Learning to be a hero is more important than you might think.

Article by Brooke Allen, Interview by Adrienne Rodney and Brooke Allen.

Last summer we interviewed Dr. Phillip Zimbardo about his Heroic Imagination Project.

Before we met Dr. Phillip Zimbardo it wasn’t clear what a hero is or how frequently we all are presented with opportunities to be one. Zimbardo defines heroes as people who put themselves at risk for the benefit of others. Altruism is “heroism lite” – helping others without expectation of gain. When most people say someone is a “hero” they really mean “role model.” Sports figures, celebrities, or business leaders may or may not be good role models, but few are well known for heroism.

Phil Zimbardo is perhaps the greatest living psychologist. He has been the president of the American Psychological Association, hosted the 26 episode PBS series titled Discovering Psychology, and authored many books, including a favorite, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. But Phil is most famous for the Stanford Prison Study conducted 40 years ago.

Please, take a few minutes to watch our interview and then answer a few questions.

____

Can you imagine being a hero, or even wanting to be one? 

Before you answer, can you imagine the following conversations?

Conversation #1: Saleswoman, “May I tell you about our product?”

Prospect, “Possibly. But first, would you ever lie to a customer?”

Saleswoman, “Let’s just say that I will never let my children starve.”

Prospect, “Are you married? Does your husband have a job?”

Saleswoman, “Yes and Yes.”

Prospect, “Sometimes it feels like there are more unemployed unwed mothers feeding their children than there are honest salespeople.”

Saleswoman, “Whatever. Now, may I tell you about my product?”

Prospect, “No.”

Conversation #2: Hiring manager, “I have lots of unemployed friends. Would you mind if I introduced one of them to fill the vacancy you’ll leave behind?”

Job Candidate, “I would not recommend anyone do my job because my job requires I do unethical things.”

Hiring manager, “Then I can’t hire you because you are saying you are the most unethical person in the world. You do things so unethical you would not recommend anyone else on the planet do them other than you. You think it is ok to be unethical as long as it isn’t your idea.”

Conversation #3: College Career Officer, “Last year I told our president that for three years every graduate from one of our departments has been unable to get a job in their field, and I feel an obligation to disclose this fact to our students. He ordered me to stop keeping track and never disclose this fact because, as he said, ‘What am I going to do with the department? Don’t be selfish; think of your colleagues.’”

Friend, “What did you do?”

Career Officer, “I did what he said. What else could I do? I’m not selfish.”

Conversation #4. Job Candidate, “After 21 years of competent and loyal service I uncovered some shenanigans in one of our divisions. My boss and his boss didn’t seem to care so, after exhausting all internal options I quit and went to the regulators who nipped it in the bud. Although it cost me and two layers of management our jobs, I saved the shareholders boatloads of money. Now I’d like to do the same thing for your shareholders.”

Hiring Manager, “When can you start?”

____

I (Brooke) can imagine conversations #1 through #3 because I’ve personally participated in similar ones.

I can imagine the fourth only because I have an active imagination.

Phil Zimbardo believes we all need to imagine having conversations like #4 and we should never find ourselves involved with the first three.

He started his Heroic Imagination Project in San Francisco where he is raising money to sponsor heroism research and to educate people on how to be everyday heroes. He told us that, while you might benefit from a heroic act, it cannot be your motivation.

Not only do we need to strive to do the right thing every day, we must “Learn to love the whistle blower.” He should know. He had a whistleblower for his 1971 experiment. A recently minted doctorate in psychology, Christina Maslach was appalled at the change in Phil’s personality and behavior while he was conducting his prison study. She called him on it. They married the following year.

Do you want to be a hero?

Don’t your customers, employees, employers, students, shareholders, loved ones, and future generations need you to at least try?

You can learn more about what it means to be a hero by watching our interview with Dr. Zimbardo and then visiting The Heroic Imagination Project website to learn how to imagine being one and to help the cause.

And, while you’re here, please post a comment.

We are particularly interested in a story about a hero in your life, or a situation where you wish there was one on hand.

HOW AMERICA CAN LEVEL-UP SKILLS AND LAND GOOD JOBS.

Article and Video Interview by Brooke Allen

I’ve often wondered what can be done to make it fun to learn new skills and hunt for a job. Surely if FarmVille can make farming fun, and Call of Duty can make war fun, isn’t it possible for the people who produce those games to apply what they know to making the process of finding and qualifying for a job just a little bit more effective and enjoyable?

As it turns out, the answer is: ABSOLUTELY.

Recently I discussed this very question with Gabe Zichermann, an expert in “gamification,” author of Game Based Marketing, and creator of the Gamification Blog.

Gabe explained that the job search is usually a long process that has many moving parts including the concept of career mastery. He says this is the kind of thing that is well suited to modern multi-player social games.

In order to take someone through the “player’s journey,” game designers break complex processes into their component pieces and by providing guidance and rewards along the way. As missions are completed and skills are “leveled-up,” the player can look back later to see that they have accomplished something amazing – and had fun along the way.

After hearing his fascinating advice on how you can make your own job search more fun for you and for those who are helping you, I asked Gabe if this idea has ever been commercialized.

After all, Zynga has figured out how to get 1% of the world’s population to play Farmville, growing crops that nobody can eat. You join for free through Facebook and begin building your farm. Then you invite friends to start neighboring farms, and you interact daily, by visiting each other and complete specialized tasks in order to receive rewards and “farm coins” which you can use to buy gifts for your friends.

Gabe has famously highlighted Farmville’s social aspect by calling it “poke with cows.”

Wouldn’t it be great if Zynga created a “JobsVille” as “poke with resumes” – a place where you and your friends can help each other level-up your real-world connections and skills, land good jobs, and put real food on the table? What’s in it for Zynga? After all, if Zynga goes public, they will have shareholders to feed. As Gabe suggested in the interview, if people help you with editing a resume, making an introduction, or practicing an interview, it is entirely appropriate you reward them, perhaps with a real (or virtual) gifts bought through the game platform.

Better yet, why not help a charity in the name of the person who helped you?

Zynga has already thought of this; they handle the distribution of charitable contributions from their users through their non-profit Zynga.org.

Gabe told me he has not heard of a single person who has made a massively multi-player on-line social game out of the job hunt, but that it is ripe for development.

by Steve Amoia for No Shortage of Work

Playing baseball was Joe DiMaggio’s first real job as an adult. He had worked at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco with his father, and sold newspapers as a boy. Neither job held much appeal to him.

Few first jobs in life could have the impact of this one. To be a first generation Italian-American teenager with a job at the ballpark. To watch the first American sports icon, Joe DiMaggio, in a way that few could imagine.

An American Cultural Icon

If you ever played baseball, the mystical Joe DiMaggio was as familiar as the crack of the bat, or the thud of the ball hitting the back of the catcher’s mitt. Just like cold beer, hot dogs, and the seventh inning stretch, Joe DiMaggio was an integral part of American baseball tradition and lore.

Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio was born in Martinez, California, on Nov. 25, 1920, and died March 08, 1999 in Hollywood, Florida. He was the eighth of nine children born to Giuseppe and Rosalia, who were immigrants from the Sicilian island of Isola della Femmina (Women’s Island). His father was a fisherman; however, young Joe did not like the rigors of Fisherman’s Wharf. He preferred to play on the sandlots of North Beach, which was and is an Italian neighborhood of San Francisco. His father thought that Joe was lazy, and hoped that the allure of baseball would soon leave his son. Young Joe was not an avid student, and at the age of 16, he dropped out of Galileo High School,
and worked various laborer jobs for the next few years.

From North Beach to the Bronx

He played semi-professional baseball for the San Francisco Seals, and after hitting in 61 consecutive games, his star rose in the direction of the New York Yankees. He was scouted and later signed by the Bronx Bombers. His career with New York spanned from 1936 to 1951, and included a three year break during World War II. Two of his brothers, Dominic and Vincent, also played professional baseball, respectively. Interestingly, all three played the position of center field.

In an era without television and mass communications, DiMaggio became an American cultural icon. Mostly due to radio broadcasts, magazines and newspapers. To Italian-Americans, and other new immigrants, he represented much more than the perfect swing, the graceful strides, his devotion to Marilyn Monroe, or “The Streak” (he hit safely in 56 straight games in 1941) that would make him immortal. Mr. DiMaggio exemplified that a first generation American could assimilate and become a reference point in the nation’s most popular game of baseball. This sport has the same popularity in the United States as soccer does in the rest of the world.

Rare Childhood Opportunity

My father, Michael Amoia, had a rare opportunity as a child. His family lived near Griffith Stadium, which was at that time the home of the Washington Redskins and Senators. In 1965, the stadium was torn down, and now is the site of the Howard University Hospital. My father was very athletic, and competed in baseball and football for his high school, McKinley Technical. Somehow, and it remains a family mystery, my father obtained a job working for both the Redskins and Senators. My grandfather was not a sportsman, and one can imagine that few adolescents would have been brave enough to walk into the administrative offices of Griffith Stadium to ask for a job.

The ironic facet of this story was that few of his old friends knew about this part of his life. When I mentioned the experience during his eulogy, some of his friends approached me later with seeming disbelief. It was a memory from my father’s life that was very private, but one that always fascinated me.

During his life, he would mention DiMaggio on occasion. I had an older cousin, Robert, who had heard the story in more detail. My father worked in the clubhouse for the Redskins, and was a batboy for the Washington Senators, where his assignment was the visitor’s dugout and clubhouse. He handed Joe DiMaggio his bat on several occasions. My father was able to observe Mr. DiMaggio both on and off the field, and the experience was imbued upon his memory.

Lessons and Memories for a Lifetime

First jobs teach us lessons for a lifetime. In my father’s case, they provided extremely rare memories. He witnessed how a famous athlete conducted himself on and off the baseball diamond. Athletes are not role models nor should be. But my father saw how a quiet, shy man from San Francisco handled intense pressure. He made the effort to remember the name of a young Italian kid called Mike. That alone might have been the most precious memory.

Personal Reflections by Michael Amoia

Dad, what was he like?

“He was a very quiet and private man. In the clubhouse, he didn’t say much, and the other players left him alone. But you knew he was their leader. He had custom-made suits, and always looked sharp. He even looked good in those baggy uniforms they wore back then. He used to drink coffee and smoke Chesterfields between innings, and a few times we had to run out to by him smokes.

You were told by the Senators to treat all the players the same, but with Mr. DiMaggio, it was a different story. After the games, he used to sign balls for me. I sold them outside the stadium for $1. That was a lot of money in those days. That’s how we were paid. We had to ask the players to sign balls or broken bats.”

What made him great?

“Instincts. He always seemed to do the right thing. You never saw him out of position in the outfield. He was quick as a cat. Strong arm. Didn’t miss cutoff men. At bat, you never saw a smoother or quicker swing. Only Ted Williams was a better hitter. He could hit for power and for a high average. He was very graceful for a big man, and ran the bases very well. He played each inning as if it were his last. I never saw him get angry.”

Few of us could have such a childhood memory. It is said that youth is wasted on the young; however, in my father’s case, I would beg to differ. A job that didn’t pay him a salary provided him with a lifetime of memories.

“Do the job in the interview.” Joe DiMaggio did it every day.

Do you have an interesting story about your first job? Please share it with us.

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

— Paul Simon, “Mrs. Robinson.”

Steve Amoia is a freelance writer, editor, and translator from Washington, D.C. He focuses on alternative health, career-related themes, historical figures, Italian and international soccer, and martial arts. He can be contacted at info@sanstefano.com and his writing portfolio can be found at www.sanstefano.com.

How my grandparents thrived during the 1930′s.

by: Brooke Allen

The Great Depression was very good to my Grandparents, and it wasn’t a matter of luck so much as the approach they took to their circumstances. What they did, you can do.

In the mid 1920′s they met on a date in New York City and decided to marry within a week. Granddad Tom was assigned to Havana to start a bureau for the United Press International; he and Anne married in Key West on the way to Cuba.

When he returned near the end of the decade he was handed a 40% pay cut, even though the cost of living was higher in New York City than in Cuba.

If that wasn’t bad enough, in October of 1929, the Stock Market crashed and the economy began a long slide into what became the Great Depression. Granddad survived multiple rounds of layoffs by accepting further pay cuts.

Grandmother Anne realized that they couldn’t afford their current rent, so she found a bank that would rent to them the mansion of a bankrupt stockbroker for less money. To help care for the children, she found a lovely couple at the unemployment office. The wife was a nurse and her husband was a handyman. They exchanged room and board for childcare and yard work.

Then Anne took a job as a receptionist with a developer who was building houses on the farm next to their rented home in White Plains. Soon she was managing four salesmen. She received 25 percent of the salesmen’s commission on every home sold.

Grandmother convinced the developer to build at cost a home for them in exchange for using it as a show model. She became a stellar saleswoman in her own right. Before long, her commissions had completely covered the construction costs, and the home was theirs outright.

Granddad wrote to a friend that the Great Depression had been unbelievably good to them. Before the Crash they had had high hopes, but owning a house ‘free and clear’ in just a few years was inconceivable. Where could they have found a trained nurse and groundskeeper simply by letting them live in a spare bedroom and join them for meals? Freed of the burden of paying bills, the young couple soon saved enough money working odd-jobs to buy a gas station and start their own business. Because most of his coworkers had either been laid off (or quit rather than take a pay cut), Granddad had no competition as senior positions became available. His career took off.

Here are some of the lessons I have learned from my Grandparents:

Grab the bull by the horns. They never tried to deny the facts of a bad situation.

Get lucky by planning for the worst. Because they never expected things to get better, they worked very hard in the present to survive the worst-case future scenario. Invariably things worked out better than expected so their less industrious friends considered them very lucky.

Find the opportunity, not the excuse. I never once heard my grandparents explain why they were unable to do something. Instead, it seemed they were always asking, “What just got better?” In this story, the things that got better included: rents declined, it became easier to advance simply by being loyal, a soft housing market meant the builder would make a deal, and the cost of childcare dropped.

Keep working. In 1993 I returned from a high paying job in Japan to face an economy in terrible recession. I accepted a consulting position that paid about 80% less than what I’d made the prior year, and I am glad that I did because I maintained discipline and I improved my technical skills. It took a few years, but eventually I eclipsed my prior successes, and I owe it to the skills I honed as a consultant.

Adjust your price. During the first year of the Great Depression prices declined by 27%, which meant that you could take a 25% pay cut and have a real raise in purchasing-power terms. But the real question is, What is the price for what you can do? In 1993 there was no market in New York for what I had done in Tokyo in 1992, so I accepted what the market was willing to pay for what I could do.

Learn to be a good salesman. My grandmother learned a lot from Dale Carnegie, and then she sold him a property in White Plains. She knew that done properly, selling is an unselfish act that involves motivating others to do what is in their best interests, not just your own.

Share; don’t do it alone. By sharing her home and food with a struggling young couple, my grandmother was free to take a  job and everyone came out ahead.

Survival is a better strategy than winning. In natural selection, the species that survive are winners, not the ones who hog all the resources to themselves. I will talk more about this in a subsequent piece.

—

Did you learn something from someone who went through the Great Depression?

Post a comment and tell us.

by: Brooke Allen

Read this and watch this if you wish your life were more meaningful and fun.

In 1970, during my senior year in High School, my father told me, “It is easier to make money doing what makes you happy than to buy happiness with the money you are paid for doing what makes you miserable.” With that, he quit the business world and returned to being a full-time sculptor. For the remaining 30 years of his life, he made almost no money.

I have discovered (as did my father) that it is not particularly easy to make money doing what makes you happy. Example: You want to get paid to play video games?… good luck with that.

My father’s words are true because no matter how much money you have, it is impossible to buy happiness if your life’s work makes you miserable.

If you want to make money, do what makes other people happy. And, if you want to become rich, do what makes rich people even richer. If you want to make money in the video game business, make games others want to play.

As the head of a quantitative trading group at a securities firm, I consider some of my most important deliverables to be: 1) keeping things interesting, 2) keeping things fun, 3) keeping us from doing stupid things.

To this end, on Sunday our group and a bunch of our friends (including a few NSoW subscribers) are going on a week-long cruise to Bermuda where we will discuss a dozen books we’ve read on everything from psychology and economics to sociology and management. I’ve hired experts to run workshops on reputation banking, standing up to management (i.e. me), collaborative consumption, and game design. (You can read about the cruise here.)

One of our books is The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell, professor at Carnegie Mellon, and founder of Schell Games. In it Jesse says “Game design is the act of deciding what a game should be.” The book presents 100 “lenses” which are collections of questions to ask yourself during the design process.

As I read the book, I was reminded of another thing my artist/businessman father told me, “Everything is about everything.” Even though I am not a game designer, everything in the book seems to apply to some aspect of my life.

Here are a few examples:

From: The Secret of the Gifted (page 6)

You might have noticed that skilled game designers seem to have a special gift for the work. It comes easily and naturally to them, and though you love games, you wonder if you are gifted enough to succeed as a designer. Well, there is a little secret about gifts. There are two kinds. First there is the innate gift of a given skill. This is the minor gift. If you have the gift, a skill such as game design, mathematics, or playing the piano comes naturally to you. You can do it easily, almost without thinking. But you don’t necessarily enjoy doing it. There are millions of people with minor gifts of all kinds, who, though skilled, never do anything great with their gifted skill, and this is because they lack the major gift.

The major gift is love of the work.

From: The Deepest Theming (page 460)

You might think it is easy to listen to yourself. But our subconscious mind holds many secrets. We often do things, and we don’t know why. Why, for instance, is game design very important to you? Do you know? You might think that the time for this kind of self-reflection can come later. But it can’t, because life is very short. In a blink, you will look up, and realize you don’t have any time left. For time destroys everything, takes everything away. Like Poe’s raven, it mocks you, crackling “nevermore” as it glides into the night. You can’t stop it. Your only hope is to do your important work now, while you still can. You must run like death is behind you because death is behind you. Quick – take this lens so you don’t forget.

From: Lens #99: The Lens of the Raven (page 460)

To remember to only work on what is important, ask yourself this question

• Is making this game worth my time?

From: Lens #100: The Lens of Your Secret Purpose (page 461)

To make sure you are working toward your one true purpose, ask yourself the only question that matters.

• Why am I doing this?

I wrote to Jesse and asked if I might interview him. Here is an excerpt from my email:

It feels like I can convert your book into a handbook for life by simply doing a global search and replace of “game” with “life.”

So, your new book becomes The Art of Life Design.

Hence, “Life design is the act of deciding what a life should be.”

We’ll need a new word to replace “player” to refer to both you and the people you interact with in your life. For now, I’m going to coin a new definition of the word “lifer’ to mean someone who is committed to playing this game we call life for the duration.

And it seems like a good idea to design one’s own life as a fun one worth living for intrinsic reasons while delivering endogenous value to other lifers who interact with you. You make an excellent case for educating oneself broadly, and for developing the major gift: the love of one’s life work.

Although we start with our genes, we become the sum total of our life experiences, so it is useful to focus on life in terms of the experiences one creates for oneself.

In the interview I’m going to ask you to comment on some of your lenses with these substitutions made. Examples:

#3 Lens of Fun:

Fun is desirable in nearly every life, although fun defies analysis. To maximize your life’s fun, ask yourself:

• What parts of my life are fun? Why?
• What parts need to be more fun?

(Are you saying everyone is a lifer and it sure would be a shame to reach the end and say, ‘Boy, that was no fun.’)

#6 Lens of Problem Solving

Think about the problems you must solve to succeed at your life, for every life has problems to solve.

• What problems does my life ask me to solve?
• Are there hidden problems to solve that arise as part of lifeplay?
• How can my life generate new problems so that I keep coming back?

(Are you saying problems are good? A reason for living?)

Anyway, you get the idea. To be honest, I haven’t read the entire book yet, but so far I have not found a single lens that doesn’t apply to Life Design, but I’m sure you are aware of that because I’ve skipped to the end and read your #100: The Lens of Your Secret Purpose.

Why did you write this book?

I think I’ve uncovered your Secret Purpose.

Jesse responded:

Hi Brooke-

Heh — you figured out the secret of the book, all right! … I look forward to talking to you.

The next day I drove to Pittsburgh and interviewed him.

If you have the slightest interest in improving some aspect of your life, be it the amount of fun, meaning, success, profitability, excitement, or even beauty and elegance you experience, then I strongly recommend you buy The Art of Game Design, read it, and then apply what you learn to designing your life. And, if after you read it, you can’t figure out what to do, then give the book to someone who can, and then watch with envy what they make of their life.

After you’ve ordered the book, while you are waiting for delivery, watch excerpts from my interview with Jesse here. He will explain why, “Game design is bigger than all other kinds of design because everything can be part of a game.” You knew this when you were a playful child; now you can relearn it as an adult.

Note: This is the most positive endorsement I have ever made for anything to date, and you need to know that I am not paid to do this and I have no personal stake in Jesse or this book. If you write a book this good, I’ll say good things about it too.

Review by: John Lester with Sara McDermott

In the past 100 years, the world has been changing at a rapid rate. Now, more than at any other time in history, both information and human connection can be delivered at an alarming speed; truly, the world is entering a new dimension of discovery and consumption. The Power of Pull discusses this phenomenon and how it affects everything and everyone, from an individual, to a company, to a nation.

The title comes from authors John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison’s definition of ‘pull’ as “The ability to draw out people and resources as needed to address opportunities and challenges.” A powerful concept. They discuss how advances in technology aren’t only changing access to information, but also how the amount of easily-available information is changing the whole competitive landscape of business. Major consumer products and institutions, from cassettes to the U.S. Post Office, are now approaching oblivion as a result of not adapting to the times. This ties into another key concept presented in the book, ‘push,’ which deals with the dissolution of the current business structure.

The authors go on to break the ‘pull’ concept down into three levels: access, attract, and achieve. They then analyze, level by level, the methods used by individuals and companies who have been able to harness the power of pull and achieve great results.

Perhaps most importantly, the book makes the reader think about why they should change their current formula for success. Very convincing is their argument that, as the world constantly evolves, so must the individual evolve with it in order to stay on top. Anyone who has mastered the power of pull through new technology is already ahead of their competitors. Also, the book points out that generating competition and more opportunities to create value among employees will lead to a more dynamic and profitable business.

This book is very accessible to a general audience, despite the scholarly subject matter. While the book has a few slow sections, they are brief. All in all, it offered a fascinating portrait of the current world, and acted as a guide for maneuvering through a time of unpredictable change.

A book review by Steve Amoia

Carmine Gallo is a respected business journalist by training. He created a company, Gallo Communications, that provides presentation, media training and communication skills advice for some of the world’s most recognized brands. His first book about the iconic CEO of Apple Computer, entitled The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, was a best seller. Gallo’s newest offering, The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success, no doubt will achieve similar success. This compelling book is a deep look into a man that figuratively and literally changed millions of lives.

Compelling Introduction Set the Tone

Many of Jobs’ innovation secrets were used by the author in this book. Gallo opened with a provocative quote attributed to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times: “We need to create more Jobs.” It was a play on words about the Apple CEO, but one that clearly exemplified one of his key tenets: Master the Message. Speaking of messages, one by Gallo immediately grabs your attention:

“Michelangelo looked at a marble block and saw David. Steve Jobs looked at a computer and saw a tool to unleash human potential.”

Concise, Insightful and Organized Format

Gallo used short, easy-to-digest chapters to outline seven innovation principles of Steve Jobs. All sections followed the same format. First we see Jobs implementing the principle in question at different times in his life. The next chapter illustrates examples from other business professionals. The author provided three “iLessons” after each chapter to reinforce your learning. It is a “Rule of Three” that frequently appears in this book, and is one of Jobs’ key presentation and persuasive tools.

Memorable Quotes

Unlike his product line, Steve Jobs does not maintain a high-visibility. One feature of this book that stood out was the sheer volume of notable quotes by Jobs. The author didn’t interview Jobs; however, he provided numerous examples of direct quotes to enhance the many lessons provided in this book. Here were a few of my favorites:

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” (A principle inherent with Apple Computer’s mission and philosophy.)

“1000 songs in your pocket.” (iPod)

“Hold the Internet in your hand.” (iPad)

“Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” (iPhone)

“What Would Steve Do?”

The above quote is frequently stated or implied in this work by Gallo. This “Steve” read the book, and is glad that he did. It has made me question and enhance design considerations at my international soccer site and online portfolio. This book challenges us to examine better methods to cultivate and present ideas both personally and professionally. The added benefit is that Steve Jobs and Carmine Gallo are there to help us.

My Rating: *****

Steve Amoia is a freelance writer, editor and translator from Washington, D.C. He is a contributor to NSoW, and is the founder of World Football Commentaries.

Present Like Steve Jobs

Please note:

No Shortage of Work and the book reviewer were not compensated for this article.

by David Iscoe

It’s pretty much a truism that good workers take their jobs seriously. Employers want people who are invested in the work and care about what they’re doing. If you don’t care about what you’re doing, it’s hard to be at your most productive.

What is less well known, but almost as important, is the need to have a sense of humor about your work. It can help improve relations within the company and with customers, and make employees happier and less stressful – in other words, directly making people more productive workers.

I talked to three professionals in three different industries – health care, air travel, and promotions – about how they combined humor and hard work to be productive, and happy, employees.

JANICE BEITZ

“The best analogy for working in an operating room,” said Dr. Janice Beitz of LaSalle University, “is working on a nuclear submarine.” In both professions, work takes place in a serious environment where any mistake could be deadly. But in order to deal with that stress, employees need a healthy sense of humor.

“Humor makes you resilient,” Beitz said. “You cannot function in health care for any length of time and be a perfectly healthy clinician…without humor.”

Beitz knows it well. A professor of nursing (her doctorate is a PhD), Beitz dealt with her share of life-and-death situations – brain aneurysms that needed to be clipped before they became fatal, emergency bypass surgeries during heart attacks – and handled the stressful schedule of an operating room nurse, one time working twenty-seven consecutive hours. The most effective surgical teams, she said, were those who learned to laugh and joke around with each other.

O.R. humor takes various forms. There’s the universal workplace humor — on the board next to the operating room schedule is a picture of Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, with the caption “go ahead, make one more change.” There’s also the “gallows humor” more particular to fields like medicine, where teams often joke to each other to relieve stress after a death, that are ‘things you’d never say to patients’ (New York Times ran a good, brief article on this type of humor http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/to-break-the-crime-scene-tension-jokes/). But perhaps most interesting is how jokes can be used to direct necessary criticism at particular individuals, “to make a point in a very professional, non-nasty way.”

Dr. Beitz spoke highly of most of her colleagues in the medical profession, but also said that at times egos and personalities can disrupt a team. For example, one surgeon, though competent at his job, was “a real crank to work with.” “I had a lot of thoughts about the size of his prostate,” she joked. The surgeon was known for complaining “where are the real nurses? where are the real nurses?” whenever anything went wrong, and one day the nursing staff decided they’d had enough. They planned a unified response, and the next time the doctor broke out his signature line, they responded “with the real surgeons!” The anesthesiologists at the other end of the table started cracking up.

“He kind of turned red, and shut up,” she said. “He never really said that after that.” The event helped relieve the tension the nursing staff felt toward the doctor, and also signalled to him that he needed to change his behavior. And it worked. Someone in the O.R. also put together a “surgeon abuse kit,” with a giant wooden mallet, for when surgeons were getting on peoples’ nerves. Just hearing someone call for it – “I need the surgeon abuse kit” – would let the surgeon know he needed to correct his behavior. Surgeons were also on the other end of the joke. Dr. Beitz recalled a time that her hospital had a persistent shortage of scrub suits for the O.R. staff. They finally had to address the problem when the male head of surgery walked into the operating room wearing an O.R. dress. “They got him scrubs,” she said.

BETTY THESKY

Some employees face pressures from customers as well as co-workers. Betty N. Thesky (pseudonym), who has worked 23 years as a flight attendant, said that “you can make fun of the passengers right to them and it doesn’t make them mad if you’re pleasant and in a good mood.” When she started making fun of passengers, she said, she was “always prepared for a negative reaction.” But she said that it’s much more often that they tell her “this was the best flight I ever had,” even if they’re directly the target of her humor.

Thesky mentioned a passenger who asked her “since when did you start wearing uniforms?” She answered the strange question with a joke, pretending to lament “oh yes, the days of the naked flight attendants are long gone.” The next time she came around, the passenger stopped her and said “you know, your answer to my question was very coy.” “It was the opposite of coy,” she replied. And the customer laughed. “I made fun of him twice on the same flight,” she said, “and he still wasn’t mad at me.”

She said that once she learned to joke with the passengers, she found her job less stressful. While she used to hate when passengers wore noise cancelling headphones, she now enjoys the opportunity to ask whatever she wants, as long as it looks like she’s saying “something to drink?” “I’ll ask ‘do you need a shrink?’ or ‘are your toenails pink?’ and they’ll say ‘Diet Coke.’” Thesky is careful not to make fun of someone with a serious problem, and to keep her tone friendly, not snide or insuting. “It’s all in the delivery,” she said. The better someone is at seeming friendly and natural, the more they can get away with.

Outside of work, Thesky also uses humor to deal with her experiences. In 2005, she started a podcast, called Betty in the Sky With a Suitcase, to talk about the most ridiculous aspects of her job. While she’s never talked to her airline about her podcast, (she declines to say where she works – “airlines don’t like people speaking for them”) she said that the response from other airline workers at all types of jobs – pilots, flight controllers, ground crews, as well as other flight attendants – has been enthusiastic. She frequently features other airline workers as guests (and they have plenty of funny stories of their own), and has parlayed her success into a book.

JESSE ALKIRE

Jesse Alkire would probably agree with Thesky that “it’s all in the delivery” when it comes to making fun of people at work. With a background in improv comedy, Alkire brings his natural humor to his job as a creative strategist at the firm Blue Soda Promo. “I really could probably say whatever,” Alkire said. “I’m able to.” Alkire, who describes himself as “naturally improvisational,” said that he makes fun of other workers on a “half-hourly basis,” but says that “everyone’s gotten used to it. Whatever they say to me will probably get a sarcastic response.”

Alkire was hired without a previous full-time job, and most his most extensive experience in the field of comedy. Tej Shah, director of e-commerce at Blue Soda, wrote that “the uniqueness of his resume and background, as well as his sense of humor,” helped Alkire stand out among the applicants and get an interview. According to Shah, Alkire performed well in a “very formal” interview process, adding that he “managed to lighten the atmosphere with a few quirky comments here and there.”

Shah agreed that Alkire’s humor has been an asset around the office, and observed that he really can get away with a lot. “His humor (thus far) has definitely been accepted at the work place, even when he makes jokes about the executive management team to their face,” Shah wrote, adding that, in tense situations, his humor “tends to diffuse the situation, while still effectively communicating his point of view.”

It helps that Alkire feels comfortable where he works. “I have to gauge people around me,” he said, “see who’s lame.” While he generally feels comfortable joking around wherever he is (“Seeing as how I work behind a computer and a desk, I’m not any imminent danger.”), he has occasionally offended people at his comedy shows with some edgy, risque humor. He said he’s never gotten that reaction at work. “It should be the opposite,” he said, but he isn’t complaining. “Everyone here is very cool with it, it’s a great company.”

Of course, he wasn’t hired as a clown. Alkire backs up his jocular style with a strong work ethic. “I can be a smartass and still give them what they want,” he said, “that’s the story.” Shah agreed. Alkire, whose work ranges from graphic design to social media to overseeing film and video shoots, gets the job done. “I think the major misconception is that someone with a background similar to Jesse’s or with a sense of humor would be a slacker and not be able to get work done,” Shah wrote. “We’ve seen just the opposite. Jesse stays focused and completes tasks, all while being a source of entertainment and lightening the mood.”

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

Beitz, Thesky, and Alkire all deserve credit for using humor to their advantage, and to the advantage of the company, but the companies also played a role. It the case of Thesky, her company benefited from non-involvement. “It’s the least supervised job you can imagine,” she said. But Thesky and her colleagues figured out a humorous, natural way to interact with the customers that kept up spirits on both ends, without any top-down controls.

Beitz worked in a hospital with an active culture of humor, and in a profession that knows the value of humor. Medical studies have repeatedly confirmed the healthy benefits of laughter, and Beitz said the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) has workshops all over the country to help nurses incorporate humor into their jobs. She herself wrote an article for the journal Seminars in Perioperative Nursing, called “Keeping them in stitches: humor in perioperative education.” In a stressful job that takes both its work and its employees seriously, the need for humor is well understood.

Alkire’s case is interesting because his employment seems to be a learning experience for the company itself. Shah wrote that he didn’t initially seek out to hire someone with a background in humor, but that Alkire just happened to reply to the job posting and stand out among the candidates. It worked out well. “We’re very happy to have hired someone with a comedic background,” Shah wrote, “and I truly think this may be a quality that we actively look for in the future.”

Adrienne Rodney Interviews Shawn Achor, Author of The Happiness Advantage

Here are a few fallacies many of us believe: If only I had a job, then I’d be happy. Once I have all the material things I’ve been after, I won’t have time to be depressed. The grass is always greener. Shawn Achor, Harvard University psychologist, lecturer and author, says we’ve got it all wrong. Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.

In his book, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work (2010, Crown Business), Achor presents the seven ways individuals can achieve the positivity and optimism that set the tone for a successful personal and professional life.

Achor’s research suggests we change the way our brains work in order to improve our productivity and performance. Each of his seven principles describes the ways in which we can turn from being “glass half empty” realists in a troubled world to people who focus our energy on the good things in life.

One principle is The Tetris Effect, a pattern of thought in which our brain gets stuck that affects all aspects in life. Instead of falling prey to negative patterns, we can retrain our brains to spot positive patterns and specifically seek out the things for which we are grateful.

This relates to The 20-Second Rule, a principle that instills lasting changes that help replace bad habits with good ones without having to rely on willpower. Achor says by putting a 20 second gap between you and negative habits, such as hiding the television remote or making your computer home page work related, you are more likely to stay on track. This path of least resistance goes both ways.  Put your running shoes next to your bed, and you are more likely to exercise after you wake.

The theme of The Happiness Advantage is living a positive home and work life. If we stay focused on what matters most, we will have no choice but to see the positives in everything. This book is a helpful manual to everyone, whether or not you see the glass as half-full.

*****

I spoke with Achor about the other principles and how the Happiness Advantage can be applied to our readers here at No Shortage of Work, especially for those who are currently unemployed or looking for something new.

“This message is even more important with someone who doesn’t have a job. In the midst of a challenge, when you’re unemployed or underemployed, you have two options. You can stay negative and frustrated, which science shows turns off your brain, or you could try to remain positive, which causes your brain to turn on, allowing you to see more possibilities, allowing you to avoid depression, and allowing your brain to be intelligent and creative. So what I often tell people is happiness in good times is a luxury item. In challenging times, positivity becomes a necessity.”

He also states that the strongest positive force we have in our lives is our social network, and the more time we spend with our friends, the more likely we are to overcome our hardships.

“What we found as a more successful option is that the most successful people in the midst of a challenge actually increase the amount of investment that they make in their social support network. They spend even more time with friends. They spend more time making connections with people. They spend more time deepening relationships. And when they do that it not only increases their level of happiness, it gives their brain more energy and resilience to deal with the issues they are experiencing.

“In fact, I would argue that going to the movie with your friends, based on this research, will actually increase your likelihood of finding a job.  If you think about it, we always make ourselves miserable when we’re faced with a challenge. Like if we have too much work, or in school we feel we have to study all the time. But really, our grades improve and our job performance improves when we have a strong social support network.”

I also asked him why so many of us find ourselves in a never-ending quest to be happy, meaning, why do we expect external factors to make our lives better, even when we have experience getting what we want and still not feeling fulfilled?

“I think because our society, our schools, and even our companies teach us that if we work harder and are successful, then we’ll be happier. But our brains don’t work in that order. So even with somebody who is unemployed who is thinking, ‘once I have a job I will definitely be happy,’ that’s not actually what happens.

“I think waiting to get a job to be happy is counter-productive, because it makes you unhappy in the present, and second, it turns off your brain which makes you less likely to find a good job. The better approach is to try to be positive in the present, and as a result of that we found that you are more likely to get a job and more likely to be good at the job.”

Listen to our complete interview with Shawn:

by: Adrienne Rodney

Unemployment is rough. Not knowing when the next job will come; stress over paying the bills; judgment from others – it’s an unfortunate circumstance too many of us face.

We are led to believe that searching for a job is your full-time job. Not having an office means having to work extra hard; it is not an excuse to focus on anything else. However, this way of thinking only works for some. Many people take their passions that were once hobbies and turn them into careers.

Journalist Patricia Crisafulli and business consultant Andrea Redmond view unemployment as the perfect time to reflect and refuel. In their book, Comebacks, they recommend those at a rough spot in their careers forego others’ ideas of success and relish in the new opportunities available. It is time to ask yourself, they say, what do you want Act II of your life to look like?

For Becky Blanton, her second act came in 2009 when she won a contest to attend the TED Global Conference, the non-profit conference named for its original emphasis on technology, entertainment and design, where she also spoke on her life as a homeless woman.  Waking each morning to the small comforts of her van, Becky had to fight off the depression that came with homelessness in order to stay focused. As an out-of-work writer, Becky took every writing job she could get her hands on, even when the pay was a mere ten dollars, because it was paid work.

Then she found herself on stage at the TED Conference. She came home (to her van) more energized and determined than before, writing as many articles as she could sell until she could afford an office. “I lived in the van, worked in the office and eventually moved up to more and better paying jobs,” she says. “I have four articles coming out in three national magazines and I’m doing better than ever. The secret is to never, ever, ever give up.”

Jason Black was a technical writer by trade and novelist by avocation when he lost his job.  Already a member of various online critique groups, Black used his time out of work to put more focus on his writing and editing. Many were quick to point out his talents with the red pen, including one person who recommended he try editing professionally.

Black got a business license, created Plot To Punctuation, and marketed his Web site to a writer’s association which led to new clients. Working with the association led to more clients, and now he is booked several months in advance. While this new endeavor is still in the early stages, it gives him the confidence and emotional support he needs.  “Discovering that I have a skill I didn’t know I had, that people in my field are willing to pay for – that was a tremendous boost to my spirits during what would otherwise have been a very difficult time.”

Becky and Jason teach a very good lesson: unemployment does not need to hold you back from following your dreams. If you are unemployed and feel stuck, distracted, depressed or unsure of your future, this is the perfect time to focus on what you love doing and then go out and do it.

For Marlene Baroli-Turati, unemployment meant turning a hobby into a career. Laid off from her Fortune 500 job in 2008, her MBA and years of experience could not help her land a job that afforded her lifestyle. “I found it very difficult to find a suitable job to replace the one I had lost,” she says. “I searched and searched, and nothing. So I made a huge career change.” The career change came when she started her own business, DaSweetZpot, making jams, jellies and other delectable treats.

“I began my business a year ago,” she says, “and I feel very successful as I have been able to replace my lost income. It’s a one woman show, and I am thrilled!” After a rough patch of unemployment, Marlene can finally say that life is sweet.