  Can’t remember which one, but never could forget the results.  The poll asked: “What is your greatest fear”. 

Number one on the list was the “fear of public speaking”.  Number two was the “fear of dying.”  After reading that poll, anytime someone would say in my presence “I would rather die than give a speech” I believed them.

One can never become a great speaker by reading a book.  But a good book is a start.  Macmillan Press put out two books on public speaking in 2008.  One is the next edition of a long time popular favorite, the other aimed specifically at women speakers.  Both have something to offer, so if public speaking is something you have to master, give these books a look-see:

You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard, Updated Edition: The Complete Book of Speaking . . . in Business and in Life! (Hardcover)

The three things I like most about this book is the way the author addresses the “fear factor” and gives you some tips about how to get the butterflies in your stomach to fly in formation; how to quickly organize your material; and how to actually influence or move your audience to point of view or action steps.

Speak Up!: A Woman’s Guide to Presenting Like a Pro (Paperback)
 
Frankly, I am not sold that this book is all that “woman specific” .  It has some introductory material aimed at the woman reader.  But the co-author is a man and the core material is generic to any good public speaking book or course.  I didn’t read the whole book and, surprise, surprise, I am not a woman, so maybe there is enough gender specific material to warrant the title.  In any case, the book covers many important public speaking points regardless of your genetic make-up. 

Catch you later. 

Technorati Tags: public speaking, oral presentation, fear of speaking, delivering effective presentation, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

Making sense of what occurs in human systems or how they change or the most effective way to lead them or which design is most productive is fraught with difficulty. Yet, nothing is more important in today’s world for creating healthy organizations and healthy people. Because we lack a lot of convincing evidence, based on solid multi-case, empirical data, we often rely on qualitative, limited case explanations to guide behavior and decisions.

When attempting to understand what works or why something works in practice (in the field of human systems) we are challenged in numerous ways. Existing research is difficult to come by. Most field research is plagued with practical and methodological issues. Thus in many human performance and change endeavors we often have scant valid evidence to turn to and regularly hear people use anecdotal and belief-based statements to support their work.

The nature of human systems and field-based practice leads to many challenges for practitioners, such as:

• When something good happens, which factor influenced, caused, supported, intervened or will sustain it?
• When something doesn’t work so well, is it the idea (action, program, plan), the execution or other factors intervening?
• With so many variables operating in the organization (or community, group, etc.), how can one measure enough to “control” for other (than your chosen actions) explanations of results?
• How can one control for “time” as a variable? When is the right time to measure for change or results?
• If we are measuring at relatively long intervals, how has “maturity” affected respondents? Do they respond with the same mental framework (their yardstick) as they used before?

We have a lot more correlation information (eg two things happen together and vary in tandem) than causal information (eg, one variable cause the other to vary). When we can cumulate information that approximates similar actions with similar results in similar conditions, we come closer to valid information and can speak with higher confidence. That still doesn’t give us good theory with replicable causal relationships.

And so the journey continues, academic studies with inherent flaws (but always getting better) and practitioners (both managers and consultants) either doing the same thing repeatedly or experimenting with minimal guidance. Some of this gets published, but many experiences are not. Our learning could be enhanced with more integration across both successes and failures and some common ways of classifying situations and collecting data. Maybe someday…..

“A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.”
Ara Parasheghian

I really wanted to believe that Santa Claus was real.

I really wanted to believe the tooth fairy was the Federal Reserve.

I really wanted to believe that leaders are made and not born.

I really wanted to believe that coaching facilitates lasting behavior changes making leaders more effective.

What if executive coaching  turns out to be nothing more than a very weak intervention that only under the most optimum conditions can help increase awareness, motivation to change and help those capable of becoming better to improve only a little bit?  If coaching has any real return on investment, leaders must be capable of being influenced, motivated to try new behaviors and practice new techniques, strategies and processes until they become better.

In fact, most personality traits such as conscientiousness, drive, achievement orientation, sensation seeking, curiosity and even happiness are influenced dramatically by genes.

Past studies suggest that while 50% of happiness is due to situational factors like health, relationships, and career, the other 50% is largely influenced by genetic predisposition.

A recent study by Weiss et al. (2008) involved more than 900 identical and non-identical twin pairs who completed a standardized survey designed to identify personality traits. The researchers were able to identify evidence for genes tied to certain personality traits and genes that predispose people to happiness.  The researchers found that people who don’t worry excessively and are sociable and conscientious tend to be happier, according to the report in the March issue of Psychological Science¹.  Those lucky enough to have the right gene mix appear to have a disposition for happiness when times are tough, the researchers reported.

What about leadership traits?

We know form recent research comparing identical and fraternal twins that much of the variance in terms of who ends up in leadership rolesis better explained by environmental factors than heritability².  In standard genetic studies of this type, the number of leadership roles that a person assumes in their career is what is being measured.  In three separate studies for both men and women, approximately 30% of leader emergence seemed to be accounted for by genes. 

Sounds like a convincing argument that leaders are made and not born but no analysis was done on whether any of these individuals were actually effective in those roles.  We also have no clue if anyone really had the interest and passion to want to lead once they were in these roles.  With the estimated base rate of leadership incompetence hovering around 50%, those arguing that leaders are made might want to reflect on the fact that winding up in a leadership role doesn’t seem to guarantee that one possesses the “right stuff to truly engage and retain talent today and facilitate high performance teams.

In fact, our own research with our Career Profile Inventory suggests that approximately 15% to 25% of all individuals in managerial career paths prefer to be in another path like specialist/independent contributor, generalist/project manager or entrepreneur  (i.e., they possess clusters of interests, motives and values that are not aligned with leadership).

If you want to find out your own career orientation using our Career Profile Inventory just let me know at support@envisialearning.com and I will set you up for a free trial.

I think it’s pretty easy to argue that true leadership effectiveness is really a function of several factors including genetic predisposition, interests,  personality/skills of the leader, company culture, staff/team capability and organizational stage among other things. 

What is important to keep in mind from this research is that approximately 50% of personality (e.g., conscientiousness or  happiness) is genetically fixed around a “set point” and from 10% to 30% may be due to situational circumstances with the rest being under our direct control in terms of behaviors we choose to deploy each day.

So, I still want to believe that leaders and leadership are largely made through experiences.  I just don’t see the evidence to support these popular claims.  But, it sure sells executive development, coaching and leadership development programs and fable books….Be well…

Technorati Tags: emotional intelligence, leadership, talent management, born versus made, executive coaching, personality, happiness, heritability, leadership effectiveness, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

1. Weiss, A., Bates, T. & Luciano, M. (2008). Happiness Is a Personal(ity) Thing: The Genetics of Personality and Well-Being in a Representative Sample. Psychological Science, 19, 205-308 [↩]
2. Arvey, R. D., Zhang, Z., Avolio, B. J., & Kreuger, R. F. (2007). Developmental and genetic determinants of leadership role occupancy among women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 693-706 [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: A Primer in Positive Psychology

Competency: self-development

Who benefits: any individual

Consultant Usage: important background material for all HRD consultants

What’s it about? I woke up grumpy this morning.  Didn’t sleep well.  Blah, blah, blah.  So am I going be Captain Grumps for 16 hours and take it out on those I come in contact throughout the day?  Or do I have a choice about how my day goes. 

I confessed to you a few months ago that I didn’t know much about the trends in Positive Psychology (PP).  This week I began to educate myself about PP.  A “Primer” sounded like what I needed, so I gave this book a try.

The author’s definition is a great place to start: “Positive Psychology is the scientific study of what goes right in life, from birth to death and at all stops in between.”

Well, I started to think of some of those stops in between and I had my first smile of the day.  The author went on to say the study of “PP” is the study of what we are doing when we are not frittering life away. 

I like to fritter a lot, so I am a little nervous as I proceed into the book.  But I am relieved to know that the essence of this field is the study of what can go right with people.  It is a call to study people’s strengths, not just their weaknesses.  It is about building on what is already good.  It is about human potential.  Maybe today won’t be so bad after all. 

The PP people don’t deny the existence of problems or the need to treat them.  They, at least the good ones, seek to bring a more balanced view to psychology.  They are clear that the absence of problems or trauma isn’t the same thing as being happy.  (If you are an old-timer like me, this brings back the memory of trying to teach Herzberg – what demotivates people isn’t the opposite of what motivates them.)

I found the history of PP interesting.  Its name is only 10 years old.  But the field evolved from familiar names like Rogers and Maslow and familiar genres like humanistic and existential.

I applaud the notion that human goodness and excellence is just as authentic as “disease, disorder, and distress”.  And I believe that too much “victim mentality” has crept into our thinking process as individuals and as a culture.  If it is the goal of PP is to restore balance to that kind of thinking, bring it on!

I am also excited to know that happy people almost always come out on top of unhappy people in success measurements at work, in relationships, at school… and they live longer.  Hmmm, I guess grumpy isn’t good.  I better put on a happy face!

Oh, by the way, I discovered that someone named Harvey Bell invented the happy face.  Okay, the PP people aren’t very happy with that symbol, it’s too superficial, but doggone it, something about that bright yellow face makes me smile.

I have decided not to be grumpy today (notice that it is a conscience decision), and instead, to go out and do something worthwhile…like writing this posting! 

So if you are unfamiliar with the topic and have an interest in psychology, this would be a great book to get you up-to-speed.  I recommend it.

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: positive psychology, humanistic, existential, happy face, harvey bell, human potential, optimism, pessimism, grumpy, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

“The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization.”

Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers 

It’s not surprising that research suggests unequivocally that leadership has tremendous impact on talent engagement, retention and productivity¹. 

Can leaders directly affect the health of their talent?  Can bosses actually kill?

Can Bad Bosses Cause you to be Absent?

Well, if causing talent to be absent due to illness, have higher blood pressure and more heart attacks is one criteria you are using, then the answer is likely yes! 

A recent prospective study of 506 males and 3,570 females measured “perceived justice” (supervisory practices and positive leadership behaviors) and absenteeism due to illness and self-reported health².

The rates of absence due to sickness among those perceiving low justice were 1.2 to 1.9 times higher than among those perceiving high justice. These associations remained significant even after statistical adjustment for behavioral risks, workload, job control, and social support.  Indeed, talent working for bosses who are perceived to be difficult directly leads to greater absenteeism.

Can Bad Bosses Contribute to Hypertension?

A recent study by Wagner and her colleagues recently showed how working for jerks can directly cause a significant  increase in blood pressure and how these leaders can be a potent workplace stressor which has a long term clinically significant impact on cardiovascular functioning³.

Their field study of female health care assistants explored blood pressure as it related to perceptions of supervisor interaction style.  Ambulatory blood pressure was measured every 30 minutes over a 12-hour period for three days.  Statistically significant SBP differences were observed for those working for supervisors perceived to be less favorable.  You can probably guess the direction of the blood pressure for those working for competent jerks sometimes called bosses.

Can Bad Bosses Kill You?

In one of the most startling studies longitudinal studies recently published, 6,442 male British civil servants were asked to rate supervisory practices (perceived justice at work) and were followed for cardiovascular events for 10 years.  Those employees who perceived their supervisors treated them fairly had 30% lower CHD incidents even after adjustment for other known coronary risk factors⁴.  Indeed, bad bosses can actually kill their talent rather than laying the off.

Are Bad Bosses Worse than Annual Flooding or Getting Migraines 3 Times a Week?

In a recent study, patients with chronic illness (lung disease or diabetes) were asked to rank quality of life situations compared to nonpatients⁵.  The researchers found that patiens not only assigned higher ratings of quality of life to their own disease than did nonpatients, but also rated it higher than a broad set of conditions (this is only interesting if you are a health psychologist!).  The reason I share this study with you is that the researchers had patients and nonpatients rate and rank 23 life situations in terms of what would be most to least challenging to deal with.

One of the “life conditions” was working for a boss you hate (others included: having a long and unpleasant commute, frequent nightmares, caring for elderly parents, bad marriage/relationship, child being born with a severe disability, severe allergies with weekly shots, havng a child die painlessly in a car accident, having neighbors frequently interrup sleep, aand having periodic depression).  Here are a few of the conditions and rankings relative to “working for a boss that you hate.”

It seems that “bad bosses” are slighly less traumatic than having your home flooded annually but much worse than caring for elderly patients, having bad nightmares or having a terrible commute home each day.

RANK/CONDITIONS

23. Quadraplegia

2. Child dies painlessly in car accident

9. Living in a high crime neighborhood

10. Migraines 3 times per week

11. Annual flooding of home

12. Working for a boss you hate

15. Infertility

17. Caring for an elderly parent

19. Frequent nightmares

20. Severe allergies, weekly shots

21. Long unpleasant commute

All together it seems that working for incompetent bosses can be a major life risk that can affect both our physical health and psychological well-being.

In today’s economic mess, sometimes we have to stay in a bad marriage rather than get divorced but it appears that this certainly will be at a cost to our overall health….Be well…..

Technorati Tags: emotional intelligence, competent jerks, stress, job burnout, leadership, heart disease, talent management, engagement, depression, coronary heart disease, hypertension, absenteeism, preceived justiceproductivity, bad bosses, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

1. Nowack, K. (2006). Emotional intelligence: Leaders Make a Difference. HR Trends, 17, 40-42 [↩]
2. Elovainio, M. et al., 2002. OrganizationalJustice: Evidence of a New PsychosocialPredictor of Health American Journal of Public Health, 92, 105-108 [↩]
3. Wagner, N., Feldman, G. & Hussy, T. (2003).  The effect of ambulatory blood pressure of working under favourably and unfavourably perceived supervisors.  Occupational Environmental Medicine, 60, 468-474 [↩]
4. Kivimaki, M. et al., 2005.  Justice at Work and Reduced Risk of Coronary Heart Disease Among Employees: The Whitehall Study.  Archives of Internal Medicine, 165, 2245-2251 [↩]
5. Lacey, H. et al. (2008).  Are they really happy?  Exploring scale recalibration in estimates of well-being.  Health Psychology, 27, 669-675 [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

Competencies: self-development, coaching talent, mentoring, empowering others, performance management, creativity, innovation

Who benefits: individuals, supervisors and managers, coaches

Consultant Usage: highly recommended for executive coaches

What’s it about? Today, dear reader, you shall be treated to an extremely short posting reviewing a new book.  

The book is about where natural talent meets personal passion.  Either that grabs you or it doesn’t.  If it does, jump on it.  If not, don’t waste your time.

Oh, it is a good book on many levels.  It can be a great source of information for coaching talent. 

It will make HRD types happy with topics like creativity, mentoring, circles of influence, and attitude and aptitude.

It will make book readers happy because the author writes in a clear, impactful style and has a great sense of humor.

Readers of people magazines (like People) will love the stories about Paul McCartney, Matt Groening, Meg Ryan,….err, sorry, lost my train of thought after Meg Ryan.

But mostly is a great book for those seeking self-actualization or self-fulfillment.  (Yes, damn it, those are buzz words in our trade, but I can’t think of any better words.)  You see, this book is very personal to me.  I found that place where talent meets passion about a year ago.  I am writing this posting today from a small town in southern Mexico where I spend my days helping educate poor children and their teachers in hopes that some of them can break out of their cycle of poverty. 

So, you see, I found this book both validating and spot-on.  Hope you do too.

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: natural talent, personal passion, coaching, self-fulfillment, self-actualization, creativity, innovation, mentor, mentors, mentoring, circles of influence, attitude, aptitude, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

“When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses.”
 
Joyce Brothers

I just read a research paper that suggested that marriage might not improve men’s health as once thought¹.  In a review of data gathered between 1972 and 2003 (more than one million men and women), men who never married reported overall health about the same as those of married men over time.  Apparently, single men today have access to social networks of family, friends and co-workers which facilitate social support outside of marriage.

How much social support do men and women report?

How dissatisfied are they with their sources of social support?

We took a look at some results from our stress and health risk assessment called StressScan by analyzing availability, utility and satisfaction of social support by gender.  We tested gender differences by using a statistical test called Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and found some interesting differences in gender with a sample of almost 800 professional working men and women.

1. In general, women reported greater availability and use of their social support network (supervisor/boss, colleagues/co-workers, partner, family and friends) then their male counterparts (all p’s < .01).

2.  Women reported using their boss or supervisor significantly more frequently then men which was surprising as research doesn’t support that mentoring has been found to be more strongly related to men’s career success than women’s and  more successful women have indicated that mentoring was less important to their career advancement than did less successful women.

3. Women reported significantly more availability, use and satisfaction with their friends compared to males.  They also reported greater availability and use of their partners, families and friends (all p’s < .01) which is consistent to what Shelly Taylor, Ph.D. has suggested as part of the female “tend and befriend” response to coping with work and life stress².

In our statistidal analysis of social support for professional men and women we were able to determine the relative amount of dissatisfaction with specific sources of social support. Men and women (N= 785) rated they were either “Not at All” or only “Slightly” satisfied with the following sources to meet their emotional and instrumental support needs:

• Boss/Supervisor 31.0%
• Colleagues/Co-Workers 16.8%
• Family 13.0%
• Partners/Significant Others 9.9%
• Friends 8.3%

With respect to work, the Gallup Organization’s survey of over five million employees suggests that employee satisfaction increases by just about 50% then they have close relationships at work.  If they have strong relationships with their boss employees reported to be more than 2.5 times more likely to be engaged with their jobs.

Having a strong social support network and being satisfied appears to be associated with the level of stress and well-being.  Men and women in our sample who reported greater overall social support also reported significantly:

• Lower Stress (correlation r= .35, p < .01)
• Greater Resilience/Hardiness (correlation r= .47, p < .01)
• Greater Happiness (correlation r= .58, p < .01)

We know strong social support for both sexes is significantly associated with longevity, physical health and psychological well being.  But, remember that getting married still seems to be the leading cause of divorce and becoming widowed which has pretty serious health risk consequences. 

So, if your aren’t willing to go to marriage counseling with your boss then go hug a friend…..Be well….

Technorati Tags: surveys, Envisia, Envisia Learning, emotions, leadership, emotional contagion, social support, health behaviors, obesity, smoking, happiness, social network, friendships at work, Gallup Organization Rath, resilience, cognitive hardiness, happiness, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

1. Liu, H. & Umberson, D. (2008).  The Times They Are a Changing: Marital Status and Health Differentials from 1972 to 2003.  Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 49, 239-254 [↩]
2. Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., & Updegraff, J. A. Behaviorial Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight” Psychol Rev, 107(3):41-429 [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: The Top Ten Leadership Books of All Time

Competency: self-development

Who benefits: self

Consultant Usage: list might be useful to pass on to clients or customers

What’s it about? As you may recall, last week I thought my tolerant bosses might fire me for writing about a book that wasn’t exactly related to this Blog.  Or being too controversial. 

Neither happened, but I did get a email from them saying “Dude, shorten your postings.”  Okay bosses, here is a short one!

The book editors of the New York Times recently gathered and decided to come up with a list of the top ten business books of all time.  I love lists, so for your pleasure, here is what they came up with:

2. How to Win Friends & Influence People;
3. The One Minute Manager;
4. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done;
5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable;
6. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful;
7. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently;
8. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t;
9. The Art of War;
10. Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

Oh, you noticed that number one was missing.  Well that is for two reasons.  First, by not posting it I save space, which make my bosses happy; but more importantly, if you want to guess first you have that opportunity.  Number one will probably surprise, but not shock you.  Hit the link above to discover the answer to this awesome mystery! 

And while you are you are there, read the reasoning behind why they selected each book. 

And here is an invitation to comment.  What book would you put in the top ten that isn’t there?  Rules for this Blog: If you add one, you have to tell us which one you would take off!!!

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: business books, top ten business books, self-development, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family.  Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” 

Jane Howard

It seems intuitive that being around co-workers, friends and family members who are happy should “rub off” on us.  We even call this “emotional contagion.”

New research based on the very well known Franingham Heart studies found that while happiness may spread through a person’s social network of friends, neighbors and family sadness did not¹.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, used data from the Framingham Heart Study to recreate a network of 4,739. Fowler and co-author Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School charted friends, partners/spouses and siblings in the social network, and used their self-reported happiness ratings from 1983 to 2003.

Using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Index (a standard measure of depression), the researchers found that when an individual becomes happy, a friend living within a mile experiences a 25% increased chance of becoming happy. A partner or spouse experiences an 8% increased chance, siblings living within one mile have a 14 % increased chance, and for next door neighbors, 34% (let’s hear it for having a wonderful neighbor).

But, the biggest surprise came with indirect relationships. Again, while an individual becoming happy increases his friend’s chances, a friend of that friend experiences a nearly 10% chance of increased happiness, and a friend of that friend has a 5.6% increased chance (talk about “six degrees of separation”)

Contrary to what your parents might have told you, this research does not support the idea that popularity leads to happiness. People in the center of their social network clusters are the most likely people to become happy, odds that increase to the extent that those surrounding them also have lots of friends.  However, becoming happy doesn’t seem to move a person from the outer circle of their network to the center.

Interestingly, health habits also tend to spread from one’s social network.  Fowler and Christakis have also looked at trends in obesity and smoking using the parts of the Framingham heart study network.

They found that when someone quits, a friend’s likelihood of quitting smoking was 36 percent.  A person’s likelihood of becoming obese increased by 57% if he or she had a friend who became obese in a given time period².

These findings suggest a new link to explain the fattening of Americans.  Obesity in the US has doubled in the last 25 years.

There is no doubt now that social support moderates health but eating, plain and simple, causes overweight….Be well….

Technorati Tags: surveys, Envisia, Envisia Learning, emotions, leadership, emotional contagion, social support, health behaviors, obesity, smoking, happiness, social network, climate, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

1. Fowler, J. and Christakis, N. (2008). Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study.  British Medical Journal, 337;a2338, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2338 [↩]
2. Christakis, N. & Fowler, J. (2007), The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years.  The New England Journal of Medicine, 357, 370-379 [↩]