Monday, August 31, 2015

How great is your company or business? If you're uncertain, ask whether your employees are free to be themselves, are kept in the loop, are assisted in becoming better at what they do, are informed of what their daily contributions mean, are given rules that can be followed, and are made to feel more important than profits. Great companies make a difference not just in their customer's lives, but in their employee's lives as well.

Harvard Business Review -
 
 
 

Creating the Best Workplace on Earth


Suppose you want to design the best company on earth to work for. What would it be like? For three years we’ve been investigating this question by asking hundreds of executives in surveys and in seminars all over the world to describe their ideal organization. This mission arose from our research into the relationship between authenticity and effective leadership. Simply put, people will not follow a leader they feel is inauthentic. But the executives we questioned made it clear that to be authentic, they needed to work for an authentic organization.

What did they mean? Many of their answers were highly specific, of course. But underlying the differences of circumstance, industry, and individual ambition we found six common imperatives. Together they describe an organization that operates at its fullest potential by allowing people to do their best work.

We call this “the organization of your dreams.” In a nutshell, it’s a company where individual differences are nurtured; information is not suppressed or spun; the company adds value to employees, rather than merely extracting it from them; the organization stands for something meaningful; the work itself is intrinsically rewarding; and there are no stupid rules.

These principles might all sound commonsensical. Who wouldn’t want to work in a place that follows them? Executives are certainly aware of the benefits, which many studies have confirmed.

Take these two examples: Research from the Hay Group finds that highly engaged employees are, on average, 50% more likely to exceed expectations than the least-engaged workers. And companies with highly engaged people outperform firms with the most disengaged folks—by 54% in employee retention, by 89% in customer satisfaction, and by fourfold in revenue growth. Recent research by our London Business School colleague Dan Cable shows that employees who feel welcome to express their authentic selves at work exhibit higher levels of organizational commitment, individual performance, and propensity to help others.

Yet, few, if any, organizations possess all six virtues. Several of the attributes run counter to traditional practices and ingrained habits. Others are, frankly, complicated and can be costly to implement. Some conflict with one another. Almost all require leaders to carefully balance competing interests and to rethink how they allocate their time and attention.

So the company of your dreams remains largely aspirational. We offer our findings, therefore, as a challenge: an agenda for leaders and organizations that aim to create the most productive and rewarding working environment possible.

Let People Be Themselves


When companies try to accommodate differences, they too often confine themselves to traditional diversity categories—gender, race, age, ethnicity, and the like. These efforts are laudable, but the executives we interviewed were after something more subtle—differences in perspectives, habits of mind, and core assumptions.

The vice chancellor at one of the world’s leading universities, for instance, would walk around campus late at night to locate the research hot spots. A tough-minded physicist, he expected to find them in the science labs. But much to his surprise, he discovered them in all kinds of academic disciplines—ancient history, drama, the Spanish department.

The ideal organization makes explicit efforts to transcend the dominant currents in its culture.

The ideal organization is aware of dominant currents in its culture, work habits, dress code, traditions, and governing assumptions but, like the chancellor, makes explicit efforts to transcend them. We are talking not just about the buttoned-down financial services company that embraces the IT guys in shorts and sandals, but also the hipster organization that doesn’t look askance when someone wears a suit. Or the place where nearly everyone comes in at odd hours but that accommodates the one or two people who prefer a 9-to-5 schedule.

For example, at LVMH, the world’s largest luxury-goods company (and growing rapidly), you’d expect to find brilliant, creative innovators like Marc Jacobs and Phoebe Philo. And you do. But alongside them you also encounter a higher-than-expected proportion of executives and specialists who monitor and assess ideas with an analytical business focus. One of the ingredients in LVMH’s success is having a culture where opposite types can thrive and work cooperatively. Careful selection is part of the secret: LVMH looks for creative people who want their designs to be marketable and who, in turn, are more likely to appreciate monitors who are skilled at spotting commercial potential.

The benefits of tapping the full range of people’s knowledge and talents may be obvious, yet it’s not surprising that so few companies do it. For one thing, uncovering biases isn’t easy. (Consider the assumption the diligent chancellor made when he equated research intensity with late-night lab work.) More fundamentally, though, efforts to nurture individuality run up against countervailing efforts to increase organizational effectiveness by forging clear incentive systems and career paths. Competence models, appraisal systems, management by objectives, and tightly defined recruitment policies all narrow the range of acceptable behavior.

Companies that succeed in nurturing individuality, therefore, may have to forgo some degree of organizational orderliness. Take Arup, perhaps the world’s most creative engineering and design company. Many iconic buildings bear the mark of Arup’s distinctive imprint—from the Sydney Opera House to the Centre Pompidou to the Beijing Water Cube.

Arup approaches its work holistically. When the firm builds a suspension bridge, for example, it looks beyond the concerns of the immediate client to the region that relies on the bridge. To do so, Arup’s people collaborate with mathematicians, economists, artists, and politicians alike.

Accordingly, Arup considers the capacity to absorb different skill sets and personalities as key to its strategy. “We want there to be interesting parts that don’t quite fit in…that take us places where we didn’t expect to get to,” says chairman Philip Dilley. “That’s part of my job now—to prevent it from becoming totally orderly.”

Conventional appraisal systems don’t work in such a world, so Arup doesn’t use quantitative performance-measurement systems or articulate a corporate policy on how employees should progress. Managers make their expectations clear, but individuals decide how to meet them. “Self-determination means setting your own path and being accountable for your success,” a senior HR official explains. “Development and progression is your own business, with our support.”

If this sounds too chaotic for a more conventional company, consider Waitrose, one of Britain’s most successful food retailers, according to measures as diverse as market share, profitability, and customer and staff loyalty. In an industry that necessarily focuses on executing processes efficiently, Waitrose sees its competitive edge in nurturing the small sparks of creativity that make a big difference to the customer experience.

Waitrose is a cooperative: Every employee is a co-owner who shares in the company’s annual profits. So the source of staff loyalty is not much of a mystery. But even so, the company goes to great lengths to draw out and support people’s personal interests. If you want to learn piano, Waitrose will pay half the cost of the lessons. There’s a thriving club culture—cooking, crafts, swimming, and so on. We have a friend whose father learned to sail because he worked for this organization. In that way, Waitrose strives to create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable being themselves. We were struck when a senior executive told us, “Friends and family would recognize me at work.”
“Great retail businesses depend on characters who do things a bit differently,” another executive explained. “Over the years we have had lots of them. We must be careful to cherish them and make sure our systems don’t squeeze them out.”

Pursuit of predictability leads to a culture of conformity, what Emile Durkheim called “mechanical solidarity.” But companies like LVMH, Arup, and Waitrose are forged out of “organic solidarity”—which, Durkheim argued, rests on the productive exploitation of differences. Why go to all the trouble? We think Ted Mathas, head of the mutual insurance company New York Life, explains it best: “When I was appointed CEO, my biggest concern was, would this [job] allow me to truly say what I think? I needed to be myself to do a good job. Everybody does.”

Unleash the Flow of Information


The organization of your dreams does not deceive, stonewall, distort, or spin. It recognizes that in the age of Facebook, WikiLeaks, and Twitter, you’re better off telling people the truth before someone else does. It respects its employees’ need to know what’s really going on so that they can do their jobs, particularly in volatile environments where it’s already difficult to keep everyone aligned and where workers at all levels are being asked to think more strategically. You’d imagine that would be self-evident to managers everywhere. In reality, the barriers to what we call “radical honesty”—that is, entirely candid, complete, clear, and timely communication—are legion.

Some managers see parceling out information on a need-to-know basis as important to maintaining efficiency. Others practice a seemingly benign type of paternalism, reluctant to worry staff with certain information or to identify a problem before having a solution. Some feel an obligation to put a positive spin on even the most negative situations out of a best-foot-forward sense of loyalty to the organization.

The reluctance to be the bearer of bad news is deeply human, and many top executives well know that this tendency can strangle the flow of critical information. Take Novo Nordisk’s Mads Øvlisen, who was CEO in the 1990s, when violations of FDA regulations at the company’s Danish insulin-production facilities became so serious that U.S. regulators nearly banned the insulin from the U.S. market. Incredible as it seems in hindsight, no one told Øvlisen about the situation. That’s because Novo Nordisk operated under a culture in which the executive management board was never supposed to receive bad news.

The company took formal steps to rectify the situation, redesigning the company’s entire quality-management system—its processes, procedures, and training of all involved personnel. Eventually, those practices were extended to new-product development, manufacturing, distribution, sales, and support systems. More generally, a vision, core values, and a set of management principles were explicitly articulated as the Novo Nordisk Way. To get at the root cause of the crisis, Øvlisen also set out to create a new culture of honesty through a process he called “organizational facilitation”—that is, facilitation of the flow of honest information.

A core team of facilitators (internal management auditors) with long organizational experience now regularly visit all of the company’s worldwide affiliates. They interview randomly selected employees and managers to assess whether the Novo Nordisk Way is being practiced. Employees know, for instance, that they must inform all stakeholders both within and outside the organization of what’s happening, even when something goes wrong, as quickly as possible. Does this really happen? Many employees have told us that they appreciate these site visits because they foster honest conversations about fundamental business values and processes.

Think not about how much value to extract from workers but about how much value to instill in them.

Radical honesty is not easy to implement. It requires opening many different communication channels, which can be time-consuming to maintain. And for previously insulated top managers, it can be somewhat ego-bruising. Witness what ensued when Novo Nordisk recently banned soda from all its buildings. PeopleCom, the company’s internal news site, was flooded with hundreds of passionate responses. Some people saw it as an attack on personal freedom. (“I wonder what will be the next thing NN will ‘help’ me not to do,” wrote one exasperated employee. “Ban fresh fruit in an effort to reduce sugar consumption?”) Others defended the policy as a logical extension of the company’s focus on diabetes. (“We can still purchase our own sugary soft drinks…Novo Nordisk shouldn’t be a 7-Eleven.”) That all these comments were signed indicates how much honesty has infused Novo Nordisk’s culture.

Trade secrets will always require confidentiality. And we don’t want to suggest that honesty will necessarily stop problems from arising, particularly in highly regulated industries that routinely find themselves under scrutiny. We maintain, though, that executives should err on the side of transparency far more than their instincts suggest. Particularly today, when trust levels among both employees and customers are so low and background noise is so high, organizations must work very hard to communicate what’s going on if they are to be heard and believed.

Magnify People’s Strengths


The ideal company makes its best employees even better—and the least of them better than they ever thought they could be. In robust economies, when competition for talent is fierce, it’s easy to see that the benefits of developing existing staff outweigh the costs of finding new workers. But even then, companies grumble about losing their investment when people decamp for more-promising opportunities. In both good times and bad, managers are far more often rewarded for minimizing labor costs than for the longer-term goal of increasing workers’ effectiveness. Perhaps that explains why this aspiration, while so widely recognized and well understood, often remains unfulfilled.

Elite universities and hospitals, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, and design firms like Arup have all been adding value to valuable people for a very long time. Google and Apple are more recent examples. They do this in myriad ways—by providing networks, creative interaction with peers, stretch assignments, training, and a brand that confers elite status on employees. None of this is rocket science, nor is it likely to be news to anyone.

But the challenge of finding, training, and retaining excellent workers is not confined to specialized, high-tech, or high-finance industries. We contend that the employee-employer relationship is shifting in many industries from how much value can be extracted from workers to how much can be instilled in them. At heart, that’s what productivity improvement really means.

Take McDonald’s, a company founded on the primacy of cost efficiency. In an economy with plenty of people looking for jobs, McDonald’s nevertheless focuses on the growth paths of its frontline workers—and on a large scale. In the UK, the company invests £36 million ($55 million) a year in giving its 87,500 employees the chance to gain a wide range of nationally recognized academic qualifications while they work. One of the largest apprenticeship providers in the country, McDonald’s has awarded more than 35,000 such qualifications to employees since the program’s launch in 2006. Every week the equivalent of six full classes of students acquire formal credentials in math and English. Every day another 20 employees earn an apprenticeship qualification.

Like many large companies, McDonald’s has extensive management training programs for its executives, but the firm also extends that effort to restaurant general managers, department managers, and shift managers who, as the day-to-day leaders on the front lines, are taught the communication and coaching skills they need to motivate crews and to hit their shifts’ sales targets. The return on the company’s investment is measured not in terms of increased revenue or profitability but in lower turnover of hourly managers and their crews. Turnover has declined steadily since the programs were initiated, as reflected in the Great Place to Work Institute’s recognition of McDonald’s as one of the 50 best workplaces every year since 2007.

To get a sense of how far employee development can be taken, consider Games Makers, the volunteer training effort mounted by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games. LOCOG was responsible for the largest peacetime workforce ever assembled in the UK. It coordinated the activities of more than 100,000 subcontractors, 70,000 Games Makers volunteers, and 8,000 paid staff. Games Makers used bold, imaginative schemes to employ people who had never worked or volunteered before. Through its Trailblazer program, for example, paid staff learned how to work effectively with volunteers of all social backgrounds. Through a partnership with other state agencies, the Personal Best program enabled more than 7,500 disadvantaged, long-term-unemployed individuals, some with physical or learning disabilities, to earn a job qualification. Games Makers’ School Leavers program targeted students who have left school in east London, the host borough for the games, by granting them two three-month placements that, upon successful completion, were followed by a contract for employment until the end of the event. LOCOG’s model has inspired government agencies and private-sector employment bureaus in the UK to rewrite their work-engagement guidelines to enable them to tap into—and make productive—a far wider range of people than had previously been considered employable.

We recognize that promising to bring out the best in everyone is a high-risk, high-reward strategy. It raises reputational capital, and such capital is easily destroyed. Goldman Sachs, for one, spent years building its reputation as the most exciting investment bank of all. That’s why Greg Smith’s scathing resignation letter, accusing the company of not living up to its own standards, was so damaging. Once a company heads down this road, it has to keep going.

Stand for More Than Shareholder Value


People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, something they can believe in. “I’ve worked in organizations where people try to brainwash me about the virtues of the brand,” one seminar participant told us. “I want to work in an organization where I can really feel where the company comes from and what it stands for so that I can live the brand.”

It has become commonplace to assert that organizations need shared meaning, and this is surely so. But shared meaning is about more than fulfilling your mission statement—it’s about forging and maintaining powerful connections between personal and organizational values. When you do that, you foster individuality and a strong culture at the same time.

Some people might argue that certain companies have an inherent advantage in this area. An academic colleague once asked us if we were working with anyone interesting. When we mentioned Novo Nordisk, he produced from his briefcase a set of Novo pens for injecting insulin and said simply, “They save my life every day.” Engineers who design the side bars for BMW’s mini have been known to wake up at 4:00 in the morning to write down ideas that will make the cars safer. And that might be expected of people drawn to the idea of building “the ultimate driving machine.”

But the advantage these companies have is not the businesses they’re in. The connections they forge stem, rather, from the way they do business. To understand how that works more generally, consider Michael Barry, who once was a teacher made redundant by state spending cuts. Three decades later, the experience remained vividly traumatic: “It was a case of ‘last in, first out,’ nothing to do with merit. I decided I never wanted to lose my job like that again. I researched things quite carefully, looking for places that were clear about what they wanted.”

And where did this idealistic man go? He became an insurance salesman for New York Life. “It is a very different company—from the top down,” he said, when we asked him what connection he felt to the company. He further explained it this way: “Back when other life insurance companies were demutualizing and becoming financial services supermarkets, New York Life made it very clear that life insurance would remain our core focus. The agents didn’t like it [at first]—they felt they were losing the opportunity to make more money.

But Sy Sternberg, the CEO at that time, went to public forums with the agents and pulled no punches. He told us, ‘We are a life insurance company, and we are good at it.’” This is more than a business strategy, Barry says. “It’s how we operate every day. This is not a place where we wriggle out of claims. One man took out a life policy, went home to write out the check. It was on his desk when he died that night. The policy was unpaid, but we paid the claim. The agents really buy into this.”

Current CEO Ted Mathas acknowledges that New York Life’s status as a mutual company gives it an advantage in claiming that profit is not all that matters. But he argues that the same logic applies for public firms—that profit is (or should be) an outcome of the pursuit of other, more meaningful goals. Again, this is hardly a new idea. “But many companies in public ownership have lost their way and with it a sense of who they are,” Mathas suggests, and we agree.

Show How the Daily Work Makes Sense


Beyond shared meaning, the executives we’ve spoken to want something else. They seek to derive meaning from their daily activities.

This aspiration cannot be fulfilled in any comprehensive way through job enrichment add-on. It requires nothing less than a deliberate reconsideration of the tasks each person is performing. Do those duties make sense? Why are they what they are? Are they as engaging as they can be? This is a huge, complex undertaking.

Take John Lewis, the parent company of Waitrose and the department store Peter Jones. In 2012 it completed a review of its more than 2,200 jobs, slotting them within a hierarchy of 10 levels, to make it easier for employees to take advantage of opportunities across the organization. This sounds like a homogenizing move, and it might be at a traditional company. But at John Lewis, which operates for the benefit of its employee owners, it was a deliberate effort to match its people with the work they want to do.

Or consider Rabobank Nederland, the banking arm of the largest financial services provider in the Netherlands, Rabobank Group. After several years of development, the bank has rolled out Rabo Unplugged, an organizational and technical infrastructure that allows employees to connect to one another from practically anywhere while still meeting the stringent encryption standards that banking systems require.

With no fixed offices or rigid job descriptions, Rabobank’s employees are, like Arup’s, responsible for the results of their work. But they are free to choose how, where, when, and with whom to carry it out. This approach requires managers to place an extraordinary amount of trust in subordinates, and it demands that employees become more entrepreneurial and collaborative.

Shared meaning is about more than fulfilling your mission statement—it’s about forging powerful connections between personal and organizational values.

Beyond reconsidering individual roles, making work rewarding may mean rethinking the way companies are led. Arup’s organization, which might be described as “extreme seamless,” is one possible model. As such, it takes some getting used to. In describing how this works in Arup’s Associates unit, board member Tristram Carfrae explains: “We have architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, and project managers in the same room together…people who genuinely want to submerge their own egos into the collective and not [be led] in the classic sense.”

That was a challenge for Carfrae, who as a structural engineer wrestled with the question of when to impose his will on the team and push it toward a structural, rather than a mechanical or an architecturally oriented, solution. To participate in such an evenhanded, interdependent environment is extremely hard, he says. There were “incredible rewards when it worked well and incredible frustrations when it didn’t.”

We don’t wish to underplay this challenge. But we suggest that the benefits of rising to it are potentially very great. Where work is meaningful, it typically becomes a cause, as it is for the engineers at BMW and the agents at New York Life. We also acknowledge an element of risk: When we interviewed legendary games designer Will Wright, he told us that his primary loyalty was not to his company, Electronic Arts, but to the project—originally for him the record-breaking Sims franchise and, more recently, Spore. Will ultimately left EA to start his own company, in which EA became a joint investor.

The challenge is similar to that of fostering personal growth. If you don’t do it, the best people may leave or never consider you at all. Or your competitors may develop the potential in people you’ve overlooked. When you do make the investment, your staff members become more valuable to you and your competitors alike. The trick, then, is to make it meaningful for them to stay.

Have Rules People Can Believe In


No one should be surprised that, for many people, the dream organization is free of arbitrary restrictions. But it does not obliterate all rules. Engineers, even at Arup, must follow procedures and tight quality controls—or buildings will collapse.

Organizations need structure. Markets and enterprises need rules. As successful entrepreneurial businesses grow, they often come to believe that new, complicated processes will undermine their culture. But systematization need not lead to bureaucratization, not if people understand what the rules are for and view them as legitimate. Take Vestergaard Frandsen, a start-up social enterprise that makes mosquito netting for the developing world. The company is mastering the art of behavior codes that can help structure its growing operations without jeopardizing its culture.

Hiring (and firing) decisions are intentionally simple—only one level of approval is required for each position. Regional directors have significant freedom within clear deadlines and top- and bottom-line targets. Knowledge-management systems are designed to encourage people to call rather than e-mail one another and to explain why someone is being cc’ed on an e-mail message. Vestergaard sees these simple rules as safeguards rather than threats to its founding values.

Authentic organizations are clear about what they do well. They are also suspicious of fads and fashions that sweep the corporate world.

Despite the flattening of hierarchies, the ensuing breakdown of organizational boundaries, and the unpredictability of careers, institutions remain what Max Weber calls “imperatively coordinated associations,” where respect for authority is crucial for building and maintaining structure. However, we know that, increasingly, employees are skeptical of purely hierarchical power—of fancy job titles and traditional sources of legitimacy such as age and seniority. And they are becoming more suspicious of charisma, as many charismatic leaders turn out to have feet of clay.

What workers need is a sense of moral authority, derived not from a focus on the efficiency of means but from the importance of the ends they produce. The organization of your dreams gives you powerful reasons to submit to its necessary structures that support the organization’s purpose. In that company, leaders’ authority derives from the answer to a question that Steve Varley, managing partner of Ernst & Young UK, put to senior partners in his inaugural address, after he reported record profits and partners’ earnings: “Is that all there is?” (In reply, he proposed a radical new direction—a program called “Growing Successfully, Making the Difference”—aimed at achieving both financial growth and social change.)

During the past 30 years we have heard the following kinds of conversations at many organizations: “I’ll be home late. I’m working on a cure for migraine.” “Still at work. The new U2 album comes out tomorrow—it’s brilliant.” “Very busy on the plan to take insulin into East Africa.” We have never heard this: “I’ll be home late. I’m increasing shareholder value.”People want to do good work—to feel they matter in an organization that makes a difference. They want to work in a place that magnifies their strengths, not their weaknesses. For that, they need some autonomy and structure, and the organization must be coherent, honest, and open.

But that’s tricky because it requires balancing many competing claims. Achieving the full benefit of diversity means trading the comfort of being surrounded by kindred spirits for the hard work of fitting various kinds of people, work habits, and thought traditions into a vibrant culture. Managers must continually work out when to forge ahead and when to take the time to discuss and compromise.

Our aim here is not to critique modern business structures. But it’s hard not to notice that many of the organizations we’ve highlighted are unusual in their ownership arrangements and ambitions. Featured strongly are partnerships, mutual associations, charitable trusts, and social enterprises. Although all share a desire to generate revenue, few are conventional, large-scale capitalist enterprises.

It would be a mistake to suggest that the organizations are all alike, but two commonalities stand out. First, the institutions are all very clear about what they do well: Novo Nordisk transforms the lives of people with diabetes; Arup creates beautiful environments. Second, the organizations are suspicious, in almost a contrarian way, of fads and fashions that sweep the corporate world.

Work can be liberating, or it can be alienating, exploitative, controlling, and homogenizing. Despite the changes that new technologies and new generations bring, the underlying forces of shareholder capitalism and unexamined bureaucracy remain powerful. As you strive to create an authentic organization and fully realize human potential at work, do not underestimate the challenge. If you do, such organizations will remain the exception rather than the rule—for most people, a mere dream.

A version of this article appeared in the May 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review.
 
 

Monday, August 24, 2015

Too many business owners with whom I speak find themselves stagnated in their efforts to grow. Some of that may well have to do with doing things the same way, over and over and in a similar manner to other businesses. Too many businesses - whether small or corporate - lack creativity because they neither hire the creative mind, nor encourage creativity from existing employees. Here's an interesting read on the topic.

 From - The Business Insider

Creativity Requires A Culture That Respects Effort And Failure

 


As business continues to drive positive change in the world, creativity is an increasingly essential part of organizational success. Encouraging creativity is a vital function of good leadership in any organization.


Recent trends affirm the need and desire for creativity in the workplace.  More and more, creativity is becoming part of job descriptions. Many of our largest companies – including Google, 3M and DuPont – expect their workers to spend as much as 20% of their time thinking creatively about new business opportunities.

Survey data from employers showcases the desire for creativity from employees. IBM asked 1500 CEOs to list the most important leadership characteristics, and creativity was ranked higher than integrity, intelligence, and a global mindset.

Collision points

Inspiration bursts forth from “collision points” – moments when different ideas, perspectives and knowledge collide and create something new in the universe. When people can link unrelated concepts and ideas, they inspire and unleash fresh ideas into the world.


Examples of exceptional collision points abound in history – Guttenberg created the printing press because he married the realization that books need to be copied with his knowledge of wine presses. Steve Jobs brought calligraphy to computing by creating a machine that displayed type in multiple fonts.  

The challenge for all of us is how to foster creativity. How can we encourage the sharing of ideas, development of new solutions and create a culture in our organizations that rewards effort and risk-taking?

Unleash creativity

I propose four suggestions to help ensure our businesses, schools and organizations generate more brilliant ideas that move our society forward:


1. Search out new experiences and perspectives.

Expose yourself to ideas that question or oppose your point of view. As a businessperson, seek rotation opportunities. Move out of your comfort zone and try something new. Work in a different industry or field. Offer your expertise to a school or non-profit organization and learn their business as you help them. As a student, enroll in classes that interest you, but may be unrelated to your major. Many universities offer interdisciplinary courses that bring together experts in various fields and encourage collaboration among students from different backgrounds.


2. Challenge yourself by setting personal goals to brainstorm, foster and develop ideas.

Find time to think. Spend 20 minutes a day brainstorming new ideas, or spend one day a month or quarter working off site in a different environment than your everyday office. Set a goal to come up with five new ideas each week, and hold yourself accountable by sharing them with others. Keep track of your ideas and continue to improve on them each month. Invite colleagues to join you in your brainstorming – especially colleagues with varied backgrounds and different skill sets. Invite people with different professions and of different ages to coffee to discuss new ideas.


3. Seek out and build relationships with people who are different than you.

Build a network of thinkers and idea people by reaching out to people with varied backgrounds, education and professional experience and whose ideas you admire. After a meeting with a colleague, invite them to lunch to continue your conversation. As you meet people through friends, volunteer work or coaching your children’s sports teams, reach out and ask them about their careers and lives; look for points of collision with your own experience.  Ask them to join a project you are leading, invite their perspective on a challenging problem you are facing, or ask them to share their opinions on their areas of expertise. Feed and nurture these relationships by offering to help others with a project or task, or just to listen to a challenge they are facing.


4. Create a culture that respects effort and failure.

Offering a suggestion that challenges the status quo takes bravery. We need to support and reward risk takers. Lead by example – continue to surface new ideas and suggestions to solve existing problems. Share those ideas with your manager, co-workers and employees. Let them see you take risks and learn from mistakes. If you manage people, make innovation and risk taking part of your team’s expected results. Celebrate the failures as well as the victories, and reward the effort.
Unleashing creativity allows organizations to innovate, grow and compete in today’s 
marketplace.  Business people need to be creative problem solvers as well as strategic thinkers.

Read the original article on Villanova School of Business

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The thing about being optimistic is not just that it puts a skip in your step, but that it's actually healthy for you. Stemming from a feeling of being able to succeed, it results in improved physiologic function. From the Harvard Health Publications, it's all about Optimism and your health.




Optimism and your health



Look for the silver lining…

Buddy DeSylva’s upbeat lyrics to Jerome Kern’s lovely tune provide an appealing call to a positive outlook on life, even in the face of adversity. Indeed, a cheerful disposition can help you get through the tough patches that cloud every life, but do people who see the glass half-full also enjoy better health than gloomy types who see it half-empty?

According to a series of studies from the U.S. and Europe, the answer is yes. Optimism helps people cope with disease and recover from surgery. Even more impressive is the impact of a positive outlook on overall health and longevity. Research tells us that an optimistic outlook early in life can predict better health and a lower rate of death during follow-up periods of 15 to 40 years.

Measuring optimism

To investigate optimism, scientists first needed to develop reliable ways to measure the trait. Two systems are in widespread use; one measures dispositional optimism, the other explanatory style.
Dispositional optimism depends on positive expectations for one’s future. These are not confined to one or two aspects of life, but are generalized expectations for a good outcome in several areas. Many researchers use the 12-item Life Orientation Test to measure dispositional optimism.

Explanatory style is based on how a person explains good or bad news. The pessimist assumes blame for bad news (“It’s me”), assumes the situation is stable ("It will last forever”), and has a global impact ("It will affect everything I do”). The optimist, on the other hand, does not assume blame for negative events. Instead, he tends to give himself credit for good news, assume good things will last, and be confident that positive developments will spill over into many areas of his life. Researchers often use either the Attributional Style Questionnaire or the Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations method to evaluate optimism based on explanatory style.

Optimistic sports fans
Sports fans will get a kick from a French study of cardiovascular mortality in 1988. On July 12, France bested Brazil in the biggest sporting event ever held in France, the finals of the World Cup of soccer. French men enjoyed a lower cardiovascular death rate on July 12 than on the average of the other days between July 7 and July 17, but French women did not. Doctors don’t know why fatal heart attacks declined; perhaps a burst of optimism is responsible.

 

Optimism and cardiac patients

In some studies, researchers have concentrated on the link between optimism and specific medical conditions. DeSylva and Kern tell us that a heart full of joy and gladness can banish trouble and strife — and now scientists tell us that optimism may help the heart itself.

In one study, doctors evaluated 309 middle-aged patients who were scheduled to undergo coronary artery bypass surgery. In addition to a complete pre-operative physical exam, each patient underwent a psychological evaluation designed to measure optimism, depression, neuroticism, and self-esteem. The researchers tracked all the patients for six months after surgery. When they analyzed the data, they found that optimists were only half as likely as pessimists to require re-hospitalization. In a similar study of 298 angioplasty patients, optimism was also protective; over a six-month period, pessimists were three times more likely than optimists to have heart attacks or require repeat angioplasties or bypass operations.

Optimism and blood pressure

A sunny outlook may help people recover after a cardiac procedure, but can it also reduce the risk of developing one of the major risks for cardiovascular disease — hypertension? Research conducted in Finland suggests it can. Scientists evaluated 616 middle-aged men who had normal blood pressures when the study began. Each volunteer’s mental outlook was checked with questions about his expectations for the future, and each was evaluated for cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol abuse, and a family history of hypertension. Over a four-year period, highly pessimistic men were three times more likely to develop hypertension than cheerier souls, even after other risk factors were taken into account.

An American study of 2,564 men and women who were 65 and older also found that optimism is good for blood pressure. Researchers used a four-item positive-emotion summary scale to evaluate each participant during a home visit. They also measured blood pressure, height, and weight and collected information about age, marital status, alcohol use, diabetes, and medication. Even after taking these other factors into account, people with positive emotions had lower blood pressures than those with a negative outlook. On average, the people with the most positive emotions had the lowest blood pressures.

Emotions and infections
A 2006 study explored the link between emotions and viral infections of the respiratory tract. Scientists evaluated the personality style of 193 healthy volunteers, then gave each a common respiratory virus. Subjects who displayed a positive personality style were less likely to develop viral symptoms than their less positive peers.

 

Optimism and heart disease

High blood pressure is an important cause of coronary artery disease. If optimism can reduce the risk of hypertension, can it also protect against developing coronary artery disease itself? To find out, scientists from Harvard and Boston University evaluated 1,306 men with an average age of 61. Each volunteer was evaluated for an optimistic or pessimistic explanatory style as well as for blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity, smoking, alcohol use, and family history of heart disease. None of the men had been diagnosed with coronary artery disease when the study began. Over the next 10 years, the most pessimistic men were more than twice as likely to develop heart disease than the most optimistic men, even after taking other risk factors into account.

Optimism and overall health

Optimism appears to protect the heart and circulation — and it’s heartening to learn that it can have similar benefits for overall health.

A large, short-term study evaluated the link between optimism and overall health in 2,300 older adults. Over two years, people who had a positive outlook were much more likely to stay healthy and enjoy independent living than their less cheerful peers.

Staying well for two years is one thing, remaining healthy for the long haul another. But for 447 patients who were evaluated for optimism as part of a comprehensive medical evaluation between 1962 and 1965, the benefits of a positive outlook were desirable indeed. Over a 30-year period, optimism was linked to a better outcome on eight measures of physical and mental function and health.

A laughable study
Experienced clinicians know that humor is good medicine. Now researchers in Tennessee tell us it may also provide a bit of a workout. They found that genuine, voiced laughter boosts energy consumption and heart rate by 10% to 20%. That means a 10- to 15-minute belly laugh might burn anywhere from 10 to 40 calories. It’s a lot of laughing for a few calories, but optimists will be tickled by the result.

 

Optimism and survival

It’s obvious that healthy people live longer than sick people. If optimism actually improves health, it should also boost longevity — and according to two studies from the U.S. and two from the Netherlands, it does.

The first American study evaluated 839 people in the early 1960s, performing a psychological test for optimism”“pessimism as well as a complete medical evaluation. When the people were rechecked 30 years later, optimism was linked to longevity; for every 10-point increase in pessimism on the optimism–pessimism test, the mortality rate rose 19%.

A newer U.S. study looked at 6,959 students who took a comprehensive personality test when they entered the University of North Carolina in the mid-1960s. During the next 40 years, 476 of the people died from a variety of causes, with cancer being the most common. All in all, pessimism took a substantial toll; the most pessimistic individuals had a 42% higher rate of death than the most optimistic.

The two Dutch studies reported similar results. In one, researchers tracked 545 men who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer when they were evaluated for dispositional optimism in 1985. Over the next 15 years, the optimists were 55% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than the pessimists, even after traditional cardiovascular risk factors and depression were taken into account.
The other study from Holland evaluated 941 men and women between the ages of 65 and 85. People who demonstrated dispositional optimism at the start of the study enjoyed a 45% lower risk of death during a nine-year follow-up period.

Possible mechanisms

Taken together, these studies argue persuasively that optimism is good for health. But why? What puts the silver in the silver lining?

Skeptics (or pessimists) might suggest that the effect is more apparent than real. People who are healthy are likely to have a brighter outlook than people who are ill, so perhaps optimism is actually the result of good health instead of the other way around. To counter this argument, researchers can adjust their results for pre-existing medical conditions, including physical problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension, and mental problems such as depression. The studies that made these adjustments found that medical conditions did not tarnish the benefits of a bright outlook on life.

Moreover, by tracking people for 15, 30, and 40 years, scientists can minimize the potential bias of pre-existing conditions.

Another explanation is behavioral. It is possible that optimists enjoy better health and longer lives than pessimists because they lead healthier lifestyles, build stronger social support networks, and get better medical care. Indeed, some studies report that optimists are more likely to exercise, less likely to smoke, more likely to live with a spouse, and more likely to follow medical advice than pessimists. But optimism is not generally associated with a better diet or a leaner physique, and even when results are adjusted for cardiovascular risk factors, a beneficial effect of optimism persists.

In addition to behavioral advantages, optimism may have biological benefits that improve health. A 2008 study of 2,873 healthy men and women found that a positive outlook on life was linked to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, even after taking age, employment, income, ethnicity, obesity, smoking, and depression into account. In women, but not men, a sunny disposition was also associated with lower levels of two markers of inflammation (C-reactive protein and interleukin-6), which predict the risk of heart attack and stroke. Other possible benefits include reduced levels of adrenaline, improved immune function, and less active clotting systems.

Finally, heredity may explain some of the link. It is possible that genes predispose some people to optimism, and that the same genes exert a direct effect on health and longevity.

Blue skies

More study is needed to clarify the link between optimism and good health. It’s likely that multiple mechanisms are involved.

Personality is complex, and doctors don’t know if optimism is hard-wired into an individual or if a sunny disposition can be nurtured in some way. It’s doubtful that McLandburgh Wilson was pondering such weighty questions when he explained optimism in 1915:

Twixt the optimist and pessimist
The difference is droll
The optimist sees the doughnut
But the pessimist sees the hole.”


Today’s doctors don’t think much of doughnuts, but they are accumulating evidence that optimism is good for health. As you await the results of new research, do your best to seek silver linings, if not doughnuts.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Does it make sense to be optimistic? A number of studies demonstrate positive health outcomes, improved job performance, and a greater sense of self worth. But just what is optimism, other than believing you have control of an outcome. Here's an interesting article on optimism and positive thinking.

 From: The Pursuit of Happiness

Mindfulness and Positive Thinking

Optimism

 




Optimism is a trait that should become more common, judging by Winston Churchill’s famous quote that “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Optimism has been proven to improve the immune system, prevent chronic disease, and help people cope with unfortunate news.

Gratitude is associated with optimism and has been determined that grateful people are happier, receive more social support, are less stressed, and are less depressed. Recent research indicates that optimists and pessimists approach problems differently, and their ability to cope successfully with adversity differs as a result.

Martin Seligman defines optimism as reacting to problems with a sense of confidence and high personal ability. Specifically, optimistic people believe that negative events are temporary, limited in scope (instead of pervading every aspect of a person’s life), and manageable. Of course, optimism, like other psychological states and characteristics, exists on a continuum.

People can also change their levels of optimism depending on the situations they are in. For simplicity’s sake, the studies discussed herein will talk about people at the higher end of the spectrum as optimists and people on the lower end as pessimists. This section will review what is known about the benefits of optimism and evidence suggesting optimism is a learnable skill.
Optimistic Explanatory Style: Making Sense of Bad Events
Imagine two students who receive the same poor grade on an exam. The first student thinks, “I’m such a failure! I always do poorly in this subject. I can’t do anything right!” The second student thinks, “This test was difficult! Oh well, it’s just one test in one class. I tend to do well in other subjects.” These students are exhibiting two types of what psychologists call “explanatory styles”. Explanatory styles reflect three attributions that a person forms about a recent event.

Did it happen because of me (internal) or something or someone else (external)? Will this always happen to me (stable) or can I change what caused it (unstable)? Is this something that affects all aspects of my life (pervasive) or was it a solitary occurrence (limited)? Pessimistic people tend to view problems as internal, unchangeable, and pervasive, whereas optimistic people are the opposite. Pessimism has been linked with depression, stress, and anxiety (Kamen & Seligman, 1987), whereas optimism has been shown to serve as a protective factor against depression, as well as a number of serious medical problems, including coronary heart disease (Tindle et al., 2009).

Optimistic mothers even deliver healthier, heavier babies (Lobel, DeVincent, Kaminer, & Meyer, 2000)! Optimism seems to have a tremendous number of benefits; consider several detailed below.
Optimism and Physical Health
Few outcomes are more important than staying alive, and optimism is linked to life longevity. Maruta, Colligan, Malinchoc, and Offord (2000) examined whether explanatory styles served as risk factors for early death. With a large longitudinal sample collected in the mid-1960s, the researchers categorized medical patients as optimistic, mixed, or pessimistic.

Optimism was operationalized using parts of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. The researchers found that for every 10 point increase in a person’s score on their optimism scale, the risk of early death decreased by 19%. Considering that, for a middle-aged person of average health, the difference between sudden death risk factors for smokers and non-smokers is 5-10%, the protective effect of optimism found in this study is massive.

Optimism also plays a role in the recovery from illness and disease. Multiple studies have investigated the role of optimism in people undergoing treatment for cancer (e.g., Carver et al., 1993; Schou, Ekeberg, & Ruland, 2005). These studies have found that optimistic people experience less distress when faced with potentially life-threatening cancer diagnoses.

For example, Schou and colleagues (2005) found that a superior “fighting spirit” found in optimists predicted substantially better quality of life one year after breast cancer surgery. Optimism also predicted less disruption of normal life, distress, and fatigue in one study of women who were undergoing painful treatment for breast cancer (Carver, Lehman, & Antoni, 2003). In this case, optimism appeared to protect against an urge to withdraw from social activities, which may be important for healing. People who tend to be more optimistic and more mindful had an increase in sleep quality (Howell et al. 2008).

There is also evidence that optimism can protect against the development of chronic diseases. A sample of middle-aged women was tested for precursors to atherosclerosis at a baseline and three years later. The women who endorsed greater levels of pessimism at the baseline assessment were significantly more likely to experience thickening arteries, while optimistic women experienced no such increase in thickness (Matthews, Raikkonen, Sutton-Tyrell, & Kuller, 2004).

Optimism can have an effect on a person’s immune system, as well. In one study, elderly adults were immunized for influenza (Kohut, Cooper, Nickolaus, Russell, & Cunnick, 2002). Two weeks later, their immune response to the vaccination was measured. Greater optimism predicted greater antibody production and better immune outcomes.

Five studies have also investigated optimism and disease progression in people infected with HIV. Ironson and colleagues (2005) found, in a large sample, that optimism and positive HIV immune response were linearly related: people highest in optimism had the best suppression of viral load and a greater number of helper T cells, both important parts of the progression of HIV. Furthermore, another study found that optimistic men who were HIV-positive had lower mortality over a longitudinal study (Blomkvist et al., 1994).

Another study that examined the link between optimism and immune system functioning was conducted by Segerstrom and Sephton (2010). This study examined a sample of entering law students over five time points in their first year of law school. Dispositional optimism (the tendency to be generally optimistic about your life) and optimism about law school, in particular, were assessed, along with measures of positive and negative affect (to determine whether any relationships between optimism and immune system functioning could be better explained through positive or negative affect). This study found that optimism predicted superior cell-mediated immunity, an important part of the immune system’s response to infectious agents.

Furthermore, an individual’s changes in optimism levels from time point to time point were associated with changes in immune functioning: as optimism increased from one time point to another, immune function increased, as well. Furthermore, negative affect did not predict changes in immune function. What this means is that optimism appears to have a unique value among the factors that compose a person’s immune system.

Taylor and colleagues (1992) found that optimism predicted better psychological coping post-HIV-diagnosis, as well as more perceived control over personal health and well-being. Thus, it appears that an optimistic outlook appears not only to be strongly positively related to a healthy immune system but also to better outcomes for people with compromised immune systems.

Optimism has also been investigated in health-related behaviors. In examining the risk of developing alcohol dependence, one study found that optimism protected against drinking problems in people with a family history of alcoholism (Ohannessian, Hesselbrock, Tennen, & Affleck, 1993). As family history is one of the greatest risk factors for developing substance dependence, optimism’s protective effects against its influence may be very important for public health efforts.

Beyond helping to prevent substance use problems from developing, optimism may predict better outcomes from efforts to quit using. In a study by Strack, Carver, and Blaney (1987), optimism predicted greater success in treatment for alcohol abuse, with optimistic people more likely to remain in treatment and abstinent than pessimists. Pregnant women who are higher in optimism have been shown to be less likely to abuse substances while pregnant (Park, Moore, Turner, & Adler, 1997). Optimism appears to be an important factor in risky health behaviors: both whether people choose to engage in them and whether they choose to quit.

The studies described above share a common theme: optimism can have profound effects on a person’s physical health. The mere act of expecting positive outcomes and being hopeful can boost a person’s immune system, protect against harmful behaviors, prevent chronic disease, and help people cope following troubling news. Optimism can even predict a longer life. Among psychological constructs, optimism may be one of the most important predictors of physical health.
Optimism and Psychological Health
Evidence suggests that optimism is important in coping with difficult life events. Optimism has been linked to better responses to various difficulties, from the more mundane (e.g., transition to college [Brissette, Scheier, & Carver, 2002]) to the more extreme (e.g., coping with missile attacks [Zeidner & Hammer, 1992]).

Optimism appears to play a protective role, assisting people in coping with extraordinarily trying incidents. Furthermore, optimism has been found to correlate positively with life satisfaction and self-esteem (Lucas, Diener, & Suh, 1996). Segerstrom and Sephton (2010) also examined whether optimism predicted positive affect. Their hypothesis that changes in optimism would predict changes in positive affect was borne out, as increases in optimism were associated with increased positive affect, and vice versa. Interestingly, changes in optimism were not related to changes in negative affect. Thus, it appears that optimism is uniquely related to positive affect. This means that optimists are generally happier with their lives than pessimists.

Optimists are also able to recover from disappointments more quickly by attending to positive outcomes to a greater extent than negative ones. Litt and colleagues (1992) examined optimism and pessimism in couples undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) attempts. In this study, 41 women and their husbands were interviewed two weeks prior to the IVF attempt and two weeks after a subsequent pregnancy test.

Among the women who received a negative pregnancy test, optimists were better able than pessimists to cope with failed fertilization attempts by endorsing thoughts like “this experience has made our relationship stronger”. Pessimists were more likely to develop depressive symptoms and to feel personally responsible for the failure of the IVF attempt. This study suggests that optimists are better able to cope with disappointment by attending to positive aspects of the setback.

Optimists are also more likely to engage in problem solving when faced with difficulties, which is itself associated with increased psychological well-being (e.g., Taylor et al., 1992). HIV-positive patients who were more optimistic were more likely to plan their recoveries, seek further information, and avoid self-blame and escapism (both of which are associated with worse psychological functioning).

 Optimists also tend to accept the reality of difficult situations while also framing them in the best possible light (Carver et al., 1993). While pessimists tend to cope through denial and abandoning impeded goals, optimists rely on acceptance and the use of humor. Optimism may even play a role in the well-being of caregivers for people with chronic illnesses. Caring for a loved one with a severe, terminal illness can have serious negative effects on psychological well-being.

However, optimism appears to protect against the worst of these effects, as optimism has been associated with less depression and greater well-being in studies of people caring for others with cancer (Given et al., 1993), Alzheimer’s (Hooker et al., 1992), and mental disorders (Singh et al., 2004). The association between optimism and coping with other, less extreme difficulties has been investigated, as well.

For example, in one study of college freshman, measures of optimism, hope, and well-being were administered immediately upon beginning college (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). At the end of the semester, measures of well-being were again administered. Optimism at the beginning of college predicted a smoother, psychologically healthier transition to college life, as well as larger groups of new friends.

With all of the research presented above, it is clear that optimism is a powerful tool in our repertoire to keep us healthy, happy, and alive. This news is great for people who are “natural” optimists, but what about others who don’t generally “look on the bright side”? Can “natural” pessimists learn to become more optimistic?
Can a Pessimist Become an Optimist?
Martin Seligman, father of positive psychology, began his career studying depression, stress, and anxiety. From his work in these areas, he discovered that the optimistic explanatory style described above acted as a protective factor against the development of depression when faced with difficult circumstances.

For a psychologist, understanding what makes some people more immune to suffering is beneficial, but it’s also somewhat unsatisfying if those benefits cannot be extended to other people. Thus, Seligman set out to understand whether or not optimism could be learned. Various studies on changing explanatory styles were conducted, and the general theme of their findings was that optimism could, indeed, be learned (Gillham, Reivich, Jaycox, & Seligman, 1995).

Following this line of research, a curriculum was developed for school children to attempt to inculcate in them an optimistic explanatory style. Children were selected as the population of interest as their personalities are more malleable than adults, as they are still forming and have not “solidified”. Thus, they represent a perfect population for testing the idea that psychological interventions can modify a person’s personality.

The program, called the Penn Resiliency Program (PRP), operates under the idea that instilling optimism in young people might serve to protect them from developing depressive symptoms in the future as sort of a “psychological immunization”. It relies on teachers and school counselors to administer 12 sessions of intervention, in which students are taught, among other things, how to change the types of thoughts that are consistent with the pessimistic explanatory style. Multiple studies have used strict randomized controlled trial criteria to evaluate the efficacy of this program. One study (Gillham et al., 2007) examined the use of the PRP in nearly 700 middle school students across three schools.

Children were assigned to the PRP, to a program (Penn Enhancement Program [PEP]) that focused on stressors common in adolescent life, including self-esteem, peer pressure, and family conflict, or to a control condition in which students received no intervention. Students were assessed on measures of depressive symptoms and well-being two weeks after the final session and then every six months for the subsequent three years.

In two of the three schools, 20% fewer students in the PRP condition reported elevated depressive symptoms three years post-intervention when compared to the control group, and nearly 10% fewer when compared to the PEP. This evidence seems to support the idea that optimism can be developed and nurtured in young people, though similar programs have not been developed for adults. More research is necessary, but it appears that optimism can be trained or learned. Thus, there is a promising argument to be made that anyone can learn to derive the numerous benefits of optimism.
Conclusions: Where do we go from here?
Countless studies have been conducted on optimism, and the vast majority of them support the same conclusions: optimism is healthy! Optimists live longer, have better functioning immune systems, cope better with difficult circumstances, and even have healthier babies. Are there downsides?

There are a few. For instance, there is some evidence that under certain circumstances, optimism can actually suppress immune functioning. For a certain subset of the law student sample profiled in Segerstrom and Sephton (2010), more difficult stressors coupled with higher levels of optimism actually predicted worse immune functioning (Segerstrom, 2006).

The reasons for this are unclear, but one explanation might be that optimism was mostly linked to negative outcomes in law students who stayed close to home for law school. For these students, there might be greater competing pressures between social goals (spending time with friends and loved ones) and performing optimally in graduate school. With a finite amount of time and energy, coupled with the tendency of optimists to persevere in the face of difficulty, these students might simply be exhausting their body’s resources.

Optimism has also been linked to health behaviors that can have negative consequences. For example, one study found that optimistic teenage girls were less likely than less optimistic peers to seek information about HIV testing. Furthermore, they were less likely to actually get tested (Goodman, Chesney, & Tipton, 1995). These examples indicate that optimism may have its downsides, but the good outcomes related to it far outweigh the negatives.

It’s apparent from the PRP studies that optimism can be nurtured in children, but what about adults? Studies that have investigated this question have relied on one-on-one cognitive behavioral therapy to improve levels of optimism, but no large-scale intervention has yet been developed. Further research is necessary to determine whether non-clinical interventions can be used to foster optimism. It stands to reason that changing automatic negative thoughts should be possible in PRP-style interventions for adults, but this is a question that will need to be answered with solid data.

Ultimately, there is a large, scientifically valid body of research that indicates that optimistic people are generally better off in life than pessimists. This is a growing area of research, and the future of positive thinking research is promising.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Got Low-T? While its doubtful all the pills and portions sold on the Fitness pages will be of much help, there is benefit to increasing your resistance training. In any case, the pros and cons of testosterone therapy continue to be debated and are nicely laid out in this MNT article.



Testosterone therapy: the hormone debate rages on

Published:


As people age, they often encounter new health problems. One of the challenges for men and women growing older is how these changes are dealt with, including navigating the world of treatment options that are often available. 
 
Man sitting on the edge of a bed looking depressed.
Low testosterone can lead to erectile dysfunction, reduced sexual desire and infertility.


When men get older, many notice significant differences in their sex drive, weight, emotion and energy levels. These changes, often occurring when men reach their late 40s and early 50s, have prompted comparison with the female menopause.

Sometimes these changes are attributed to reduced levels of testosterone - the male sex hormone produced predominantly by the testes. Men with reduced testosterone levels can experience benefits with testosterone therapy, with many physicians able to prescribe replacement testosterone in the form of injections, patches, pellets and gels.

However, the use of testosterone therapy is fiercely debated - particularly when low testosterone levels are associated with age - with clinicians concerned about when treatment is appropriate and what its risks and benefits are.

In this Spotlight feature, we have a look at circumstances that might warrant the use of testosterone therapy and investigate different viewpoints from both sides of the current debate.

The 'male menopause'


One major aspect of the debate is how the drop in testosterone is discussed. In many news stories, the terms "male menopause" and "andropause" are used on account of the fact that most of the symptoms associated with declining testosterone levels are similar to those caused by the female menopause.

Low testosterone can lead to changes in sexual function, including reduced sexual desire, erectile dysfunction and fewer spontaneous erections. Other physical changes that can occur include increased body fat, decreased bone density and hot flashes.

Emotional changes can also occur, such as a decrease in motivation and self-confidence, as can sleep disturbances such as insomnia.

However, the timeframe over which these changes occur is a major difference between what is experienced by women and many men. Whereas the female hormone levels fall over a short period of time, male testosterone levels typically decline gradually over a period of many years.

Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, an associate clinical professor of urology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, told Medical News Today that the terms are problematic in that they set up a parallel with the female menopause that is obviously incorrect. However, he believes the terms do have some use.

"On the other hand, what is valuable about these terms is that they convey to the public a condition that has strong similarities to something they already know, making it easier to understand," he explained.

Testosterone levels decline in men as they grow old as part of the aging process, typically falling by around 1% each year after men enter their 30s. However, testosterone levels can also fall as part of a disease known as hypogonadism, caused by a problem with the testicles or pituitary gland.
 
Central to the debate over using testosterone therapy to treat perceived symptoms of hypogonadism is whether or not observed biological changes are a result of a decline in hormone concentrations caused by reproductive system pathology or merely the result of aging (aging-related hypogonadism) or other conditions, such as thyroid problems and alcohol use.

Testosterone therapy can reverse the effects of hypogonadism. However, the use of testosterone therapy in otherwise healthy men who are experiencing symptoms caused by reduced levels of testosterone is subject to passionate debate.

"Unfortunately, passion clouds our ability to assess the evidence on testosterone objectively," warns Dr. Morgentaler in an article published on Medscape.

Is testosterone therapy dangerous?


Dr. Morgentaler believes that testosterone treatment can benefit patients reporting symptoms associated with reduced levels of testosterone even when there is no documented cause for hypogonadism, such as a pituitary tumor.

"Deficiencies of hormones, such as testosterone, produce certain symptoms," he writes. "The effect is the same whether an underlying cause is identified or not. Imagine limiting antihypertensive therapy to the minority of men with known causes. This makes no sense."

An argument for limiting testosterone therapy is a perceived risk of cardiovascular events among men receiving testosterone. Earlier this year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated testosterone product labels to detail a possible increased risk of heart attacks and stroke.

Happy man giving the thumb up signal.
Supporters state that testosterone therapy is a proven effective treatment and that cardiovascular risks are overstated.


The FDA recommend that physicians should only prescribe testosterone therapy for men with low testosterone levels caused by disorders of the testicles, pituitary gland or brain that cause hypogonadism.

Prior to this announcement, however, Dr. Morgentaler and colleagues conducted a systematic review of available literature on testosterone and cardiovascular risks.

They found only four studies reported negative concerns while many others suggested several positives, including reduced mortality, increased exercise capacity and improvement in cardiovascular risk factors such as fat mass.

In summary, the researchers concluded that there is no convincing evidence of increased cardiovascular risks with testosterone therapy and, on the contrary, there could be a beneficial relationship between cardiovascular health and normal testosterone levels.

"Although no large, long-term controlled studies have definitively determined risk, the weight of evidence right now strongly favors the [cardiovascular] benefits of having a normal serum testosterone concentration, whether achieved naturally or with testosterone therapy," Dr. Morgentaler writes.

Overall, there is evidence demonstrating that testosterone therapy can improve symptoms - both sexual and nonsexual - in most men, and Dr. Morgentaler holds that general health may also be improved in symptomatic users.
 
"Testosterone therapy is good medicine for the appropriate patient," he writes. "There is value in identifying men who are testosterone-deficient, and offering them a trial of treatment. For the good of men, it is high time to restore the primacy of science to the field of testosterone deficiency."

This form of treatment is increasingly seen as valuable, by patients and clinicians alike. An estimated 2 million men in the US are currently being treated with testosterone, with the number of prescriptions rising steeply over the past decade.

In an article originally published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Dr. Thomas Perls and David J. Handelsman, PhD, describe the increases in prescriptions in detail:
"US pharmaceutical sales of testosterone increased from $324 million in 2002 to $2 billion in 2012, and the number of testosterone doses prescribed climbed from 100 million in 2007 to half a billion in 2012, not including the additional contributions from compounding pharmacies, Internet, and direct-to-patient clinic sales."

Accusations of disease mongering


Dr. Morgentaler states that the reasons for this rise are an increased awareness of testosterone deficiency among health care providers and assuaged fears around an early association between testosterone therapy and prostate cancer.

Critics of testosterone therapy, however, believe that other forces are at work. In their paper, Dr. Perls and Prof. Handelsman state that 10- and 40-fold increases reported in the US and Canada are partly attributable to direct-to-consumer product advertising and lax consensus guidelines.

"We join others who characterize the mass marketing of testosterone coupled with the permissive prescribing of testosterone for common, nonspecific, aging-related symptoms as disease mongering of declines in testosterone with advancing age," they write.

Tired man lying on a sofa.
Critics believe that guidelines incorporating nonspecific symptoms such as increased weariness have been drawn up to increase the scope of testosterone therapy.


Dr. Perls, based in the Department of Medicine at Boston Medical Center, MA, told MNT that the evidence suggests that pharmaceutical marketing is the predominant reason that testosterone therapy has become as prevalent as it has, stating that aging-related hypogonadism did not exist as a condition to be diagnosed before 2000.

"It emerged once the pharmaceutical companies and other doctor and Internet-based entrepreneurs sensed a big profit opportunity by greatly expanding the market for testosterone by making up a new disease consisting of a decreased testosterone level [...] combined with nonspecific common symptoms," he said.

"Instead of the 0.5% of men previously noted by endocrinologists to have hypogonadism, there are now clinics and doctors claiming that 40-100% of men experience hypogonadism that merits testosterone replacement."

Symptoms such as decreased sexual desire, depressed mood and decreased exertion tolerance can be the result of common problems such as obesity and smoking, which also cause a functional decline in testosterone.

"Replacing testosterone in these cases is medically inappropriate and, rather, steps should be taken to treat the underlying cause," he said. In the example of obesity, more apt treatment methods include diet and exercise which do not carry the same risks as those identified by the FDA for testosterone therapy.

Co-author Prof. Handelsman, of the ANZAC Research Institute at the University of Sydney in Australia, believes that, at present, we do not know enough about naturally declining testosterone levels to automatically classify them as a deficiency. Regarding cases of testosterone decline in men not associated with reproductive medical disorders, Prof. Handelsman told MNT:
"In these situations lower circulating testosterone is not a deficiency at all. This thinking confuses a genuine deficiency state due to pathological reproductive system disorders with a normal functional, adaptive hypothalamic reaction to a systemic disease - which may be beneficial, neutral or harmful."
Critics of the wide use of testosterone therapy believe that varying guidelines have been created that stretch the definition of hypogonadism to incorporate nonspecific age-related symptoms which in turn increase the scope of the treatment, making it easier for clinicians to prescribe.

"Without demonstrated underlying reproductive system pathology, a set of common complaints plus or minus a low serum testosterone cannot constitute 'hypogonadism,'" write the authors.

The FDA currently require the demonstration of a pathological basis for growth hormone deficiency before a prescription for growth hormone can be dispensed. Dr. Perls and Prof. Handelsman believe that a similar demonstration of pathology should be required for the prescription of testosterone.

The debate continues


On the one hand, testosterone therapy is a form of treatment that can improve various symptoms experienced by some men as they grow older. On the other hand, testosterone therapy is a means to profit from disease mongering.

For supporters of testosterone therapy like Dr. Morgentaler, the results speak for themselves.
"Indeed," he writes "one only needs to treat five symptomatic men with low testosterone values to become convinced: two will thank the physician profusely for restoring their sexuality and vitality, another two will report solid benefits, and one will not respond."

Prof. Handelsman believes that further research is needed. "That point requires proper evaluation, not wild guesswork by pharma or single-issue proponents who have vested interests in such drug promotion," he told MNT.

Both sides of the debate present their own evidence and refute that of the opposition, putting the lay person who lacks expertise in a tricky position when it comes to making a judgment.

The Mayo Clinic recommend discussing any signs and symptoms that could be attributed to a low testosterone level with a doctor. Being honest with health care providers, making healthy lifestyle choices and seeking help when feeling down are useful steps in tackling problems associated with aging and may help with any decision making about pursuing treatment.

It is likely that the debate surrounding testosterone therapy and aging-related hypogonadism will continue into the near future. For any patients affected by these topics, it would appear best to keep an open mind and listen to both sides of the debate while further research is conducted.

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Saturday, August 8, 2015

How does one build a community and revitalize the local economy? It's about your neighborhood and your investment in it. It begins with realizing that what everyone in your community commonly share is a sense of "place." Here's an article from the Project for Public Spaces that discusses just that - "Place Capital."

Place Capital: Reconnecting Economy with Community
 

At Cleveland’s Market Square Park, local residents, businesses, and leaders have invested heavily in Place Capital. / Photo: PPS


“We’ve been wrong for the last 67 years,” Mark Gorton, founder of OpenPlans, announced in his closing address at last month’s Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place (PWPB) conference. “Ok. Time to admit it, and move on! We have completely screwed up transportation in this country. We can never expect to see the legislative or policy change until people understand the fundamental underlying problem. Asking for 20% more bike lanes is not enough.”

The following week, at the 8th International Public Markets Conference in Cleveland, the same attitude was present. In her opening remarks to the gathering of market managers and advocates assembled at the Renaissance Hotel, USDA Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan stated that “We’re all here because we recognize that markets can be far more than places just to buy food. We’re looking at markets as venues for revitalizing their communities.”

These statements capture a sentiment that permeated the discussion at both of the conferences that PPS organized this fall: that reform—of transportation, food systems, and so many aspects of the way we live—is no longer about adding bike lanes or buying veggies from a local farmer; the time has come to re-focus on large-scale culture change.

Advocates from different movements are reaching across aisles to form broader coalitions. While we all fight for different causes that stir our individual passions, many change agents are recognizing that it is the common ground we share—both physically and philosophically—that brings us together, reinforces the basic truths of our human rights, and engenders the sense of belonging and community that leads to true solidarity.

Even when we disagree with our neighbors, we still share at least one thing with them: place.  Our public spaces—from our parks to our markets to our streets—are where we learn about each other, and take part in the interactions, exchanges, and rituals that together comprise local culture. Speaking at PWPB, Copenhagenize.com founder Mikael Colville-Andersen made this point more poetically when he said that “The Little Mermaid statue isn’t Copenhagen’s best monument. I think the greatest monument that we’ve ever erected is our bicycle infrastructure: a human-powered monument.”

“I think the greatest monument that we’ve ever erected is our bicycle infrastructure: a human-powered monument.” / Photo: Spacing Magazine via Flickr


Our public spaces reflect the community that we live in, and are thus the best places for us to begin modeling a new way of thinking and living. We can all play a more active role in the cultural change that is starting to occur by making sure that our actions match our values—specifically those actions that we take in public places.

At PWPB, April Economides offered a simple suggestion for softening business owners’ resistance to bicycle-friendly business districts: tell the proprietors of businesses that you frequent that you arrived on a bike. At another PWPB session on social media, Alissa Walker advocated for users of popular geo-locative social media platforms like FourSquare to start “treating buses and sidewalks as destinations,” and ‘checking in’ to let friends know that they’re out traveling the city by foot, and on transit.

And of course, when trying to change your behavior, you often need to change your frame of mind. At the Markets Conference, Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman recalled the efforts that were required to change the way that vendors at the West Side Market thought about their role within the local community when the market decided to remain open for more days each week. While many vendors didn’t need to be open extra days, Cimperman helped to re-frame things: “[I asked people to consider:] Who are we here for? We’re not here for ourselves. We’re here for the citizens of Cleveland.”

Individual action is invaluable, but when working to spark large-scale culture change, it is even more critical to develop an overarching strategy. Putting forth a constructive vision, along with clearly-stated goals that people can relate to, provides the framework that helps to guide the individual decisions that people within a movement make as they work to change the culture on the ground.

To put public space at the heart of public discourse where it belongs, we should focus on changing the way that folks talk about the issue that’s already on everyone’s mind: the economy. Bikenomics blogger Elly Blue was succinct in her explanation of why tying culture change to economics is a particularly fruitful path in today’s adversarial political climate: “We can shift the paradigm of how we build our cities; thinking about economics is a great way to do that because it cuts through the
political divide.”

Great places foster human interaction & economic opportunity / Photo: Fred Kent


Across the political spectrum most of us, after years of economic hardship (and decades of wayward leadership), have learned to react to things like “growth” and “job creation” with an automatic thumbs-up. We too rarely ask questions like “What are we growing into?” and “What kind of jobs are we creating?” This brings us to the concept of Place Capital, which posits that the economic value of a robust, dynamic place is much more than the sum of its parts.

Great places are created through many “investments” in Place Capital–everything from individual actions that together build a welcoming sense of place, all the way up to major physical changes that make a space usable and accessible.

Strong networks of streets and destinations are better at fostering human interaction, leading to social networks that connect people with opportunities, and cities where economies match the skills and interests of the people who live there.

Public spaces that are rich in Place Capital are where we see ourselves as co-creators of the most tangible elements of our shared social wealth, connecting us more directly with the decisions that shape our economic system.

At its core, Place Capital is about re-connecting economy and community. Today’s economy is largely driven by products: the stuff we make, the ideas we trademark, the things that we buy (whether we need them or not). It’s a system that supports the status quo by funneling more and more money into fewer and fewer hands.

Leadership in this system is exclusively top-down; even small business owners today must respond to shifts in global markets that serve only to grow financial capital for investors, without any connection to the communities where their customers actually live. (For evidence of this, consider the fact that food in the average American home travels an average of 1,500 to 2,500 miles from farm to table, turning local droughts and floods into worldwide price fluctuations).

Through our own Placemaking work, we’ve found that public space projects and the governance structures that produce them tend to fall into one of four types of development, along a spectrum. On one end there are spaces that come out of project-driven processes; top-down, bureaucratic leadership is often behind these projects, which value on-time, under-budget delivery above all else. Project-driven processes generally lead to places that follow a general protocol without any consideration for local needs or desires.

Next, there are spaces created through a design-led process. These spaces are of higher quality and value, and are more photogenic, but their reliance on the singular vision of professional designers and other siloed disciplines can often make for spaces that are lovely as objects, but not terribly functional as public gathering places. More and more, we’re seeing people taking the third kind of approach: that which is place-sensitive. Here, designers and architects are still leading the process, but there is concerted effort to gather community input and ensure that the final design responds to the community that lives, works, and plays around the space.

Finally, there are spaces that are created through a place-led approach, which relies not on community input, but on a unified focus on place outcomes built on community engagement. The people who participate in a place-led development process feel invested in the resulting public space, and are more likely to serve as stewards. They make sure that the sidewalks are clean, the gardens tended, and their neighbors in good spirits. They are involved meaningfully throughout the process—the key word here being “they,” plural. Place-led processes turn proximity into purpose, using the planning and management of shared public spaces into a group activity that builds social capital and reinforces local societal and cultural values.



After participating in the discussions at PWPB and the Markets Conference this fall, we believe that the concept of Place Capital is ideally-suited to guide the cooperation of so many individual movements that are looking for ways to work together to change the world for the better.

Place Capital employs the Placemaking process to help us outline clear economic goals that re-frame the way that people think not only about public space but, by extension, about the public good in general. If we re-build our communities around places that put us face-to-face with our neighbors more often, we are more likely to know each other, and to want to help each other to thrive.

“It’s because our public spaces got so bad that we have led the world in developing ways to make them great,” argued Eastern Market director Dan Carmody at the Markets Conference, explaining the surge of interest in Placemaking in the United States over the past few decades. We have momentum on our side; if we focus on creating Place Capital, we can continue to build on that forward motion, and bring together many different voices into a chorus.

Like capital attracts capital, people attract people. As Placemakers, we all need to be out in our communities modeling the kind of values that we want to re-build local culture around. Our actions in public space—everything from saying hello to our neighbors on the street to organizing large groups to advocate for major social changes—are investments in Place Capital. Great places and strong economies can only exist when people choose to participate in creating them; they are human-powered monuments. So let’s get to work.