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  • How to get work done (when you don’t feel like it)

    Holidays are over and it’s back-to-work time. Not feeling inspired in the dreary month of January? No worries – I especially appreciated artist Chuck Close’s observation that “Inspiration is for amateurs.  The rest of us just show up and get to work.”
    work inspiration
    HBR

    There’s that project you’ve left on the backburner – the one with the deadline that’s growing uncomfortably near.  And there’s the client whose phone call you really should return – the one that does nothing but complain and eat up your valuable time.  Wait, weren’t you going to try to go to the gym more often this year?

    Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don’t want to do when you are actually supposed to do them?  Not to mention how much happier and more effective you would be?

    The good news (and its very good news) is that you can get better about not putting things off, if you use the right strategy.  Figuring out which strategy to use depends on why you are procrastinating in the first place:

    Reason #1   You are putting something off because you are afraid you will screw it up.

    Solution:  Adopt a “prevention focus.”

    There are two ways to look at any task.  You can do something because you see it as a way to end up better off than you are now – as an achievement or accomplishment.  As in, if I complete this project successfully I will impress my boss, or if I work out regularly I will look amazing. Psychologists call this a promotion focus – and research shows that when you have one, you are motivated by the thought of making gains, and work best when you feel eager and optimistic.  Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Well, if you are afraid you will screw up on the task in question, this is not the focus for you.  Anxiety and doubt undermine promotion motivation, leaving you less likely to take any action at all.

    What you need is a way of looking at what you need to do that isn’t undermined by doubt – ideally, one that thrives on it.  When you have a prevention focus, instead of thinking about how you can end up better off, you see the task as a way to hang on to what you’ve already got – to avoid loss.   For the prevention-focused, successfully completing a project is a way to keep your boss from being angry or thinking less of you.  Working out regularly is a way to not “let yourself go.”  Decades of research, which I describe in my book Focus, shows that prevention motivation is actually enhanced by anxiety about what might go wrong.  When you are focused on avoiding loss, it becomes clear that the only way to get out of danger is to take immediate action.  The more worried you are, the faster you are out of the gate.

    I know this doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs, particularly if you are usually more the promotion-minded type, but there is probably no better way to get over your anxiety about screwing up than to give some serious thought to all the dire consequences of doing nothing at all.    Go on, scare the pants off yourself.  It feels awful, but it works.

    Reason #2     You are putting something off because you don’t “feel” like doing it.

    Solution: Make like Spock and ignore your feelings.  They’re getting in your way.

    In his excellent book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman points out that much of the time, when we say things like “I just can’t get out of bed early in the morning, ” or “I just can’t get myself to exercise,” what we really mean is that we can’t get ourselves to feel like doing these things.  After all, no one is tying you to your bed every morning.  Intimidating bouncers aren’t blocking the entrance to your gym.  Physically, nothing is stopping you – you just don’t feel like it.  But as Burkeman asks,  “Who says you need to wait until you ‘feel like’ doing something in order to start doing it?”

    Think about that for a minute, because it’s really important.  Somewhere along the way, we’ve all bought into the idea – without consciously realizing it – that to be motivated and effective we need to feel like we want to take action.  We need to be eager to do so.  I really don’t know why we believe this, because it is 100% nonsense. Yes, on some level you need to be committed to what you are doing – you need to want to see the project finished, or get healthier, or get an earlier start to your day.  But you don’t need to feel like doing it.

    In fact, as Burkeman points out, many of the most prolific artists, writers, and innovators have become so in part because of their reliance on work routines that forced them to put in a certain number of hours a day, no matter how uninspired (or, in many instances, hungover) they might have felt.  Burkeman reminds us of renowned artist Chuck Close’s observation that “Inspiration is for amateurs.  The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

    So if you are sitting there, putting something off because you don’t feel like it, remember that you don’t actually need to feel like it.  There is nothing stopping you.

    Reason #3   You are putting something off because it’s hard, boring, or otherwise unpleasant.

    Solution:  Use if-then planning.

    Too often, we try to solve this particular problem with sheer will:  Next time, I will make myself start working on this sooner.  Of course, if we actually had the willpower to do that, we would never put it off in the first place.   Studies show that people routinely overestimate their capacity for self-control, and rely on it too often to keep them out of hot water.

    Do yourself a favor, and embrace the fact that your willpower is limited, and that it may not always be up to the challenge of getting you to do things you find difficult, tedious, or otherwise awful.  Instead, use if-then planning to get the job done.

    Making an if-then plan is more than just deciding what specific steps you need to take to complete a project – it’s also deciding where and when you will take them.

    If it is 2pm, then I will stop what I’m doing and start work on the report Bob asked for.

    If my boss doesn’t mention my request for a raise at our meeting, then I will bring it up again before the meeting ends.

    By deciding in advance exactly what you’re going to do, and when and where you’re going to do it, there’s no deliberating when the time comes.   No do I really have to do this now?, or can this wait till later? or maybe I should do something else instead.   It’s when we deliberate that willpower becomes necessary to make the tough choice.  But if-then plans dramatically reduce the demands placed on your willpower, by ensuring that you’ve made the right decision way ahead of the critical moment. In fact,  if-then planning has been shown in over 200 studies to increase rates of goal attainment and productivity by 200%-300% on average.

    I realize that the three strategies I’m offering you – thinking about the consequences of failure, ignoring your feelings, and engaging in detailed planning – don’t sound as fun as advice like “Follow your passion!” or “Stay positive!”  But they have the decided advantage of actually being effective – which, as it happens, is exactly what you’ll be if you use them.

    Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is associate director for the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School and author of the bestselling Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. Her latest book is No One Understands You and What to Do About It,which has been featured in national and international media. Dr. Halvorson is available for speaking and training. She’s on Twitter@hghalvorson.

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  • For better creativity, protect your alone time

    In my experience, the office has never been a particularly conducive place for creativity. Instead, it likes to pop out at times when I used to least expect it, such as during runs, or washing dishes (as mentioned in this article by HBR). I am a big proponent of time away from the office but would add that time away from family and friends is important as well. That solitude needs to be in place (as well as that phone shut off) for a complete sense of quiet, solitude and security in knowing that your ideas are yours alone to fuss over.

    creativity at work
    ANDREW NGUYEN/HBR STAFF

    In our contemporary offices and always-busy lives, alone time can be difficult to come by. But successful creative thinkers share a need for solitude. They make a practice of turning away from the distractions of daily life to give their minds space to reflect, make new connections, and find meaning.

    Great thinkers and leaders throughout history — from Virginia Woolf to Marcel Proust to Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak — have lauded the importance of having a metaphorical room of one’s own. But today’s culture overemphasizes the importance of constant social interaction, due in part to social media. We tend to view time spent alone as time wasted or as an indication of an antisocial or melancholy personality. Instead, we should see it as a sign of emotional maturity and healthy psychological development.

    Of course, positive social interactions and collaboration are a critical part of a healthy workplace. But while some people may be inspired by experience and interacting with others, it is often in solitary reflection that ideas are crystallized and insights formed. As author and biochemist Isaac Asimov wrote in his famous essay on the nature of creativity, “Creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.”

    Now science has reinforced what countless artists and innovators have known: solitary reflection feeds the creative mind. In recent years, neuroscientists have discovered that we tend to get our best ideas when our attention is not fully engaged in our immediate environment or the task at hand. When we’re not focusing on anything in particular — instead letting the mind wander or dip into our deep storehouse of memories, ideas, and emotions — the brain’s default mode network is activated. Many of our most original insights arise from the activity of this network, or as we like to call it, the “imagination network.”

    Its three main components — personal meaning making, mental simulation, and perspective taking — often work together when we’re reflecting. Using many regions across the brain, the imagination network enables us to remember the past, think about the future, see other perspectives and scenarios, comprehend stories, understand ourselves, and create meaning from our experiences.

    As mentioned above, activating this network requires deep internal reflection — the state that many artists and philosophers refer to when describing how they arrive at their most original ideas. This type of reflection is facilitated by solitude, which is why we often get creative insights when we’re relaxing or doing mundane, habitual tasks like showering or washing the dishes.

    Unfortunately, most people rarely give themselves time for purposeful contemplation. While the modern workplace is often not conducive to this type of alone time, there are things managers and their teams can do to reclaim solitude and improve their creativity — without diminishing collaboration.

    One solution is to give employees the flexibility to work remotely, particularly when they’re focused on creative assignments that require them to generate new and original ideas. Another is to designate an office or conference room for quiet work. But most of all, managers should let employees know that they’ll respect their individual work styles, and that slipping away from their desks to think in solitude is OK. In fact, managers should actively encourage this for improved creativity, as well as urge employees to take all of their vacation days. Having time for periodic rest and reflection will give your team the space to replenish their creative energy.

    It’s time to allow creative workers (and who doesn’t have to solve problems creatively these days?), as Zadie Smith advised, to “protect the time and space” in which they work. Doing so helps lay the foundation for true innovation.

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  • The Impostor Syndrome

    In my experience, the folks who have no doubts about their abilities are usually the ones that absolutely should. Enjoy this article on the Imposter Syndrome from NYT.

    Imposter Syndrome

    On paper, your investments in stocks, real estate or even cash may look like your greatest assets. While all those things are superimportant, you have something else that’s even more valuable. It’s the investment called you.

    Finding ways to increase your value while doing the things you love may be the most important thing you do. Maybe you pursue more training to qualify for a raise. Maybe you find a way to sell the photography you did as a hobby. Maybe you find a way to turn your freelance writing into full-time work.

    They all involve doing something new for you, but when you head down this path, you are probably going to run into this thing, this fear that you’re bumping up against the limits of your ability. Then, the voice inside your head may start saying things like:

    ■ “Who gave you permission to do that?”

    ■ “Do you have a license to be an artist?”

    ■ “Who said you could draw on cardstock with a Sharpie in Park City, Utah, and send those sketches to The New York Times?”

    I think you get the idea. It’s at the moment when you’re most vulnerable that all your doubts come crashing in around you. When I first heard that voice in my own head, I didn’t know what to make of it. The fear was paralyzing. Every time I sent a sketch or something else into the world, I worried the world would say, “You’re a fraud.”

    During a session with a business coach, I shared my fear. I was shocked when she told me this thing had a name. As you’ve tried new things or done anything outside of your comfort zone, you’ve probably felt that fear, too. The first step to dealing with this fear is knowing what to call it.

    Two American psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, gave it a name in 1978: the impostor syndrome. They described it as a feeling of “phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” While these people “are highly motivated to achieve,” they also “live in fear of being ‘found out’ or exposed as frauds.” Sound familiar?

    All About the Impostor Syndrome

    Listen to the Sketch Guy’s financial advice.

    Once we know what to call this fear, the second step that I’ve found really valuable is knowing we’re not alone. Once I learned this thing had a name, I was curious to learn who else suffered from it. One of my favorite discoveries involved the amazing American author and poet Maya Angelou. She shared that, “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”

    Think about that for a minute. Despite winning three Grammys and being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, this huge talent still questioned her success.

    I’m also a big fan of the marketing expert Seth Godin, and even after publishing a dozen best sellers, he wrote in “The Icarus Deception” that he still feels like a fraud. I’ve heard that American presidents can feel this thing, too. The first time they find themselves alone in the Oval Office, they think to themselves, “I hope nobody finds out I’m in here.”

    So now that we know its name and that other people deal with it too, our third step is to understand why we feel this way. I think part of the impostor syndrome comes from a natural sense of humility about our work. That’s healthy, but it can easily cross the line into paralyzing fear. When we have a skill or talent that has come naturally we tend to discount its value.

    Why is that? Well, we often hesitate to believe that what’s natural, maybe even easy for us, can offer any value to the world. In fact, the very act of being really good at something can lead us to discount its value. But after spending a lot of time fine-tuning our ability, isn’t it sort of the point for our skill to look and feel natural?

    All of this leads to the final and most important step: learning how to live with the impostor syndrome. I recently listened to Tim Ferriss interview the clinical psychologist and author Tara Brach. In her book “Radical Acceptance,” she shared a really cool story about Buddha and the demon Mara.

    One day, Buddha was teaching a large group, and Mara was moving around the edges, looking for a way into the group. I envision Mara rushing frantically back and forth in the bushes and trees, making plans to wreak havoc. One of Buddha’s attendants saw Mara, ran to Buddha and warned him of Mara’s presence. Hearing his attendant’s frantic warning, the Buddha simply replied, “Oh good, invite her in for tea.”

    This story captures beautifully how we should respond to the impostor syndrome. We know what the feeling is called. We know others suffer from it. We know a little bit about why we feel this way. And we now know how to handle it: Invite it in and remind ourselves why it’s here and what it means.

    For me, even after six years of sharing these simple sketches with the world and speaking all over the world, you think I’d be used to it. In fact, the impostor syndrome has not gone away, but I’ve learned to think of it as a friend. So now when I start to hear that voice in my head, I take a deep breath, pause for a minute, put a smile on my face and say, “Welcome back old friend. I’m glad you’re here. Now, let’s get to work.”

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  • Business professors need to spend time outside of the classroom in companies

    For business professors, time is always an issue. What do you think?  Originally posted in HBR.

    business school

     

    Today, more and more students, parents, and taxpayers are demanding a greater return for the cost of college education. The Economist has called it a “revolution” and a “cost crisis” in university education. People are justifiably asking whether there is a reasonable return on their tuition investment and business schools are arguably under the microscope most of all.

    This is a pendulum swing from the 1950s when research by the Ford and Carnegie foundations found too much of a focus on vocational training, and business education was criticized for being overly technical and applied. Business schools responded. Now, years later, educators have been criticized for going too far. One notable critic, Warren Bennis, a renowned leadership scholar from the University of Southern California, states that business schools have “an overemphasis on the rigor and an underemphasis on relevance.”

    Some business schools have responded by hiring professors of practice, or industry executives without PhDs. The question remains as to whether there is a role for classically trained professors in business schools of the future. Or is it time for business professors to go back to work?

    One of us, Holly Brower, decided to put this question to the test. Brower designed a faculty “externship” where she left her university office and for two months become part of global pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly’s daily operations. Rather than act as an outside consultant, she would work as an insider. Brower, along with other colleagues, had from time to time worked as a consultant for companies. These experiences, while helpful to understand contemporary business problems, quickly placed her in the role of teacher/adviser and the company as client. Brower was looking for a different type of experience with a more level playing field. Though short, the immersion within Eli Lilly offered her a litmus test for the material she teaches and researches.

    With a company sponsor who was clearly open minded and inquisitive, and her expertise as a leadership scholar, together they mapped out a problem that Eli Lilly was working to resolve — their leadership programs across the globe needed a streamlined framework. She provided both expertise and an apolitical lens to build the new model.

    In a separate externship, as part of KPMG’s Professor in Residence Program, a tax professor worked closely with a global team of accountants on implications of tax codes across South America. The project gave the professor a fresh look at the challenges his students would face as tax professionals and gave the accountants a chance to offer input into the professor’s research. As academic articles become sources for textbooks, this early feedback into academic research is critical, and the relevant work experience enhances class examples and coaching of students.

    Though faculty externships are rare and there is not a “typical” model, we conducted a series of interviews with interested executives and professors with their own faculty externship experiences to construct a beta-tested protocol for a successful externship. These include identifying an internal sponsor for the faculty extern; an extern who fits with the company culture; and a clear project that is both related to the extern’s expertise and offers value to the company. This project should have specific start and end dates, and clear deliverables. The extern and the company should also come to a clear agreement about confidentiality rules. Once the externship begins, the internal sponsor should communicate the nature of the project and the background of the faculty extern, and help plan interactions such as lunch and learns between the faculty extern and employees. Finally, every externship should end with a debriefing.

    One marketing executive who hosted an extern at IBM said of the weekly lunch and learn presentation: “The professor’s lunchtime talk was highly attended and received great feedback. Since many of us do not have a legal background, it was helpful to hear her points of view on how the law is impacting advertising. It was also great having her in smaller group meetings, getting to hear her points of view.”

    While externships offer value, both faculty and executives resist the practice for a number of reasons. For companies, including a professor in daily operations can come with angst about whether or not that professor will fit in a positive way that doesn’t require too much “handholding.” The selection of the right extern is critical to find an ideal match. For professors, aside from a few limited exceptions, university norms and incentives currently do not support externships. While the academy values primary research on questions with managerial implications, there are strong trade-offs between working within a company, even for a limited time, and crafting a journal article.

    There is also the question of whether professors are in fact more effective having some distance from business. Can more enduring perspectives be better taught through an outside view? Is the real problem not what is being taught in business schools, but instead what is being practiced by businesses? Like most interesting questions, perhaps the answer is “both.”

    Holly Henderson Brower (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an Associate Professor at the School of Business at Wake Forest University where she also is the faculty director of the internship program.  She consults and publishes on issues related to trust, leadership and effective decision making in both nonprofit and for-profit organizations.

    Michelle D. Steward (Ph.D., Arizona State University) is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the School of Business at Wake Forest University. Michelle’s research interests are in the area of business-to-business marketing.

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  • Richard Branson and the mission statement

    I am currently reading (and loving) Richard Branson‘s The Virgin Way: Everything I know about leadership. Although I’m six chapters in, this is a book I’m recommending to peers and Branson’s take on the mission statement –of which I found an excerpt on Entrepreneur— really hit home.


    RICHARD BRANSON
    Author and Founder of Virgin Group.

    At some point during the launch of your startup, it’s likely that a potential investor will ask you about your company’s mission statement. Many business management experts would argue that this should be your company’s cornerstone, inspiring and informing your employees in the years ahead. I can’t agree. The Virgin Group does have a mission statement — one that is brief and to the point. In general, there is too much importance being placed on such statements, but it is interesting to see how they reflect common missteps in business.

    Most mission statements are full of blah truisms and are anything but inspirational. A company’s employees don’t really need to be told that “The mission of XYZ Widgets is to make the best widgets in the world while providing excellent service.” They must think, “As opposed to what? Making the worst widgets and offering the lousiest service?” Such statements show that management lacks imagination, and perhaps in some cases, direction.

    At the opposite end of the scale is the statement that fails through flowery waffling. An example: “Yahoo powers and delights our communities of users, advertisers and publishers – all of us united in creating indispensable experiences, and fueled by trust.” That sounds wonderful, but what does it mean? Whoever wrote it should try listening to the company’s CEO, Marissa Mayer, who said in a recent speech, “Yahoo is about making the world’s daily habits inspiring and entertaining.” It’s not perfect, but it would be a step in the right direction.

    Related: Richard Branson on Taking the Leap Into Entrepreneurship

    Some companies are not actually able to carry out their mission. The reasons can range from a disruption in the markets to a merger or acquisition, and then there are cases like Enron’s: Before the giant energy company went bankrupt in 2001, ruining the lives of tens of thousands of employees and investors, its vision and values statement was “Respect, integrity, communication and excellence.” Say no more!

    While some mission statements consist of one vague statement, others are too long, which may reflect management’s lack of understanding of what a company really does. The Warwickshire Police recently produced a new mission statement; to the police chief’s dismay, the resulting 1,200-word screed gained the attention of the media and was nominated for the Golden Bull award “for excellence in gobbledygook” from the Plain English Campaign, a group that helps organizations to provide clear communications. Not only was the rambling epistle filled with buzzwords and jargon, but the word “crime” was not mentioned once.

    Still other companies don’t know what differentiates them from their competition. The mission statement for the pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers reads, “To discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases.” Well, you can’t argue with that, but surely this can be said of every drug company on the planet. Why would a person choose to buy Bristol-Myers’ products or invest in its stock, rather than its competitors’?

    Also read: Eight Fascinating Must-Read Books for Entrepreneurs

    So that’s what not to do. If you are in a situation where you must write a mission statement, I think you should try for something closer to a heraldic motto than a speech. They were often simple because they had to fit across the bottom of a coat of arms, and they were long-lasting because they reflected a group’s deeper values.

    When I was a boy, I was fascinated by such mottoes. One of my childhood heroes was the pilot Douglas Bader, who lost both his legs in a crash early in his career, but went on to fly fighter planes for the Royal Air Force during WWII. After seeing the movie “Reach for the Sky,” which told his heroic story, I remember asking my father about the RAF motto, “Per ardua ad astra.” When he told me that it meant, “Through adversity to the stars,” I thought the idea of battling one’s way to the stars at all costs was the most inspiring thing I’d ever heard. (It’s pretty similar to the “Toy Story” character Buzz Lightyear’s motto, “To infinity and beyond,” which some kids today think is pretty cool – especially some of my friends on the Virgin Galactic crew.)

    Related: Richard Branson on How to Stay Inspired

    A few years later, at Stowe School, I was taught the school’s motto, “Persto et praesto,” which means “I stand firm and I stand first.” This motto caused a lot of giggling among our group of adolescent schoolboys, but it was nevertheless excellent for guiding us forward into adult life. Brevity is certainly key, so try using Twitter’s 140-character template when you’re drafting your inspirational message. You need to explain your company’s purpose and outline expectations for internal and external clients alike. Make it unique to your company, make it memorable, keep it real and, just for fun, imagine it on the bottom of a coat of arms.

    If we had to put ours on a coat of arms, Virgin’s would probably say something like, “Ipsum sine timore, consector,” which very loosely translated from the Latin means, “Screw it, let’s do it!”

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