The Best Ways to Give
Adam Grant is a professor at Wharton whose research I have been interested in for years. He recently wrote a book, Give and Take, where he summarizes much of what he has learned from his studies and similar research. In it he identifies three different reciprocity styles: takers, who like to get more than they give; givers, who prefer to give more than they get; and matchers, who try to balance giving and getting. His overall finding is that givers are the worst performers and the best performers, with takers and matchers falling in the middle.
How can that be? It turns out that there are two kinds of givers: selfless givers who care only about the interests of others and otherish givers who care about helping others, but are also concerned with their own well-being. Otherish givers are less likely to burnout and more likely to flourish.
Adam identifies some key giving strategies that otherish givers use:
1) Chunking – Givers who chunk their giving by doing a lot of it at once are happier than those who spread their giving out over time. Doing five acts of kindness one day a week makes your giving more salient than doing the same five acts across five days. Setting aside chunks of time to help others also lets you conserve time to attend to your own interests.
2) 100-hour rule – One study found that people who volunteer between 100 and 800 hours per year are happiest. So volunteering at least two hours a week seems to be the sweet spot that maximizes energy and engagement while minimizing burnout.
3) Passion – People derive the greatest amount of satisfaction from giving when they help others out of a sense of enjoyment and purpose. Otherish givers are careful to choose causes that they feel are important; that are meaningful to them.
4) Seek support – Givers also avoid burnout by soliciting the help of others. They understand the importance of social support for their own well-being and actively seek the support of others when they start to feel burned out.
There is no doubt about it: giving makes us happy. As the saying goes, “giving is its own reward”. But giving in the wrong way can lead to burnout. Follow Grant’s advice and you will reap the rewards of giving while avoiding the potential downsides.
The Long Hours Problem
You’ve probably noticed that I’m a huge advocate of workplace flexibility. Giving employees more choices regarding when and where to do their work can really help them to achieve greater work-life balance. But I must say that I don’t think increased flexibility alone will resolve the difficulties that women face in pursuing their careers. The biggest problem has to do with the extremely long hours that many jobs require.
In her HBR blog Joan Williams revealed that only 9% of working mothers work more than 50 hours a week. Compare that number to the 29% of working fathers who work more than 50 hours a week. This is one of the main reasons women hold so few leadership positions; they aren’t willing to work so many hours. Working over 50 hours a week leaves very little time to see your children awake. And the fact is, most mothers (and fathers) actually want to be around for their kids.
When I left my full-time tenured position as a professor in Spain to move to the States I knew I still wanted to teach, but I also knew I wasn’t willing to put in the hours it would take to get tenure again in another university. So I accepted a part-time position at Arizona State University. My children were 5- and 7-years-old and I wanted to spend time with them. I realized how quickly they were growing up and I didn’t want to miss it.
I have to admit in the beginning it hurt my ego to no longer be among the esteemed group of full-time faculty, but in hindsight it was one of the best career moves I’ve ever made. It allowed me to continue teaching and doing research, but without the long hours that a full-time position would have required. It turns out I’m not alone; 60% of working mothers would prefer to work part time.
The “long hours problem” is a cultural problem, originating from traditional masculine organizational cultures where busy, stressed-out people are important, loyal employees are willing to put in long hours, and “real” men don’t need sleep (or to see their kids). Until these cultural norms change, women will continue to reject positions that demand such unreasonably long hours.
We typically think it is important for leaders to show strength and decisiveness, however, it may be equally important for them to show their vulnerability. In my last post I explained how vulnerability is essential for connecting with others. Being open and authentic can help leaders build trusting relationships that inspire the best in people.
George Washington’s vulnerability helped him to defuse a potential military coup, the Newburgh Conspiracy, during the American Revolution. The army, complaining that the Continental Congress in Philadelphia had neglected them, leaving the soldiers underpaid, underfed, underequipped, and poorly clothed, threatened a coup d’etat.
On March 15, 1783 General Washington met with hundreds of his officer to read a letter written by a member of Congress promising to address their grievances. He opened the letter and gazed at it for a while, then finally pulled out a pair of reading glasses and said, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”
They say that many of his soldiers were brought to tears by this humble act, which showed his vulnerability. They were reminded of his humanity and became emotional thinking of all he had personally sacrificed for the Revolution. Major Samuel Shaw wrote in his journal, “There was something so natural, so unaffected in this appeal as rendered it superior to the most studied oratory. It forced its way to the heart, and you might see sensibility moisten every eye.” The meeting ended calmly with no more threat of a mutiny.
Leaders who reveal their shortcomings build trust and respect. When they admit their failures and are open about their limitations people can relate to them. Authenticity creates a connection that boosts engagement and lifts performance.
It takes courage to be vulnerable, to let down your defenses and acknowledge your weaknesses and mistakes. Vulnerability may, in fact, be a leader’s greatest strength.
Embrace Vulnerability
One of my favorite TED Talks is Brené Brown on the power of vulnerability. Clearly I’m not the only one who likes it because it has over a million views!
Brené shares how she started to study human connection and quickly discovered that there is one thing that completely unravels connection. Shame! Shame is a feeling of unworthiness; we think we aren’t thin enough, smart enough, rich enough. Shame is different from guilt. When we feel guilty we think “I did something bad”. When we feel shame we think “I am bad”. Guilt can be a constructive emotion, often motivating people to improve their future behavior. Shame is highly correlated with depression, eating disorders and addiction. It prevents people from connecting.
Brené identifies four characteristics that differentiate wholehearted people who believe they are worthy of love and belonging from those who don’t feel worthy. Wholehearted people have:
1) Courage – they tell the story of who they are and admit they aren’t perfect.
2) Compassion – they are kind to themselves and others.
3) Connection – they are authentic, willing to let go of who they think they should be in order to be who they are.
4) Vulnerability – they are willing to say I love you first or to do something where there are no guarantees. They believe that what makes them vulnerable is what makes them beautiful.
According to Brené, vulnerability is the core of meaningful human experiences. It is the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love. In order to embrace vulnerability we have to let ourselves be seen and to love with our whole hearts, even though there is no guarantee.
Each of us is worthy of love, belonging, and joy. Practicing self-compassion and accepting our own imperfections can help us dare to be vulnerable and live wholeheartedly.
Curious to learn more about vulnerability? Check out Brené’s book Daring Greatly.
In a previous post I talked about the value of celebrating other people’s good news. The best way to respond when something good happens to someone we care about is with active constructive responding. This is when we respond enthusiastically and show genuine interest by asking them to give us more details. This type of responding can really help to strengthen relationships.
Other ways of responding can make it more difficult to build close relationships. They include:
- Active destructive responding – With this type of responding we acknowledge what the other person has said, but then add something negative. Imagine someone telling you their daughter was just accepted to a great college and you say, “Wow, it’s going to be hard having her move so far away! Couldn’t she have picked a school closer to home?”.
- Passive constructive responding – When responding in this way we give a less than enthusiastic response like, “that’s great”, and then continue on our way or start talking about something else.
- Passive destructive responding – This is when we respond by saying something completely unrelated to what we were just told. We basically ignore what the person has said by changing the subject.
I’m certainly guilty of responding in not-so-constructive ways. I don’t do it on purpose, but maybe I do feel a little jealous that my friend’s daughter got into Stanford. And let’s face it, I have so many other things going on that I often just don’t feel I have the time to stop and ask to hear more. Sound familiar? Whatever the reason, each time we fail to respond in an active constructive way, we’ve lost an opportunity to connect with someone and show we really do care about his or her happiness.
The next time someone shares something positive with you, however small, pay attention to how you respond. Make an effort to show your enthusiasm and take the time to listen to their story.
What is Well-Being?
In my role as Senior Scholar at the Center for Consciousness and Transformation at George Mason University, I’m participating in a Well-Being University Learning Community. Our purpose is to “create a blueprint for what well-being looks like in different areas of the university”. I must say, this is an exciting, but difficult task!
While everyone participating in our project has a special interest in well-being, we also have different opinions as to how to define it. Well-being is a subjective evaluation of how satisfied we are with our lives. What I consider to be vital for my well-being may be different from what someone else believes contributes to his or her well-being.
Yet we believe it’s important for our group to have an agreed upon definition that we can use to explain to others what we mean by a well-being university and to evaluate the success of our initiatives. So to start with we are each contributing working definitions that we will then shape into a shared definition of well-being at Mason.
Here is my first stab at it: “In a well-being university students, faculty, and staff learn how to make choices that lead to optimal functioning of mind, body and spirit in order to thrive together.” I think our well-being is the result of small choices we make throughout the day regarding what to eat, whether or not to exercise, what goals to pursue, where to focus our attention, how to respond to others, etc. And since universities are learning institutions, I believe a well-being university should teach people to make choices that will maximize their potential to thrive throughout their lives.
Although what determines well-being is different for each of us, I do believe there are specific things that contribute to everyone’s well-being. Some of these include:
- Love and connectedness
- Engagement and mastery
- Meaning and purpose
- Mindfulness and self/other awareness
- Hope and resilience
- Physical health and safety
What about you? What do you think is important for your well-being? I’d love to know your thoughts!
The Space Between
I recently read Search Inside Yourself, written by Chade-Meng Tang, Google’s Jolly Good Fellow. Seriously, that’s what it says on his business card. The book describes a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course that Meng designed for Google.
One of the interesting things discussed in the book is “response flexibility”. This is the ability to pause before you act after experiencing a strong emotional stimulus. This pause gives you time to choose how you want to react. Viktor Frankl referred to this as the space between stimulus and response. He said “in that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”
Have you ever regretted doing something when triggered by an emotional situation? Me too! Fortunately, we can learn a better way of responding. Mindfulness can help us create distance between our emotions and ourselves. We can acknowledge that a situation has caused us to feel a certain way, while realizing that we have the power to let go of our initial feelings and reassess the situation in order to respond in a more positive way. Emotions are what we feel, not who we are.
The next time you experience a strong negative emotion, pause. Try counting to ten or taking several deep breaths; anything to create a space between the stimulus and your response. I like to silently sing the chorus from Dave Matthews Band’s song.
Now mindfully bring attention to the emotion you are experiencing. Reflect on where the emotion is coming from and try to reframe the situation. Often the emotion comes from your own history; perhaps something in your past has made you especially sensitive to what just happened. Try to see the other person’s point of view to understand his or her motive. Look for something positive. Ask yourself what you might learn from the situation or how it might help you grow or strengthen a relationship. Finally, consider ways you might respond that would have a positive outcome.
Obviously, this isn’t easy to do, but it isn’t impossible either! The more you practice letting emotions move through you, like clouds moving across the sky, the better you’ll get.
P.S. Meng is a very funny guy as you will see if you visit his website.
Celebrate Other People’s Good News
How do you respond when something good happens to someone else? Do you celebrate with them? Or are you more likely to say “that’s great!” and continue on? Actively responding to their good news increases your own positivity as you savor the happy occasion. It also helps to strengthen your relationship with that person.
Sometimes we have trouble rejoicing over someone else’s good news. When a friend tells you about her promotion or his summer plans or the flat screen TV she just got is your first reaction perhaps a bit of jealousy or envy? Do you start thinking about your own insecurities? When are you ever going to get promoted? Why do you never seem to find the time to plan special vacations? Who has enough money to buy a screen that big?
These feelings can prevent you from experiencing shared joy. But the truth is that good news for others shouldn’t be bad news for you. Their success doesn’t impact your success. On the contrary, their success can provide an opportunity for you to experience greater happiness. So why not share their joy?
One way to make it easier to be happy for someone else’s success is to avoid social comparison. Judging yourself by comparing your situation to another person’s situation can lead to feelings of vulnerability and insecurity. Happy people judge themselves by their own internal standards. They can take pleasure in other people’s successes because they don’t let it influence how they feel about themselves.
Buddhists have a meditation practice called Mudita for cultivating appreciative joy, an attitude of rejoicing in the happiness of all beings. It helps to reduce jealousy and make you less self-centered.
So the next time someone tells you their good news, don’t immediately start comparing what they have with what you have or don’t have. Instead, focus your attention on them and their good fortune. Celebrate the news with them and enjoy the delight that it can bring to you both.
How Positivity Leads to Success
There is overwhelming evidence from research in positive psychology that people who are happy are more successful. Positivity is related to higher levels of job performance, supervisory evaluations and perceived customer service. Positive people perform better because they are more motivated and more effective. This is due to a number of benefits associated with experiencing positive emotions:
(Read the rest of this article on the ASTD Happiness Blog)
Leading a balanced life is extremely important for our well-being, but it is something that many of us struggle with.
How balanced is your life?
Here are some things to consider:
- Work & life – Work is important, but so is your personal life. Often the demands of work make it hard for us to find time to spend for ourselves or with our families. Try not to let work overtake your life. Schedule time on your calendar for yourself; to play squash, get a manicure or join a friend for Happy Hour. And do all you can to make it home in time to have dinner with your family and to leave work in time to see your daughter play softball. Remember that nobody on their deathbed says they wish they had spent more time at the office!
- Doing & being – Most of us spend long intervals of time focused on our work, taking little time for rest and renewal. But research shows that we are much more productive when we work in shorter intervals with time in between to recharge. So make sure you get enough sleep and take frequent breaks throughout the day. Check out The Energy Project if you’d like to know more. Here you can see the sleep pods used at the Huffington Post.
- Together & alone – Spending time with others boosts our mood and strengthens our relationships. But it is also important to spend time alone. Solitude gives us the opportunity to clear our mind, reflect, concentrate, and increase our self-awareness. What do you need to do to create more balance? Do you need to find ways to spend more time with others or do you need to schedule some “alone time” in your calendar?
- Present & future – Mindfulness or focusing on the present moment keeps us positive by preventing us from bringing up negative emotions associated with the past or worrying about the future. But in his book, Making Hope Happen, Shane Lopez explains how having hope for the future inspires and engages us. So we also need to spend time thinking about our future, setting goals and planning how we will achieve them.
What will you do today to start bringing your life into better balance?
