Edward M. Hallowell
As Edward M. Hallowell explains in his most recent book, Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People, published by Harvard Business Review Press (2011), “Many people need help in getting rid of the obstacles in their way. In the workplace, this is the challenge that managers face: to help people overcome these obstacles and enter into [what Hallowell characterizes as ‘The Cycle of Excellence’]. While I have made many suggestions on how to do this, my concluding suggestion is this: do it your way. Ultimately, neither I nor anyone else can tell you what to do more skillfully than you can tell yourself.”
Hallowell does suggest ten steps that supervisors can take to help their people grapple with the demands of the job and achieve consistent success:
1. Before you ask someone to work harder, ask these questions: “Is she operating at the intersection of what she likes, what she’s good at, and what adds value to the organization?”; “Does she feel safe at work, comfortable enough to be candid and open, connected enough with you and others to look forward to coming to work each day?”; and “Is she imaginatively engaged with her work? Is she able to feel control and ownership of what she’s doing?”
2. Always be on the lookout for frustration or lack of progress in a person’s performance.
3. Encourage grit, and model it.
4. Try not to use fear as a masnagement tool.
5. Teach people how to cultivate C-state (i.e. cool, calm, confident, concentrated, curious, creative, cooperative, careful) and avoid F-state (i.e. fearful, frantic, forgetful, frustrated).
6. Cultivate a C-state by emphasizing the first three steps of the Cycle of Excellence (i.e. select the right people to do the right work and connect everyone with what they do and why they do it).
7. As a manager, regularly ask your people about how they are using their time at work within an environment of playful engagement).
8. Try to keep all your people working at the intersection of three spheres: what they’re good at, what they like, and whatever adds value to the organization.
9. Allow people to be themselves rather than conform to some corporate stereotype.
10. As a manager, it can often help to get a second opinion…or a third.
“Whatever you do, your goal as a manager should be to minimize feelings of alienation and falseness within your organization, while increasing feelings of openness and honesty. You want to make sure people feel permission to be real.”
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Edward M. Hallowell, MD, a psychiatrist, served as an instructor at Harvard Medical School for twenty years and is director of the Hallowell Centers in New York City and Sudbury, Massachusetts, and is the author of two Harvard Business Review articles and 18 books.