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Hosts Spencer Horn and Christian Napier discuss a better way to build and strengthen teams in any organization.
Christian Napier
00:12 - 00:23
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Teamwork, A Better Way. I am Christian Napier, and I am joined by my amazing, incredible co-host, Spencer Horne. Spencer, how you doing?
Spencer Horn
00:24 - 00:36
Wonderful, amazing, and only so because you make me such. I mean, just being on stage with you makes me shine, and so I wish I could do the same for you. Oh,
Christian Napier
00:37 - 00:52
come on. Let's just crank up the volume on this Mutual Admiration Society to 11. This week is a special week here in our neck of the woods because it's Thanksgiving. And I'm extremely grateful to have known you for more than 20 years.
Christian Napier
00:53 - 01:03
And we've been doing this podcast for over five years. Can you believe it? It'll be six years early next year. I mean, I can't believe how the time has flown.
Christian Napier
01:03 - 01:34
So super grateful for you and for the impact that you've had on on my life and for all the things that you've taught me over these last six years. I've learned so much getting to hear your insights that you share with me on a regular basis on this podcast and in other forums and we've got yet another opportunity for both of us to learn again today. We've got a super amazing guest on this very special week for us here Spencer, why don't you go ahead and do the honors of
Spencer Horn
01:34 - 01:47
introducing. Absolutely. So today we have Christian Thiele and I'm so excited to introduce our listeners who's coming to us from southern Germany. We'll talk about that in just a second.
Spencer Horn
01:47 - 01:55
But Christian, he and I met, this is going to be confusing for me, Christian, I'm going to call it Christian and Christian, right?
Christian Thiele
01:55 - 01:58
You can also just call me Chris. So
Spencer Horn
01:59 - 02:22
I met Chris in Bali just a little over a year ago. We were there at a Global Speaker Federation event and I got to meet him there and then we were able to speak in Bulgaria together. He was the closing keynote speaker and I was the opening keynote speaker. And so I had a chance to meet him, and just an incredible individual.
Spencer Horn
02:22 - 03:09
Just so you know more about him, let me share some of his bona fides that make him so special. He's a leading expert in positive leadership and positive psychology. Really, he's dedicated to helping leaders and teams work together more successfully, efficiently, creatively, and meaningfully, which is perfect for our show and he's been a coach and a trainer and internationally recognized keynote speaker as I just Recognized and he specializes in transforming workplace cultures through evidence-based positive leadership approaches and his work is grounded in Martin Seligman's perma model of positive psychology and Kim Cameron's positive leadership framework and Now, I've had him share that with me, and I'm excited for him to share that with you and our listeners today, Christian.
Spencer Horn
03:10 - 03:51
And he discovered this in 2015 when he called this a true waking experience, not experiment. But it's been an experiment since then, I'm sure, and I can't wait to hear the results of that experiment. But this awakening fundamentally changed his understanding of effective leadership. And his background, goodness, he has a unique blend of academia, he has political sciences, completed a master's degree in positive psychology and coaching, and he's been a site director and lecturer at Germany's first master program in positive psychology at the German University of Health and Sport, which, Christian,
Spencer Horn
03:51 - 04:11
I know that's gonna perk up your ears, because you are a huge sports man and he is really taking this cutting-edge research and applying it to real-world applications. He's written many books. I just want to read these books in German for you. Claimed books including Positive Führung for Dummies.
Spencer Horn
04:12 - 04:36
you know, positive leadership for dummies, Praxic Bush, positive leadership, practical guide to positive leadership, and Stärken, Erkennen, und Nutzen, recognizing and utilizing strengths. And he's got a monthly podcast, Positive Führung, again, positive leadership, which reaches thousands of leaders who want help and advice. So we're so glad to have him. Oh my gosh, I could go on, there's more.
Spencer Horn
04:36 - 04:57
But one of the things I'm really excited about, he's coming to us from Garmisch Partenkirchen in the German Alps. So if you're listening, you know that part of the world if you're in the United States, I did some research I looked at it and it reminds me of Breckenridge or Park City So he kind of lives in in that beautiful place of the world Christian. Welcome to our show today. We're so glad to have you
Christian Thiele
04:59 - 05:10
Thank you so much, Spencer. Thank you so much, Christian. So first of all, you don't need to do this. There's nothing you can learn from me because you know it all.
Christian Thiele
05:10 - 05:25
I mean, the way you introduced each other, the way you, yeah. Trans I transmitted so much energy and so much warmth and so much fun. So Anyway, I'm really glad
Spencer Horn
05:25 - 05:27
to Chris when I I can't wait for you to
Christian Thiele
05:27 - 05:30
me and this will be a fun moment
Spencer Horn
05:30 - 05:55
I can't wait for you to meet Christian because everybody I talked to I'm so excited for them to meet because he's just so brilliant But well, let's start off with you. You said you had this awakening back in 2015 now I've heard your story because I've heard you speak. I want you to share if you don't mind and to our listeners, what happened? What was the transition that caused you to embrace this idea of positive leadership and positive psychology?
Christian Thiele
05:57 - 06:41
Well, actually, I think it was the day before Christmas. Actually, it was on the day before Christmas at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and I downloaded Practicing Positive Leadership from Kim Cameron onto my Kindle. know this very hour because it's my Amazon history. And this really changed my life because I felt that what Kim Cameron wrote and put down there was somehow the answer to, well, first of all, the questions I had to leadership.
Christian Thiele
06:41 - 07:20
And, well, it helped me actually preventing people from becoming the leader that I used to be when I was a leader in the media industry, which has a, well, pretty strong negativity bias by default. And so I actually I'm trying to help leaders to become a very different leader from the one I was when, yeah, being a deputy editor or editor-in-chief of different magazines and news outlets.
Spencer Horn
07:21 - 07:48
So you talk about this, it's so interesting, news outlets do have a negativity bias because That actually plays to our human negativity bias. We're actually designed to believe bad news before good news. And I think the news outlets know that about us and they use that against us. I'm just curious how that actually maybe, because we talk so much about how climate and environment affects us.
Spencer Horn
07:48 - 07:51
How did that affect you? And how did you get out of that?
Christian Thiele
07:53 - 08:03
Well, first of all, I have to say that I come from a doctor's dynasty. My father was a doctor. My grandfather was a doctor. My great-grandfather was a doctor.
Christian Thiele
08:03 - 08:19
And, you know, when you go to a doctor's cabinet, they never ask you, so what's going well? Because they are always asking, so what's wrong? So what is there to fix? So I started out with that.
Christian Thiele
08:19 - 08:37
And then you have this negativity bias, as you said, Spencer, in the media industry, very dominant. If it bleeds, it leads. I mean, usually the headlines don't read like everybody loves each other in Washington, all things going well with climate. It's all about conflict.
Christian Thiele
08:37 - 09:09
It's all about catastrophe, it's all about deficits. And I think that this has a very strong impact on the culture, on the leadership culture, on the way of how people work together or rather next to each other or even against each other in the media industry. Because you never hear, wow, this was a great article. Wow, I admire how you did research and got this guy to talk or this lady to talk.
Christian Thiele
09:10 - 09:26
It's always about, oh, I missed this. Oh, this would have been nice to include in the first paragraph. And that's how all the development dialogues, how they were called, were held. You need to work on this.
Christian Thiele
09:26 - 10:02
You need to get better at this. I don't want to, I mean, obviously we have to look at our deficits and if we want to become really excellent, we have to identify the things we should be getting better at, but we also have to know about our strengths, about the positive qualities that make us and others shine. And that's basically a very fundamental element of what I'm trying to deliver and do.
Christian Napier
10:04 - 10:19
All right. So I have to go back to the 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a Christmas Eve in 2015. And you know it because you looked at your Amazon order history. You ordered this book, but I'm curious, what was your motivation for ordering it?
Christian Napier
10:19 - 10:38
Like, you know, okay, what prompted you to, or were you actively looking for this or did it just pop up serendipitously and, you know, the algorithm said, hey, you might be interested in this book. What was the motivating factor behind actually seeking out and or purchasing the book?
Christian Thiele
10:39 - 10:51
I think Christian serendipity is just such a great word to describe this. I was on the lookout for something. I was missing something. I was looking for something which I didn't know what it was.
Christian Thiele
10:53 - 11:41
And there comes this book onto my Kindle where Kim Cameron talks about the heliotropic principle. meaning simply that plants are basically bowing towards the light. I mean, all human life or all life on earth is somehow directed to sources of energy. And if we work in organizations or in teams, you always have these people that are just fun to be with that just give you so much more energy when you when you've had a meeting with them and that that just make you want to work with them or
Christian Thiele
11:41 - 12:13
under them or or yeah. together with them. And then there's sometimes, I mean, I've had these experiences and there's also these black holes, you know, these people where you, after 45 minutes, you feel it has been two days actually, where you just feel drained and where you just have a very, very acute awareness of all the problems, of all the difficulties, of all the things that have gone wrong.
Christian Thiele
12:13 - 12:40
are going wrong, could be wrong, but you have no clue to what to do about this. And then you try to find somebody who is one of these positive energizers, as Kim Cameron put it. And this somehow was an answer to a question I actually didn't know that I had put, but somehow it really deeply resonated with me.
Spencer Horn
12:40 - 13:30
So, I mean, I remember you talking about just, and when I met you, and just now you were talking about how often the conversation was focused on critique, was focused on shortcomings, what they didn't do, what are the problems. And certain personalities, and I know a little bit about your personality and some similarities to mine, some of us are naturally bent towards the downside, the challenge, the risk, we see the, We see the negative first more easily than others. So I'm interested what the cumulative effect of that, and it sounds like it had something happening and you were like, you just weren't satisfied because that environment was constantly creating a cost. And even if it was not conscious, you were feeling it.
Christian Thiele
13:33 - 14:20
Yes, well, let me just explain what changed when I had discovered this source of energy. I would describe it. I think I had, well, actually until March 2020, when the lockdown started, Many people in HR or leadership development who are usually the folks who book me for coachings, for keynotes, for, I don't know, trainings, they said, well, this is interesting, but we should call it differently because positive leadership is somehow Pollyannish and a bit sweet and, you know, everybody has to love each other.
Christian Thiele
14:20 - 14:21
Especially
Spencer Horn
14:21 - 14:22
if you're in Germany, right?
Christian Thiele
14:23 - 14:28
Especially if you're in Germany, exactly. We're really good at, you know...
Spencer Horn
14:28 - 14:30
Where's the science? Where's the
Christian Thiele
14:30 - 15:08
hard stuff? Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I mean, we have collected more and more data on this positive leadership thing, how I call it, how a couple of colleagues call it, that, for example, leaders who score high, we have this measure where you can measure positive leadership in five dimensions. And in teams where you have positive leaders, people will be more likely saying, I feel part of a team.
Christian Thiele
15:09 - 15:30
I have more optimism about this change process that we're going through. I have less burnout symptoms. My customers are happier. I'm selling more broadband lines.
Christian Thiele
15:30 - 16:02
That's a huge study that has been done in British Telecom. people have less sick days, people have higher retention rates, higher organizational loyalty when their leaders score higher on these positive leadership scales. So it does make quite a difference, especially in times of so many disruptions and change and uncertainty.
Christian Napier
16:15 - 16:48
I knew he was going to play it. And that was an excellent thought to emphasize. You mentioned the word Pollyannish. I think that's really interesting because there may be a perception among some leaders who might even be inherently positive that being positive in some ways may Inadvertently negatively impact their own credibility, right?
Christian Napier
16:48 - 16:52
So it's like oh, I can't be too positive because gotta be a serious
Speaker 1
16:53 - 16:53
Yeah,
Christian Napier
16:54 - 17:18
I got to be a serious leader and I've got to I got to make sure all the facts are on my side and I need to be pragmatic and I need to be realistic and And so, you know, what do you say to people who think, oh, yeah, positive is great, but really what we need is we need someone who's really pragmatic and practical and is not the Pollyannish pie in the sky visionary.
Christian Thiele
17:21 - 17:34
Yeah, I'm all in. I'm all in, first of all. Positive leadership is somehow a quite generic team. I've never met somebody who says, I'm a negative leader.
Christian Thiele
17:34 - 18:06
I've done 17 seminars in negative leadership. I've done the black belt in negative leadership and that's why I've been promoted as CEO. So everybody wants to see herself or himself as a positive leader actually. But what this means would have to be defined and I would define it as a leadership behavior that positively impacts employees per month.
Christian Thiele
18:06 - 18:36
So Scott, Spencer, you mentioned Marty Seligman, the world's most renowned depression researcher, until he became president of the American Psychological Association in the late 90s. And he said, well, we've done enough, or we've done quite a lot about negative or classic psychology, we know about deficits about we've, we've, we've invented
Spencer Horn
18:36 - 18:38
always focusing on pathology, what's wrong?
Christian Thiele
18:38 - 19:14
Always focusing on fixing what's wrong. But what about strengthening what's strong? And this is the PERMA lead or the PERMA model he has come up with. So I would say that a positive leader, in my sense, is somebody who nourishes the PERMA of the people he or she is leading, but that also means Having a good look at challenges, at things that do go wrong, and not ignoring all the challenges and all the
Christian Thiele
19:14 - 19:15
mistakes and all the bummers.
Spencer Horn
19:17 - 19:23
So describe that PERMA model. What is that? What does PERMA stand for for those of us who haven't heard that before?
Christian Thiele
19:24 - 20:01
Yeah, so P stands for, so it's obviously five letters, and these five letters stand for five recipes, for five strategies, for five evidence-based dimensions of leadership that are known to be helpful. So the P stands for positive emotions. Is there something like negative emotions? Well, all emotions like shame or guilt or fear are helpful, are data that can help us navigate through life.
Christian Thiele
20:01 - 20:34
But positive emotions are usually the ones that we want to have more of, like fun, like calm, like serenity, like joy, like awe. And a positive leader is somebody who in troubling times gives you some kind of hopefulness and gives you some kind of connection, fosters interest, fosters calmness in times of turmoil. So that's for the P. Shall I go on
Spencer Horn
20:34 - 20:48
or do you want to? So let me interrupt you for a second. So because it's not only Martin Saleman, but people like Daniel Goleman, John Gottman, they're all on this positivity train. So for those of you listening, think about the model.
Spencer Horn
20:48 - 20:57
And I've shared this model before. What is the purpose of a team, Christian? I mean, why do teams exist? It's to get stuff done, right?
Spencer Horn
20:57 - 21:27
To be productive, whether that's for a profit agency where you're creating profitability, or a non-profit where you're providing services to the community, or a government where you are basically providing, again, some type of service for your nation or your community. But the purpose of a team is to be productive, right? However you define that productivity. So then you add this element of whether you're low or high productive, or whether you have low or high positivity.
Spencer Horn
21:28 - 21:43
Think about just the dynamics of just being productive with low positive environment. You talked about burnout, right? You talked about turnover. That's when that happens is when there's no, we're a meritocracy.
Spencer Horn
21:43 - 21:57
It's all about the bottom line here. It's not sustainable. But then if you take it the other way and say, well, it's all positive, but not productive, well, that's not sustainable either, right? You still have to get things done.
Spencer Horn
21:58 - 22:11
But then the low, low, we're out of business very, very quickly. So the key that we're looking for here is not only high positivity, but high productivity. So what is it that gets us to that? But how do you sustain it?
Spencer Horn
22:11 - 22:35
And here's where I want to add something to Martin Seligman. This is where John Gottman's research of over 30 years He said the most sustainable relationships, and it was studied in personal relationships, but there are a lot of relationships that go on at work, right? You talked about the leaders having a positive impact on those that they work. You have to have five positive to every one negative interaction.
Spencer Horn
22:35 - 22:46
So if I'm giving you a critique, that's fine. And you pointed that out, right? We do need that data and that feedback. But are you giving five negative to one positive?
Spencer Horn
22:46 - 23:07
Well, then that leads to depression. And I can't get anything right. And it deflates the confidence of those you're working with. Are we backing up the negative interaction with gratitude, with appreciation, with, hey, here's an opportunity for you, here's a challenge, I invite you.
Spencer Horn
23:07 - 23:26
Those types of interactions that strengthen the relationship so that they continue to want to give their discretionary effort. That's what we're talking about when we talk about positive emotions. It's all about creating that environment so that people will grind and work and hustle to get the most done.
Christian Thiele
23:28 - 23:53
Yes, and let me just throw in two more names. One is Barbara Fredrickson. She has done this amazing work on the use of the effect of positive emotions. So positive emotions like joy, like serenity, like calm, like awe, like well, feeling connected, they broaden and build.
Christian Thiele
23:53 - 24:12
That's her theory. They broaden our horizon. They enlarge our repertoire of actions, of communicative styles. And they also help us undo the negativity that is just part of everyday life.
Spencer Horn
24:12 - 24:12
I
Christian Thiele
24:12 - 24:54
love that. And the second name I want to throw in is Dan Tomasulu, who has written great book on learned hopefulness and he has this wonderful image of negative emotions being the pebbles and positive emotions being the feathers. So yes, you can outweigh anger or fear with joy and with the serenity, but you need quite a lot of them. You need quite a lot of feathers to outweigh a couple of pebbles and And then the wind blows, just a gush of wind, and all the positives away again.
Christian Thiele
24:54 - 25:01
So I like this image quite a lot. So that's the P in permaculture.
Spencer Horn
25:01 - 25:06
That's interesting. Learned hopefulness versus Martin Seligman's learned helplessness.
Christian Thiele
25:06 - 25:17
Yes, that's the idea. That's the idea, that hope is not just something we have or don't have, it's something that we can cultivate, at least to a certain extent.
Christian Napier
25:20 - 25:42
I've got a question for you. A few moments ago, you were talking about, I think it was Kim Cameron's research on this heliocentric principle, which is really If I recall correctly, it's like a biology-based thing, right? A photosynthesis of plants. They orient themselves to the sun.
Spencer Horn
25:42 - 25:43
Phototropism.
Christian Napier
25:44 - 26:00
Yeah, right. They orient themselves to the sun. And so leaders who are positive and joyous, they have a natural gravitational pull, right? People want to be around them.
Christian Napier
26:00 - 26:43
My question for you is, where do the leaders get the energy from? Sometimes you can be in a very difficult, stressful situation, and you might just feel like your fuel is spent. If we think of the sun as a fusion reaction that is taking fuel, and it is taking these two elements and then combining them to form another heavier element and releasing a lot of energy, where do you recommend that leaders draw energy from so that they can continue to be this like heliocentric force that naturally draws followers to them?
Christian Napier
26:44 - 26:45
You still gotta hang around Christian, that's all
Spencer Horn
26:45 - 26:46
you gotta do.
Christian Thiele
26:48 - 27:23
This is a great question and I am I'm not really sure whether I have a two sentence answer to this. I would suppose, obviously it has to do maybe with your upbringing. Maybe it has to do with the purpose you see in the job you do. But then again, I would also see this energy, this relational energy that the great leaders have as something co-creative, you know, it's an upward spiral.
Christian Thiele
27:24 - 27:57
If I, even in troubling or especially in troubling times, if I make my folks feel somehow relevant, seen that they matter. I think they're giving something back to me, which I can give back to them. So I think it's, it's, it's, we're all social creatures, obviously. So I wouldn't think, and I wouldn't want to think that it's something that is inherently inside the positive video soul.
Christian Thiele
27:57 - 28:30
it's something that they maybe also co-create with the community they're serving in on a Sunday or which they're getting from their pastor on Sunday at church or whatever that might be or from climbing in the mountains or from playing in the band or from reading or writing poems or from having overcome hardship in childhood. I think there's so many possible sources of this positive relational energy. What do you think, guys?
Spencer Horn
28:31 - 28:48
100%. I mean, I feel it, Chris, when I have done something and it just comes back. And this is going to sound really cheesy. When you were talking, it reminded me of I just watched this first holiday show, Christmas show last night called Klaus.
Spencer Horn
28:48 - 29:09
It's a cartoon. Have you seen it, Christian? It's this country where they have this postal service and one of the sons is super lazy and his father like, I need to teach him a lesson. So they send him way up into the north somewhere to this terrible town where everybody's negative and it's just sucking the life out of him.
Spencer Horn
29:09 - 29:23
And he's like, I've got to deliver 6,000 letters so I can get off this awful island. Anyway, he turns into this experience where he's helping these people change. They're fighting. It's like the Hadfield and McCoyles.
Spencer Horn
29:23 - 29:36
These two families are just fighting, and it's a terrible environment. But he puts in this energy, and accidentally, all of this change starts happening. And all of a sudden, it goes from gray and dull to the sunny. I mean, it's real.
Spencer Horn
29:37 - 30:02
I know it's a cartoon, but it's such a metaphor for what happens when you give energy and it comes back multifold in so many ways, in ways that are not even expected. And I think that that's a great source for energy is you give it and then it comes back. Christian, what do you think? Napier.
Christian Napier
30:03 - 30:22
I'm like, okay, which of us? Yeah, I'm a believer in these virtuous cycles, right? And it can be one spark that kind of sets off a chain reaction that builds on itself. Or not, right?
Christian Napier
30:22 - 30:38
It can be a spark and then it putters out. So one of the things to that has been kind of on my mind is like, how do you keep it going? The butterfly theory. Because sometimes old habits die hard, as they say.
Christian Napier
30:38 - 31:05
And so you might think, okay, I need to make some changes. I need to foster more positivity. I need to work on not escalating conflict. And instead of an eye for an eye, I need to focus more on, Learning and forgiveness, you know those kind of things, but it can be easy to kind of fall into old Ways of especially under
Spencer Horn
31:05 - 31:07
pressure and under stress which
Christian Napier
31:07 - 31:57
in that spark dies and so I'm really curious Christian to hear your perspective on this and like how do you how do you keep that reaction sustainable? Because you know so many things it's like oh, yeah, let's do this and we get excited about it and then I Life happens and our enthusiasm wanes and ultimately nothing changes in the end. And so, how do you keep that virtuous cycle going, and keep from succumbing to, we said this in a previous podcast, I'm kind of mixing the metaphors here, but entropy, just kind of like, we just kind of settle. What's your take?
Christian Thiele
31:58 - 32:31
Well, first of all, I always say I'm so glad that I don't introduce like OKRs in companies because that's something, you know, it's going to be great in three years, but the next two and a half years are just going to be shitty. PERMA, you start where you start and people, nobody hasn't done anything yet in their lives to nourish other people's PERMA. We constantly do this. maybe inadvertently, maybe without knowing.
Christian Thiele
32:31 - 33:26
So if you just go through these 10 positive emotions that Barbara Fredrickson says are the most common or the most relevant, like awe, interest, amusement, serenity, she calls it love 2.0 or just the feeling of being connected to each other, lightness, humor and so on. I think it's, yes, it's damn difficult to find this and to know this in trying times. And then again, I would say it's so easy to find this in the small things, you know, and maybe to ask your folks on Monday morning in the Zoom call where they come together. So we can talk about all the shitty clients, we can talk all about the lunatic deadlines that the clients have given us.
Christian Thiele
33:26 - 34:08
But let's just start with three good things. Anybody who wants to share something from last week, being at the girls soccer win on the weekend, being at the barbecue, being at that grandmother just finally got on her feet again after or cancer treatment, or whatever that may be, or the holiday, or the new Netflix show, I want to share with you because it's so, so, so hilarious. If we do something like this, this creates so many things like lightness, connection, hopefulness, and so on.
Christian Thiele
34:08 - 34:11
So it's no rocket science, actually, I would say.
Spencer Horn
34:20 - 34:21
Let's keep moving down.
Christian Thiele
34:21 - 34:25
Or playing some salsa music every now and then.
Spencer Horn
34:25 - 34:32
Yeah, exactly. We need that every once in a while. So we haven't gone to E yet, so talk about the E on the PERMA model.
Christian Thiele
34:34 - 35:04
is like engagement or energy. So, and for me, it has like two dimensions. So what am I doing or how am I helping my folks to get into these flow moments, you know, where they can engage in what they in what they're doing, where they can release, be in the zone, where they can have at least moments of uninterrupted work and where they have some kind of autonomy.
Christian Thiele
35:04 - 35:44
So that's one part. And the other part of E, like engagement or also energy, is Do I see my folks' strengths? Do I, as a leader, delegate stuff according to people's strengths? Do I foster my employees' awareness of what they're really good at and what is giving them energy and are their ideas to, yeah, to make their strengths even more relevant for the client, for the team, and so on.
Christian Napier
35:49 - 36:23
Yeah, it sounds to me like, you know, one way to describe that is alignment, right? Like, okay, here's a person, and here are things that need to be done. And I should try to align responsibilities with things that drive and motivate them. I think sometimes there can be a little bit of a misconception though that, oh, I need to take what needs to be done and align it with this person's strengths.
Christian Napier
36:23 - 36:57
And I think that's good. But sometimes we could inadvertently limit their growth. by just saying, hey, I'm going to give you the stuff that you're good at doing all the time. Is there a way to, looking at the PERMA model, really drive engagement by Yeah, aligning with strengths, but also giving people opportunities to do things that are hard.
Speaker 1
36:57 - 36:58
Spencer
Christian Napier
36:58 - 37:17
talks about this all the time, like, you know, focus on something that maybe you're not really great at, but you have a desire to be better at. You know, what is your thought when it comes to the E in PERMA and engagement and, you know, giving people some challenging things to do as well?
Christian Thiele
37:18 - 37:46
Yes, thank you for the question. It's a really important one. First of all, strengths are not only the things that I'm good at. Strengths in my definition, and that's not mine, but the one that I really hold dear and like a lot, are positive qualities when it comes to our behaviors, our feelings, and our thinking.
Christian Thiele
37:49 - 38:28
Strengths related to or emotional strengths could be like humility or hopefulness. Strengths related to our way of acting could be precision or obsessed. Qualities that relate to our thinking could be creativity or, yeah, or maybe also precision. So it's not only, you know, he's good at Excel or PowerPoint, that's his strengths.
Christian Thiele
38:28 - 38:55
Second thought, it's not about giving people milk and honey from Monday through Sunday. This is not what I'm talking about. It's giving the people and feeling for myself that I can every now and then do the things I'm really good at, that give me energy, that I'm really performing well. And third thought, yes, that's a question.
Christian Thiele
38:55 - 39:32
What you just said is exactly the flow diagram by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. So if you think of these are the demands of some kind of task or in a project, and these are my resources is my level of competence. So if the demands are really high and the perceived competences are really, really low, Yeah, I'm in the panic zone. And I'm just overwhelmed.
Christian Thiele
39:32 - 40:12
And if the capabilities are really high and the demands of the situation are really, really low, I'm just bored. And I'm just bored out. And if I reach this flow channel, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it, that means that according to my level of skill, according to my level of experience, I'm always challenged and I feel this thrill of engaging and progressing in a task that I find meaningful and that is challenging, but that I have the feeling that I can somehow handle it.
Spencer Horn
40:13 - 40:40
Yeah, I love that. And there's something else that I think really comes out when you talk about this, Christian, is that you have to, as part of positive leadership, you have to know your people well enough to know what those strengths are. You have to be paying attention as a leader to your people so that you can bring those out of them, right? And sometimes there's a way, if you struggle with a leader to do that, there's an exercise called job crafting.
Spencer Horn
40:40 - 41:06
I don't know if you've ever heard of that. But it's a way for your employees to actually craft their own ideal, what I could be doing with my strengths, and sometimes giving them the space to do that, if you trust them, to create their own kind of job description, if you will, so that they can take advantage of their strengths can be actually very empowering. It can be very scary for a leader to give that a level of freedom.
Spencer Horn
41:06 - 41:12
but can be very rewarding. So I love that. Okay, we've gone to E, now what's the R?
Christian Thiele
41:14 - 41:59
R is like relationships or vitamin R. So how do I, as a leader, make the followers feel part of a team? How do I create psychological safety? Amy Edmondson, the Harvard researcher who has found this term for a culture where I can I can talk about doubts, I can talk about mistakes, I can talk about things that didn't go well without fearing that my career or my reputation is on the line.
Christian Thiele
41:59 - 42:13
I talked to leaders from a German car company and they told me, well, our projects always have a status watermelon. Do you know what that is?
Spencer Horn
42:13 - 42:16
Status watermelon?
Christian Thiele
42:16 - 42:22
Status Watermelon. Green on the outside, deeply red on the inside.
Spencer Horn
42:23 - 42:25
Oh, yes. Yes, we're
Christian Thiele
42:25 - 42:26
on time. We're on budget.
Spencer Horn
42:27 - 42:29
That's perfect. I'm going to remember that. No problem.
Christian Thiele
42:30 - 42:43
And then later on in the coffee break, everybody says, no way this is going to work. This process is shitty. This software is just shitty. But I'm not going to tell it to the boss.
Christian Thiele
42:43 - 42:54
So if you create a climate where there's psychological safety, there is trust, there is openness, and there's no reporting of status watermelon.
Spencer Horn
43:08 - 43:10
I'm gonna remember that, right, Christian?
Christian Napier
43:12 - 43:21
Yeah, I'm like, okay, we need a different fruit then, right? What's a fruit that's green on the inside? I'm trying to think. Maybe
Speaker 1
43:21 - 43:22
a tomatillo.
Christian Napier
43:23 - 43:33
It's green on the outside and a green on the inside. Okay, that was great. What about the M? And
Christian Thiele
43:34 - 43:58
just let me add one little thing. I mean, this climate of psychological safety means also, or would also be an answer to the criticism that positive leadership is just about, you know, the funny, sugary, Pollyanna-ish. 100%. No, it's also about calling a spade a spade, you know.
Spencer Horn
43:58 - 43:59
We talked
Christian Thiele
43:59 - 44:00
about
Spencer Horn
44:01 - 44:31
on our Friday episode, we actually talked about this where there are, for example, there was a study done at a hospital where the reporting, when there was psychological safety, the reporting of negative incidents went up. So the challenges were more transparent and you think, well, we want them to go down. Well, they don't go down if they're not reported. So we got to actually start learning from, and this, and this kind of goes along with what, with what I believe.
Spencer Horn
44:31 - 44:54
And so we're on the exact same page. Sometimes you do need to be able to, to talk about what's not working, but it's the positive environment that actually allows that to happen instead of fear and concern and worried about myself. I'm worried about the team and how to help them. And that's where relationships and engagement actually improve productivity and the bottom line results.
Spencer Horn
44:54 - 44:56
And so such a great point.
Christian Thiele
44:56 - 45:22
Yeah, so let's get to M. So the M stands for meaning or for mattering. How do I as a leader, well, when we talk about leadership, so how do I as a leader create and convey the feeling of this has some kind of meaning what we're doing. This is part of something larger and bigger.
Christian Thiele
45:23 - 46:03
This has some kind of impact for the client, for maybe even the world. We move from building A to B because in the end, this is going to be helpful for this or that. We're introducing this process because in the end this will help the folks from accounting or from whatever marketing to do this or that better. And when you ask people would you exchange your current job for a job that is more meaningful, 9 out of 10 would say yes.
Christian Thiele
46:03 - 46:32
And even a colleague of mine, Sean Aker, did a huge study on this. I think it was like 55,000 people of all levels of income and all levels of education. And they even put a price tag on this, on this psychological income. So how much money, how much lifetime earnings would I be willing to let go if I had a meaningful job?
Christian Thiele
46:32 - 46:59
And they came up with 23%. That's way more than the average mortgage the American household has. So we don't do our job only for the rent or for the loan. We also want to matter, we want to make an impact, we want to have the feeling that this is relevant.
Christian Thiele
46:59 - 47:15
that this is something I can be proud of, that my kids at home can explain during lunch break what their dad or their mom is doing and why this is beneficial to the community or the customers or whatever.
Spencer Horn
47:26 - 47:50
You know, that's one of the things that I talk about. There's a few things that cause people to love their job. And the number one thing is that they know that what they're doing is having an impact somehow in a positive way. and that they know that, and that they're told that you're making a difference, that they matter, and that is something that's so, so powerful.
Spencer Horn
47:50 - 47:58
I'm super interested in that study. I'll have to listen to this again to make sure I get it all, because I wanna find that study, because I think that's
Christian Thiele
47:58 - 48:00
really important. I can put all the links here on LinkedIn
Spencer Horn
48:00 - 48:23
or wherever. Yeah, that would be terrific, because that is, when we talk about somebody loving their job, not that you pay them enough so they won't quit, It's that if you paid them less that they would stay. And not that we would do that on purpose, but we want to pay people what they're worth and what they're valued. But they're there for more than just the paycheck.
Spencer Horn
48:24 - 48:28
And I think that's really important. All right. What questions do you have?
Christian Napier
48:30 - 48:42
Well, we've got one letter left. But before we get to that letter, I'm talking about meaning and impact. You know, it's really interesting. I really like the frame that you use there.
Christian Napier
48:42 - 49:14
Like, hey, you know, how's what I'm doing? How can that make a difference or help the accounting folks or the marketing team or whatever? or our customers, that's, that's fine. And yet, oftentimes, in our day-to-day work, when we're looking at our processes, we look at them very myopically, like we, you know, and we're in our silo, and those folks are in their silos, and we get angry when people in the other silos aren't doing things that help
Christian Napier
49:14 - 49:47
us in our silos. So it's kind of weird, like on the one hand, you know, we derive impact on how we're helping others, but oftentimes in the day-to-day we become myopic in our view and we're looking at how other people are impacting us, you know. And so I'm curious to hear from your perspective how we connect to the big picture and maintain that focus and and reduce the myopic focus where we're just looking inward all the time. No more myopia.
Christian Thiele
49:48 - 50:10
No more myopia, starting tomorrow at 8.30. So first of all, when you ask leaders and employees about job happiness and job satisfaction, usually leaders score higher. And obviously, it's because of pay, because of that corner office, because of this car.
Spencer Horn
50:11 - 50:14
And control, that they control more of their destiny.
Christian Thiele
50:15 - 51:24
Yes, it's because of control and it's because they're a bit higher on the ladder and they are more able to see why this is important, what we are doing here for the folks in accounting. Why this process needs to be changed, abandoned, introduced for the sake of the customer. And Kristen, I think you're very right in pointing out that this is a very relevant question for the working together of different, I don't know, compartments or departments or whatever, factories maybe in a company. So, I mean, it would be just great to hear them out, to send the folks from accounting to sales every now and then, or to have the people from development who never see a customer in real life, to have them go on a tour to see customers, what
Christian Thiele
51:24 - 51:53
they love about our products or what features they would love to see. And one of the most relevant things to create more meaning, I would say, is to ask people, maybe at the end of the year, this could be a good moment or at the end of a project. So what are the most meaningless things we're doing here? What are the processes, the tools we're using you find most shitty?
Christian Thiele
51:54 - 52:23
And then I would have at least two answers, two possible answers. One would be, okay, so I think you're not yet getting why this is so important. would have to do a better job in explaining to you why this is really irrelevant. Or maybe there could be things that we could just get rid of because this channel, this tool just doesn't fill the requirements for successful and smooth collaboration anymore.
Spencer Horn
52:25 - 52:39
Yeah. And I think that's hard to do to, to, to drop things that, you know, we throw good. I think that's a skill that managers need to need to learn is to what can I get rid of? How, what can I take off my plate?
Spencer Horn
52:39 - 52:52
What can I get out of the, the backlog that that's not serving us, uh, and learning how to do that a super valuable skill. Okay. So the a we're at the end of the perma model, what is, what does the a stand for?
Christian Thiele
52:53 - 53:25
The A stands for applause, or achievement, or actually it's accomplishment. And I always like to say it's focusing more on the tadas and not just on the to dos. And Christian, we've been talking about different aspects of an organization. You always have the people in sales, for example, who get their numbers every Friday, who know about their impact, who can tell you in a bit how successful they have been.
Christian Thiele
53:25 - 53:54
And then there's the people in IT, for example, who never get called. Well, thank you, Gus. My email worked again this morning. I think one job of leadership in this sense would be to make those shadow performance visible, and especially folks who are working in very complex long-term projects, to make them feel the ta-das and not only the to-dos.
Christian Napier
53:57 - 54:10
I love it. We've gone almost 55 minutes, which is just crazy to me. This conversation has flown by. And Spencer, I know we need to get to your lightning round of questions.
Christian Napier
54:10 - 54:10
We don't
Spencer Horn
54:10 - 54:11
have to. I know you've
Christian Napier
54:11 - 54:12
got something on
Spencer Horn
54:12 - 54:13
your mind. I know you work
Christian Napier
54:13 - 54:17
hard. No, no, no, no, no. I want to get to the lightning round. I want to get to the lightning round.
Christian Napier
54:17 - 54:20
This has been a really, really great conversation. I've really enjoyed it.
Spencer Horn
54:22 - 54:49
Well, one of the things that I love that I will always remember when I heard Christian speak was this idea of tadas versus the to-dos. You know, we spend all our time, and there are some people who think, well, we get paid for the to-dos, and so that's enough applause. No, and learning how to give people applause in the way that they want to have it. Some people like that publicly.
Spencer Horn
54:50 - 55:04
Some people like that one-on-one. Some people, you know, it's going to be different for everybody. So again, that goes back to a positive leader knows what their people need in terms of applause. So I think that's really...
Spencer Horn
55:04 - 55:04
Or he
Christian Thiele
55:04 - 55:06
asks them. I mean, this is already
Spencer Horn
55:06 - 55:07
a... Just ask them, how do you like... The
Christian Thiele
55:08 - 55:08
lightness and
Spencer Horn
55:08 - 55:08
caring, yes.
Christian Thiele
55:08 - 55:09
Perfect.
Spencer Horn
55:09 - 55:13
Yeah, it's the easiest way. So, all right, are you ready for lightning round questions?
Christian Thiele
55:14 - 55:15
I am.
Spencer Horn
55:15 - 55:19
All right, here we go. One word that describes positive leadership.
Christian Thiele
55:24 - 55:24
Energy.
Spencer Horn
55:25 - 55:28
Excellent. Biggest misconception about happiness at work?
Christian Thiele
55:32 - 55:32
Shallow.
Spencer Horn
55:34 - 55:35
What brings you joy in your work?
Christian Thiele
55:41 - 55:52
Meaning, connection. Espresso. A
Spencer Horn
55:52 - 55:54
book you recommend to every leader.
Christian Thiele
55:56 - 56:16
There's actually two. Kim Cameron, practicing positive leadership, 2012, and Markus Ebner. He's an economic psychologist, an organizational psychologist from Vienna, and who has developed this Permalead model. I will put this
Spencer Horn
56:17 - 56:18
in the channel. E-I-B-N-E-R, Ebner?
Christian Thiele
56:19 - 56:21
Yes, yes, yes. So good at
Spencer Horn
56:21 - 56:27
languages. Thank you. Most underrated leadership habit?
Christian Thiele
56:31 - 56:35
Focusing on ta-das instead of only handing out to-dos like candy.
Spencer Horn
56:36 - 56:40
For some, that's harder for sure than others. Optimism, skill or trait?
Christian Thiele
56:47 - 56:57
Optimist and pessimist meet on the street. Optimist says, we actually live longer than you live. And the pessimist says, rightly so.
Spencer Horn
56:57 - 57:03
Favorite positive psychology principle.
Christian Thiele
57:08 - 57:11
connection, co-creation, togetherness.
Spencer Horn
57:12 - 57:12
In
Christian Thiele
57:13 - 57:30
all ways, you know, weak ties, strong ties. I feel so connected to you now over this cable under the ocean. And we are a thousand miles and I think seven hours away. So it's not only our neighbors, our community members,
Spencer Horn
57:30 - 57:30
the
Christian Thiele
57:30 - 57:31
strong power of the weak ties.
Spencer Horn
57:32 - 57:37
Yes. What's one thing leaders can do today to build more trust?
Christian Thiele
57:41 - 57:46
Talk about your doubts, talk about your fears, talk about what you fucked up.
Spencer Horn
57:46 - 57:49
Be vulnerable. In a good way. Yeah. Yeah.
Spencer Horn
57:49 - 57:57
Best advice you received on leadership?
Christian Thiele
57:57 - 57:58
It's allowed to have fun.
Spencer Horn
57:59 - 58:03
Allowed to have fun. You're allowed to have fun. One more. Complete this sentence, Christian.
Spencer Horn
58:03 - 58:06
Great teams thrive when leaders
Christian Thiele
58:12 - 58:26
find a good balance of being with them, next to them and behind them and sometimes above them and in front of them.
Christian Napier
58:32 - 59:00
Well, that is a great way to kind of cap off our hour of conversation today, Christian. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your ideas and your thoughts and your methods with us and our viewers and listeners today. If they want to reach out and connect with you over, you know, through cables that go under the ocean or other means, what's the best way for them to get in touch with
Christian Thiele
59:00 - 59:01
you?
Christian Napier
59:03 - 59:10
LinkedIn it is. And Spencer, you've been helping teams become high-performing for decades. What's the best way for folks? Same.
Christian Napier
59:10 - 59:12
Just say hi
Spencer Horn
59:12 - 59:21
to us on LinkedIn. Shout us out. And Christian, man, don't you think he's great, Mr. Thiele? He's so fantastic.
Spencer Horn
59:21 - 59:25
And so I know people need to reach out to you, Christian. How do they find you?
Christian Napier
59:25 - 59:40
Well, just a three for three LinkedIn dance here. Okay, so yes, please connect to us on LinkedIn and please like and subscribe to our podcast. We're so grateful for you for spending an hour with us today and we'll catch you again soon.