The Intentional Shift

More on Flipping from Deficit to Strength

It’s a phenomenon called “negativity bias.” “Over and over,” Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, says, “the mind reacts to bad things more quickly, strongly and persistently than to equivalent good things.” Or as Roy Baumeister, a fellow psychologist, puts it, “It’s evolutionarily adaptive for bad to be stronger than good.” From nytimes.com LIFE@WORK JUNE 14, 2013 Overcoming Your Negativity Bias By Tony Schwartz

So, it’s important to consciously and actively search for a more life-giving, strength-based perspective that expands our capacity to find solutions—to flip the way we are seeing something. An article I co-authored a couple of years ago with colleagues from the University of North Carolina’s School of Government captures these ideas well.  See the excerpt below:

Excerpted from Whitaker, Gordon, Lydian Altman, Margaret Henderson and Sallie Lee, Positive Problem Solving: How Appreciative Inquiry Works, InFocus, Strategies and Solutions for Local Government Managers Volume 43/NUMBER 3 2011 ICMA Press

In the 1995 movie, Apollo 13, there is a scene that epitomizes the concept of Appreciative Inquiry (AI). The infamous line “Houston, we have a problem” let us all know the astro­nauts were in an emergency situation. The physical resources for the ideal solution were not in the space capsule. Back at NASA, the scientists and engineers were gathered into a room. Someone dumps out a box of assorted items and tells them this is everything available in the capsule. It does not matter what else they might have wanted to use in a perfect situation; these things were the available resources. They had to find a way to fix the problem using a random inventory of supplies and tools. The resources that saved the day were the creativity of the engineers and the skills of the astronauts. As history tells us, they were able to find a solution—using the resources they had on hand—that enabled a safe return home.

In the 2010 book Appreciative Leadership [Whitney, Diana, Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Kae Rader. APPRECIATIVE LEADERSHIP, Berrett-Kohler], the authors refer to this shift from the deficit-based to the positive, affirming perspective as the “Flip.” Appreciative leaders have the capac­ity to “see positive potential, and they invite it to come to life by asking positive questions.” They listen carefully to when others are complaining or describing problems, ask questions to discover what is really desired, and then summarize that desired state into a short phrase or topic. Inquiring into existing positive experiences uncovers effective responses to the chal­lenges we face. Mining those positive experiences through dialogue encourages innovation.

This shift to a positive context is essential; it means beginning with the end goals in mind and addressing the challenge by looking at desired outcomes. When we shift our perspective, we shift what we find. If we think our co-workers are too bound up in following petty rules, we can find evidence of that. If we look for ways our co-workers are creatively and actively engaged in meeting the needs of clients while respecting mandates, we can find evidence of that, too. The ways in which people talk and think determines how we approach our decisions and actions. Discussion can enliven or depress. It can spiral us up, down, or leave us spinning.

Sometimes we have to reframe in the moment. We look for the positive opposite of the current problem.  We look for what would be a great outcome, what we want more of, and we look for the strengths and resources we have at hand.

Reframing Fireworks

I’ve never really understood the fascination with fireworks on holidays, but I know they are fun and meaningful for many people.

I regret that I didn’t capture the name of the maker of this photo, which captures the path of lightning bugs [using time lapse] on a forest evening. These are the only kind of fireworks I’m actively looking for on this Independence Day--USA. Happy July 4^th to all, wherever you are—I’m celebrating Interdependence and interconnection. I’m celebrating the fact that we still have forests and lightning bugs and bees, and that if they don’t survive, neither will I.  We belong to the same interdependent system.

More on belonging next week.

Shifting Perspectives: From Hopelessness to Opportunity

How can we make sure that we are able to look at something in a different way?

Taken from the Ways of Reframing Reality list in the last post, here’s something to try:

Flip the dilemma.  From hopelessness to opportunity

From the deficit to a more positive option; From perceived weaknesses to potential strengths to pull on; From what’s seen as bad to what’s working, more positive, better potential

I probably have the most experience over the years in reframing to the positive, solution-based, strength-based perspective, because of working with the Appreciative Inquiry approach.

A Positive Frame

In the realm of neuroscience, studies of the brain are showing that the more we focus on problems and a negative mental frame, the more our brains trigger fear responses, embedding the problem thinking in the neural circuitry and lowering our ability to find solutions. There are so many research findings now on the power of a positive, solution-based frame, but two of my favorites are below:

Research on high performing teams conducted by psychologists Barbara Frederickson and Marcial Losada [AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST, 2005] concluded that the critical variable accounting for the teams’ success was the ratio of positive to negative talk, in excess of 2.9 to 1.  Similar research shows that married couples and individuals also come closer to flourishing with a higher degree of positive to negative thought and talk.  

Frederickson has advanced a “broaden and build” hypothesis based on her findings over the past decade in which she posits that a more positive emotional frame enables us to access greater memory, cognitive skills, and attention.  In addition to healing from old lingering emotional wounds, positive emotions help us become more resilient.  A positive frame allows us to be more in touch with our own strengths, which in turn, helps us attend to and appreciate the strengths of others and see the potential in our situations.

This ability to perceive generative potential in the present forms the centerpiece of Tojo Thatchekerry and Carol Metzker’s construct of “appreciative intelligence.”  They believe that three capacities: 1] to reframe your situation, 2] to view everyday reality with appreciation, and 3] to see how a positive future can unfold from where we are now indicate a form of intelligence different from but as important as emotional intelligence or IQ. [Tojo Thatchenkerry and Carol Metzker, APPRECIATIVE INTELLIGENCE: SEEING THE MIGHTY OAK IN THE ACORN. Berrett-Kohler Publishers, 2006.]

PRACTICE: Flipping Problems

One simple way we can train ourselves to reframe and one of the most useful is to move from a deficit or problem orientation to a positive frame. 

• ·        What’s right about this?
• ·      What do we want more of? 
• ·      What do we know about this that we can use? 
• ·      How have we succeeded at this before?
• ·      What is strong here that we can build on?
• ·      What strengths do we have in our system to work on this situation?

To flip a situation so that solutions can become visible. To turn over rocks to be see what might be underneath. To shift what we are paying attention to--a type of voluntary vigilance of our thoughts, perspectives, impulses, biases, frames.

It’s so simple and so hard to remember to do--something right at the heart of all change—finding a way to flip our thinking.

Look for a new channel. Reset the dial for strengths and solutions..

Next time, we’ll make this larger, into the realm of social dilemmas.

If you are interested in going deeper into the six literacies, contact me about the next studio workshop: July 24—26 in Asheville.