how to use your super power for good - peter bregman - harvard business review

8/3/2019 How to Use Your Super Power for Good - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/how-to-use-your-super-power-for-good-peter-bregman-harvard-business-review 1/4

Peter Bregman

Peter Bregman speaks, writes, and

consults on leadership. He is the CEO of

Bregman Partners, Inc., a global

management consulting firm, and the

author of Point B: A Short Guide To

Leading a Big Change . Sign up to receive

an email when he posts.

How to Use Your Super Power for Good10:45 AM Tuesday February 15, 2011 | Comments (22)

From: Last 24 Hours Last 7 Days Last 30 Days

RECENTLY FROM PETER BREGMAN

A Better Way to Manage Your To-Do List FEB 24

How to Use Your Super Power for Good FEB 15

Arguing Is Pointless FEB 8

The Secret to Ensuring Follow-Through JAN 25

A Life-or-Death Question to Start Your Day JAN 11

A Better Way to Manage Your To-Do List1.

The Words Many Managers Are Afraid To Say2.

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently3.

It's Time for a Vendetta Against Email4.

What Are You Not Good At?5.

Improve Your Public Speaking with a More

Effective Mindset

6.

How to Keep Your Temper at Work (And

Everywhere Else)

7.

A Life-or-Death Question to Start Your Day8.

On: Managing Yourself, Leadership Development, Communication

Cart

My Account

Downloads

Subscribe Sign in / RegisterRegister today and save 20%* off your first order! Details

to Use Your Super Power for Good - Peter Bregman - Harvard Busi... http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2011/02/how-to-use-your-super-pow

2/25/2011



The Office ofStrategy

Management--The State of the Art,2011

by David Norton, Randall Russell$9.50

Buy it now »

Stop HoldingYourself Back

by Anne Morriss,Robin Ely,Frances Frei

$6.95

Buy it now »

OverloadedCircuits: WhySmart PeopleUnderperform

by EdwardHallowell

$6.95

Buy it now »

FEATURED PRODUCTS

Email

Tweet This

Post to Facebook

Share on LinkedIn

Print

[For more, visit the Communication Insight Center.]

I folded my bike and carried it into the lobby of the office

building in midtown Manhattan. The security guard behind the

desk looked up at me, grimaced, then looked down again and

growled something indecipherable.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

He sighed loudly and didn't say anything for a moment. Then,

without bothering to look at me, he said, "You're not coming

in here with that."

I was already jittery because of a near miss with a taxi on the

ride over, and this deflated me even more. It wasn't his

message — I've faced many security guards who don't like to

permit bicycles into their buildings — it was his cold,

disdainful tone.

I tried to stay calm and upbeat. I showed him how small it

was, folded. I told him I had a bag I could put it in. He

repeated the same line.

Finally, after citing the The Bicycle Access to Office BuildingsLaw, which requires New York City buildings with freight

elevators to admit bicycles, he let me in.

When I made it to the freight elevator, I smiled at the

operator who was joking with some construction workers. He

looked at me then looked back at his friends and kept talking.

I waited uncomfortably for several minutes, and then asked

him if he would take me to the 19th floor. He said something

rude to his friends about tenants, took me up in silence, and

left me in a small vestibule with a locked door but no clear

way to enter.

He shut his door as I was asking him how to get in. "Try

pushing the button," he barked through the closed elevator

door. I saw the button he meant and pushed. At this point I

was feeling lower than low.

Then, like magic, my morning changed.

"Hi! You must be Peter. Welcome!" Lisa*, the receptionist, sang as she opened the door. She

smiled, and then looked worried. "Why did you come up in the freight?"

I explained my morning and she frowned empathetically. "I'm so sorry, That's terrible. Here, let me

take your bike."

I could have cried from happiness. In one second, Lisa turned my emotions around, from the

negative spiral of anger, frustration, and despair to the positive spiral of relief, appreciation, and

happiness.

And that's when I realized: We all have super powers.

We can make people feel good or bad by as simple a thing as a gesture, an expression, a word, or

a tone of voice.

But wait. Can I really blame my grumpiness on you? Isn't each person responsible for his or her

own mood?

Here's what we know: Like the common cold, emotions are contagious. Caroline Bartel at New

Facebook Twitter RSS iPhone

Newsletters LinkedIn YouTube Google

Why Innovation Is So Hard in Health Care9.

What Is Your Brand Against?10.

All Most Popular »

STAY CONNECTED TO HBR


2/25/2011



York University and Richard Saavedra at the University of Michigan studied 70 work groups across

a variety of industries and found that people who worked together ended up sharing moods, good

and bad. Moods converge.

This is particularly important to understand for people in positions of authority because leaders,

more than anyone, set and spread the mood. If you've ever worked in an office, you know this from

experience. If the boss is in a bad mood, conflicts increase. If she's in a good mood, people lighten

up.

Does that mean we aren't responsible if we snap at someone in the hallway? That it's really the

fault of the guy who bumped into us on the subway and didn't apologize?

Look at it this way: If you catch a cold from someone, does that mean you can go around sneezing

on everyone else? You might be able to blame your mood on someone else, but you're still

responsible for what you pass to others.

Nevertheless, it's hard to completely avoid infecting others when you have a cold. Several years

ago I was asked to coach Renée, a senior manager in a retail company, who was receiving

feedback that she was too harsh with her employees. She often raised her voice, criticized them

mercilessly for mistakes, and humiliated them for not knowing things.

When I spoke to others in the office, I found out that the CEO to whom Renée reported treated his

direct reports the same way. He was short-tempered, yelled a lot, and demanded perfection from

others.

That didn't make it okay for Renée to treat her direct reports that way; it just made it harder for her

not to.

Which is a problem for the business because mood affects performance. According to research

done by Sigal Barsade at Yale University, positive moods improved cooperation, decreased

conflict, and increased performance.

So what's the solution?

Know your emotions, be in touch with your moods, and think of them like the common cold. If you

feel infected by bad cheer, take a deep breath, recognize how you're feeling, and choose not to

pass it on.

Instead, treat people with the empathy, care, and good humor that will make them feel happier,

more connected, and more productive.

Here's the good news: Barsade's research found that positive moods are just as contagious as

negative moods.

Is it really a choice though? If you're in a bad mood, can you decide to be happy? I find it hard,

inauthentic, even dishonest, to do feign happiness.

But I have found a pretty simple solution to turning it all around: Kindness.

No matter how bad a mood I'm in, I've found it pretty straightforward to treat others with kindness.

And that, invariably, has a positive affect on those around me, which, as we've seen, has a positiveaffect on me. And, voilà, my mood changes for the better.

When Lisa brought me to my client's office, I told him how my ugly morning had been turned around

by his delightful receptionist. He responded with a story of his own. Once, when Lisa was sick and

couldn't come to work, a quiet and reserved man named Frank, acted as receptionist for the day.

Frank was not the sing-song type.

But he was used to Lisa's good cheer. Each morning, like everyone else in the office, he received

her buoyant emails welcoming people to the office. And, on this particular day, when he was asked

to fill in for Lisa, the mere memory of her lighthearted emotions was enough to influence Frank.

First thing that morning, on his own initiative, Frank wrote an email to the whole office that read:


2/25/2011



PREVIOUS

Arguing Is Pointless

NEXT

A Better Way to Manage Your To-Do List

23 people liked this.

"It's Pizzaaaaaaa for lunch! I hope everybody has a Happy Day!!!!!!"

*Names changed

More on: Communication, Managing yourself

Join the Discussion | Email/Share

Never miss a new post from your favorite blogger again with the Harvard Business Review Daily Alert

email . The Alert delivers the latest blog posts from HBR.org directly to your inbox every morning at 8:00 AM

ET.

TRACKBACKS

TrackBack URL for this entry:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/8858

No trackbacks have been made to this entry.

COMMENTS

Showing 22 comments

Sort by Subscribe by email Subscribe by RSS

What is interesting here is that we humans are in so many ways followers. Either you follow the emotional

lead someone sets, or you don't, and if you don't there is a decent chance they will follow YOUR lead, which

makes you the default leader. How cool is that? How is that for a super-power. What is required? Being

aware of your own emotions. You may find yourself grumpy, and realize you "caught" it from someone else,

and you can change your emotion, and now you are leading again, not following (especially following

someone you don't want to).

Great stuff, Peter, thank you!

David Kaiser, Ph.D.

Executive Coach and CEO,

www.DarkMatterConsulting.com

David Kaiser and 8 more liked this

Hi David - I love how you put that - leadership really can come from anyone, anywhere.

David Kaiser and 2 more liked this

Thanks, Peter!

Excellent! I couldn't agree more. Questions as to what YOU can do to open the door to your own Super

Powers are hot topic. I built www.youthmuse.comto start opening those doors early on.


2/25/2011

how to use your super power for good - peter bregman - harvard business review

Documents