Seriousness of “Good News”: Catch the New Wave

Be ready to revolutionise your managerial thinking, based on the premise that good news really is good and is to be trusted for creating success in business! This core idea is based on millions of hours of research (see Buckingham and Coffman “First, Break All the Rules” [Simon and Schuster; @1999] p.11ff) and in excess of a hundred case studies (for example see Fry, Barret and Seiling: “Appreciative Inquiry and Organisational Transformation-reports from the field.” Quorum Books;@2002) .

The Thoughts: “Some people look for things that went wrong and try to fix them. I look for things that went right and try to build on them.” (From Tom Peters’ latest book “Re-Imagine” (D&K; @2003) p.217).

Good News is It: “Guided by the belief that good is the opposite of bad, mankind has for centuries pursued its fixation with fault and failing. Doctors have studied disease in order to learn about health. Psychologists have investigated sadness in order to learn about joy. Therapists have looked into the causes of divorce in order to learn about happy marriage. And in schools and workplaces around the world, each one of us has been encouraged to identify, analyze, and cor­rect our weaknesses in order to become strong.

“This advice is well intended but misguided. Faults and failings deserve study, but they reveal little about strengths. Strengths have their own patterns.” (From Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton’s “Now, Discover your Strengths”(Free Press Business; @2001) p.3; emphasis by this author).

The Drivers:        The authors of the Gallup organisation call this the “strength based revolution”. Professor Freddie Crous (RAU) and Professor Cooperrider (Case Western University Business School) will call this an Appreciative Inquiry approach. What they have in common is a hard-nosed, research orientation to answering the passionate question: “What works, how do we duplicate it, and how do we amplify it?” Professor Martin Seligman (author of “Authentic Happiness”; Free Press; @2002) will call this part of the positive psychology movement.

You Get what You Pay attention To: The drivers of this new way of thinking in different ways come to the same conclusion: If you want people to think laterally about different applications of success, get them to mentally dwell on successes already achieved. Success and the need for achievement now becomes the foreground of the thinking of the people who make it happen inside the organisation. They work with the premise that what people pay attention to act as a frame which determines both the content and importance of what they are prepared to consider (see Armand Kruger’s article “The Questions you Ask” available at   Appreciative Inquiry as an approach to developing organisations in intergroup peak performance, firmly focusses on “the difference that will make the difference” and then ask the question: “What are success examples of those differences?” Having discovered the themes resulting from the success examples, they then dare to dream: “What is possible?” To complete the four step process they ask: “What will it take to make it happen consistently?” and “How do we sustain it?”

Managers are Great: Especially the Gallup authors are very concerned about some of the “thought viruses” being held by people in business. Exceptional managers do things significantly different from their mediocre counterparts but also goes against the grain of some of the popular ideas being promoted. They take to task, for example, the idea that managers are “leaders in waiting” (“First, Break All the Rules”, p.63). Managers are the catalyst to implement strategy and make success happen. Managers succeed (or fail), not the organisation. Organisation cannot learn, since it is a concept, but managers need to learn the best for implementation, or they (and the organisation) fail.

Pay for Talent if You want to Win: The “strength-based” approach give new views and opens up new debate on talent and trainability. The Gallup findings clearly state that exceptional managers select for talent, not for “potential” or “trainability” (see “First, Break All the Rules”, p.71ff). Talent is what you are “hardwired” to do excellently. It is the recurring patterns in your thinking and doing which contributes to your success and progress. Seligman refers to this process, when value/character link, as your “signature strengths” (see at   Experience not only solidifies these”software programs” but also finetunes it, called learning/training.

Authentic Happiness: It is OK to want it and it is possible to get it, and keep it. “What is the good life?” In my view, you can find it by following a startlingly sim­ple path. The “pleasant life” might be had by drinking champagne and driving a Porsche, but not the good life. Rather, the good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification. This is something you can learn to do in each of the main realms of your life: work, love, and raising children.” (“Authentic Happiness”, p.13).

Positive Psychology has three pillars: First is the study of positive emotion. Second is the study of the positive traits, foremost among them the strengths and virtues, but also the “abilities” such as intelli­gence and athleticism. Third is the study of the positive institutions….. With the growing number of successful case studies through the people applying Appreciative Inquiry, this is already a dream come true.

Conclusion: This approach  is a thinking challenge in that it requires the discipline of a conviction of “success breeds success.” Another premise is that if people where capable of it once, they can not only repeat it, but magnify it, and even adjust their success to fit new territory. Fixing can only insures that a fault does not recur, but it is a long shot away from cultivating excellence. Strength and peak performance have their own pattern. They are not the inevitable result of  absence of mediocrity! It is OK to believe and want authentic happiness in the job as well as in your life in general. Fixing a people/organisational problem does not automatically result in peak performance. Your best investment in human capital is in peak performers – they inevitably give you your best ROI.. Talent is undeniably visible; it cannot cost-effectively be installed, but it can easily be refined.