I was in the ninth cohort of the Master of Applied Positive Program at Penn. Consequently, there are tons of brilliant MAPP Alumni out there that have very fascinating stories to tell: about their experience with the program, about Positive Psychology in general – and about themselves of course. I really want to hear those stories. That´s why I started to do Mappsterviews with my predecessors.
Today, you are going to meet Margaret Greenberg from MAPP 1, the very first group of Mappsters to be taught at Penn. She co-authored a very successful book that I also included in my Positive Psychology at Work Book List.
Please introduce yourself briefly:
Like all of us, I wear many hats. I’m a wife to my sweet husband Neal of 30 years. I’m a mother to our two bright and beautiful twenty-something daughters. I’m an entrepreneur, having started my consulting/coaching practice, The Greenberg Group, in 1997 after spending the first 15 years of my career in corporate HR/Learning & Development. I’m a certified executive coach, speaker, and co-author of Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business with fellow MAPPster Senia Maymin, and positive business columnist for Live Happy Magazine. I also do fundraising for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in honor of both my mother and mother-in-law. Finally, I enjoy being outside in nature, as well as inside baking, as you can probably tell from all the photos I post on Facebook!
What did you do before MAPP?
I’m doing after MAPP the same thing I did before MAPP – coaching business leaders and their teams to achieve more than they ever thought possible. The only difference is that I now have more research and resources to draw upon, and I’m writing a heck of a lot more. We all entered MAPP with our own set of experiences and education. To prevent positive psychology from becoming just another fad (I don’t even like to use the term “movement”) I believe it’s prudent for us practitioners to view positive psychology as just one more body of knowledge that we bring to our professions and lives.
What got you interested in Positive Psychology in the first place?
I had been in practice for 8 years as an executive coach when I learned of MAPP. What was missing from my coaching certification was the science behind what we do as coaches. I’ll never forget the day an email popped up in my inbox about this new graduate program in positive psychology. I ran, yes ran, outside to share my excitement with my husband who was gardening. “Go for it,” he said. “Yeah, but what if I get in, then what?” The rest is history as they say.
I´ve noticed that you´ve written your MAPP thesis on optimistic managers. Shouldn´t managers be more the critical, discerning type of person?
Most certainly managers need to think critically to come up with innovative solutions to business challenges. The trouble arises when managers apply this same critical thinking to the people they lead. Case in point: If all I do is look for things you are not doing right, and skip over the things you’re doing well, that can be pretty discouraging. In our book we offer several practical tools to combat this tendency. We call them “Capitalize on What’s Right”, “Find Solutions Not Faults”, and “Obsess Over Strengths, but Don’t Ignore Weaknesses”.
The title of your book is “Profit from the Positive”. Please tell us a bit more about that!
Writing PFTP with a fellow MAPPster has been one of the most rewarding experiences. Senia and I each brought different strengths to the virtual table (Senia is on the west coast of the US and I’m on the east). We really wanted to bring what we were learning from applying positive psychology with our coaching clients to a much broader audience. The book is written for business leaders, HR professionals, and coaches in particular, but we have had readers tell us they found one or more of our 31 tools helpful in their own personal life. I’m happy to report that it will be translated into Chinese next month, and Korean and Japanese early next year. People can see what we’re up to by visiting our website, Facebook page, or connect with us on our LinkedIn Pulse blogs or @profitbook on Twitter.
OK, in my day job, I´m a manager myself. Which three things should I (personally) start doing right away?
First, recognize what we call the “Achoo! Effect”. Our emotions are contagious. Be sure you are spreading cheer, not fear at work (or at home). Second, if you do performance reviews at your company, be sure to preview, don’t just review Performance. Finally, I’d also recommend that you give FRE, which stands for frequent recognition and encouragement, to your employees, peers, and even your Boss. This was one of the key research findings from my Capstone that I collaborated on with another MAPPster, Dana Arakawa. Chris Peterson was our advisor and I will be forever be grateful for his guidance on this study, which is available on the University of Pennsylvania’s Scholarly Commons, and has been downloaded over 7,000 times.
And what kind of initiatives would you recommend on the organizational level?
I think there are lots of opportunities to be what Senia and I call a “positive deviant”. We’ve worked with companies large and small at the individual, team and organizational levels. Here are a few practical applications of positive psychology at the org level. To improve:
- Strategy and Planning: Use the S.O.A.R. analysis (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results) rather than the traditional S.P.O.T. analysis (Strengths, Problems, Opportunities, and Threats).
- Recruiting: Revamp hiring practices to include “Hiring for What’s Not on the Resume” to get at the more intangible social and emotional intelligence skills that are most predictive of success and higher Retention. In fact, there are many HR practices that need to be revamped to focus more on what’s going right, such as performance reviews that I mentioned earlier.
- Meetings: Start and end meetings on a positive note.
- Leadership and Talent Development Programs: That’s a topic for a whole other interview!
Thanks a lot, Margaret (on the left), for this Mappsterview!
Mappalicious 