October 26, 2022
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Assuming that we could all use a little boost of happiness these days, I want to share some thoughts from a great book with you. If you get something out of it, I highly suggest getting your hands on the book for the full read. Below is a mix of Achor’s words directly from his book, The Happiness Advantage, my own summary of some of his points and my own reflections, including some thoughts on how this might be applicable to volunteer or donor management. Many of us have been taught that if we become successful, we will then become happy. The success, we’ve been told, has to come first. But Shawn Achor calls that whole notion into question. Recent research in the fields of positive psychology and neuroscience have proven that we’ve had the order in the relationship between success and happiness all wrong. It is not that success leads to happiness, but rather, that happiness leads to success. Doctors in a positive mood demonstrated almost 3 times more intelligence and creativity in diagnosing a case than doctors in a neutral state, and they made accurate diagnoses 19 times faster (and all it took to make them think happy thoughts was to be given a lollipop!) Optimistic salespeople outsell pessimist salespeople by over 50% Students made to feel happy about something before a math test outperform their neutral peers This has three important ramifications in volunteer management and donor relations. If you start your day or ready yourself for a challenging task by reflecting on things that make you happy or doing something that makes you happy, you’ll perform better for it. The environment in which your volunteers are engaged clearly matters. If they are happy, what they will succeed in accomplishing for you will go up. Campaigns encouraging donors to give out of a sense of happiness create a different experience with your organization than campaigns encouraging donors to give out of a sense of guilt. Happiness can act as an inoculation against stress. Tax season, as you can imagine, is a very stressful time for tax auditors. To put his seven principles to the test, Achor delivered three hours of positive psychology training to 250 managers at KPMG. When tested again later on, those auditors that had gone through the training reported significantly higher life satisfaction scores and lower stress levels than the control group who had not received the training. Change is possible. You might think that you are who are and that’s that. A growing body of science is teaching us that this just isn’t the case. Advances in the field of neuroplasticity show that the human brain has enormous growth potential. We don’t know the limits, but we do know that science has proven that brains can and do change and grow, that there are numerous ways we can rewire our brains, and that adopting the habits that improve our mindset have proven, long-lasting effects.
June 09, 2022Let’s simply skip all of the platitudes about the challenges of COVID and move straight to the learning; what did you learn about your organization during COVID? As we slowly (and perhaps prematurely) start to see the light at the end of the tunnel for COVID, each and every type of organization, and this especially includes non-profits, should take advantage of the opportunity to debrief the COVID chock and what it taught us about each of our organizations. There are lots of learning opportunities during COVID. Warren Buffett, in an admittedly different context, said that when the tide goes out, you get to see who has been swimming naked. COVID exposed the naked parts (and personnel) of a lot of organizations. However, COVID also exposed a lot of people who were wearing brilliantly and beautifully designed swimwear (to stretch the saying). COVID exposed the fact that organizations had inner strengths that were previously unacknowledged, underappreciated, and likely underutilized.
May 29, 2023People often see volunteering as a selfless act, and indeed it is. Volunteering is a powerful way to give back to your community and help others who are in need. However, a lesser-known fact about volunteering is that it may benefit volunteers themselves, particularly regarding their mental health. Check out this article to learn more.
