24. August 2010 by John Schinnerer.

University of Colorado Denver Business School study shows failure better teacher than success

Knowledge gained from failure lasts longer

DENVER (August 23, 2010) – While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail spectacularly often flourish more in the long run, according to a new study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School.

Desai’s research, published in the Academy of Management Journal, focused on companies and organizations that launch satellites, rockets and shuttles into space – an arena where failures are high profile and hard to conceal.

Working with Peter Madsen, assistant professor at BYU School of Management, Desai found that organizations not only learned more from failure than success, they retained that knowledge longer.

“We found that the knowledge gained from success was often fleeting while knowledge from failure stuck around for years,” he said. “But there is a tendency in organizations to ignore failure or try not to focus on it. Managers may fire people or turn over the entire workforce while they should be treating the failure as a learning opportunity.”

The researchers said they discovered little “significant organizational learning from success” but added “we do not discount the possibility that it may occur in other settings.”

Desai compared the flights of the space shuttle Atlantis and the Challenger. During the 2002 Atlantis flight, a piece of insulation broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster but did not impede the mission or the program. There was little follow-up or investigation.

The Challenger was launched next and another piece of insulation broke off. This time the shuttle and its seven-person crew were destroyed.

The disaster prompted the suspension of shuttle flights and led to a major investigation resulting in 29 recommended changes to prevent future calamities.

The difference in response in the two cases, Desai said, came down to this: The Atlantis was considered a success and the Challenger a failure.

“Whenever you have a failure it causes a company to search for solutions and when you search for solutions it puts you as an executive in a different mindset, a more open mindset,” said Desai.

He said the airline industry is one sector of the economy that has learned from failures, at least when it comes to safety.

“Despite crowded skies, airlines are incredibly reliable. The number of failures is miniscule,” he said. “And past research has shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents.”

Desai doesn’t recommend seeking out failure in order to learn. Instead, he advised organizations to analyze small failures and near misses to glean useful information rather than wait for major failures.

“The most significant implication of this study…is that organizational leaders should neither ignore failures nor stigmatize those involved with them,” he concluded in the June edition of the Academy of Management Journal, “rather leaders should treat failures as invaluable learning opportunities, encouraging the open sharing of information about them.”

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Located on the University of Colorado Denver’s downtown campus, the Business School is the largest accredited graduate school of business in Colorado with more than 18,000 alumni. It serves more than 1,200 graduate students and 1,400 undergraduate students each year. Students and faculty are involved in solving real-world business problems as they collaborate on more than 100 projects with area businesses every semester through classroom work, guest lectures and research projects.

From EurekAlert!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Founder Guide to Self

Award-winning author, blogger and speaker

For a limited time, get Dr. John’s award-winning self-help book for FREE at http://www.GuideToSelf.com. Just register with your email address and name!

Posted in Memory and recall, Optimal Human Functioning, Employee engagement, Corporate Culture, Emotion & productivity, San Francisco Bay Area, Well-being, Failure as teacher, Psychology of Success, Anger management therapy, Self-help book, Danville CA, Emotion & learning, Customer Engagement, Emotional management, Dr. John Schinnerer, Managing stress, Business & psych, Subconscious mind, Organizational psychology, National speakers, Overcoming failure, ADHD, Resiliency, Forgiveness | Print | No Comments »

8. August 2010 by John Schinnerer.

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip.

You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them.
Just read this straight through, and you’ll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series Winners.

How did you do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.
These are no second-rate achievers.
They are the best in their fields.
But the applause dies..
Awards tarnish..
Achievements are forgotten.
Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here’s another quiz.. See how you do on this one: 
1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special!!
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson:
The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials..

the most money…

or the most awards.

They simply are the ones who care the most

If you like, share this with those people who have either made a difference in your life, or whom you keep close in your heart. Be extra kind to strangers. You don’t know how the world has treated them and everyone has their own story.

”Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!”

Courtesy of David Banner (not Bruce Banner a.k.a. The Incredible Hulk!)

Posted in Positive expectations, Danville CA, Overcoming failure, Meaning-making, Self-compassion, keys to happiness, Well-being, Curiosity, Gratitude, Happiness, Managing stress, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Emotional mind, Hope, Managing Sadness, Forgiveness | Print | No Comments »

8. July 2010 by John Schinnerer.

From WebMD…

‘Exercise and Depression: Expert Q&A
Robert Thayer, PhD, on how to make exercise part of a depression treatment plan.
By Katherine Kam
WebMD Feature
Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

Depression is draining. It can make any type of exertion — going to the grocery store, cleaning up the yard, or exercising — seem daunting.

“Energy loss is one of the key characteristics of depression. Some people feel that it’s the key characteristic of depression,” says Robert E. Thayer, PhD, a psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach, an expert in managing mood, and the author of Calm Energy: How People Regulate Mood with Food and Exercise.

He points to exercise as one of the best ways for depressed people to lift their mood. “Exercise generates energy,” Thayer says.

Here are Thayer’s answers to questions about exercise and depression.

Can depressed people get into a vicious cycle if they feel stressed and overeat and don’t exercise and then become more depressed?

“Definitely. People self-regulate with food, and I think that’s one of the reasons for the obesity epidemic that’s occurring — the combination of increased stress and depression going on for a long time and people needing to self-regulate, using food and other substances for doing that.”
If depressed people begin to exercise instead, what happens physiologically?

“There’s a whole series of things that happen when we begin to exercise. As we get up and begin to move and exercise, there’s a general bodily arousal state that occurs. It includes many different systems of the body — everything from metabolism to cardiovascular activation, various kinds of endocrine changes in the brain, various kinds of hormonal changes and shifts.”

What happens psychologically when people start to exercise?

“It depends on the degree and level of exercise. With moderate exercise, [in our research] we’ve been working with short, brisk walks [of] five or 10 minutes. The primary mood effect in that situation is increased energy. Secondarily, sometimes — but not always — there’s a tension reduction.”

“With more intense exercise — for example, an hour of heavy aerobic exercise — there is a reduction in energy and a reduction in tension. But oftentimes, after recovery [from the workout], there’s an energy resurgence that occurs.”

Do depressed people have to exercise intensely to get a mood boost?

“No, it actually can occur fairly quickly. One of the things about our ’short, brisk walks’ studies really illustrates this point. People can think about … how tired they’re feeling, then get up and begin to walk — walking moderately, maybe quickly down the street for a short while. Immediately, they will begin to feel differently. As we’ve found with short, brisk walks of five to 10 to 15 minutes, there’s a significant increase in energy. They begin to feel it almost immediately.”

“When people are seriously depressed — with clinical depression, of course — it may be not as efficacious as it would be for people in a normal state, but it still will have an effect.”‘

For the full article, please click here.

I’ve been speaking on the benefits of walking and jogging and aerobic exercise to lift mood for years. This is basic, yet important information for all.

Cheers,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

P.S.   I’m kicking off the launch of my new video blog at drjohnsblog.wordpress.com to teach men how to be less angry and more happy in the comfort of their own home. And to make the announcement even better, I’m giving away a FREE copy of my award-winning self-help book Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought.

It’s all about how to quiet the voices in your head, turn down the volume on negative emotions and turn up the volume on positive emotions and happiness, click here for instant access!

Posted in Optimal Human Functioning, Emotion & productivity, Danville CA, Overcoming failure, Well-being, De-escalating anger, Real Men Real Emotion, Men's feelings, Psychoneuroimmunology, Men's emotions, Alexithymia, Happiness, Anxiety, Emotional IQ, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Depression, Managing Sadness, Anger Management, Emotional mind, Dr. John Schinnerer | Print | No Comments »

30. June 2010 by John Schinnerer.

I was working with a male client yesterday who struggles with issues of self-worth, loneliness and anxiety despite the fact that he is a tremendously gifted young man. He is highly intelligent, kind and caring guy.

In the course of our talking, I had a hunch that reading him part of an article I wrote a few years ago might be helpful. So I asked him if I could read it to him.

The words hit him smack in the heart like a car bomb detonating in the middle of a town square. His eyes teared up. A look of recognition crossed his face. A barrier had fallen. Something had resonated with him deeply. ‘That’s it, that’s it!’ he said. ‘It has to do with my self-worth!’

Because it was such a powerful experience for both of us, I recorded the top 10 core beliefs for a happy and successful life and added it to my top secret video blog at

http://drjohnsblog.wordpress.com/core_beliefs/.

At that site, you can hear me read the top 10 core beliefs for a life of happiness and success. These are beliefs that (I believe) you must get intimately acquainted with to improve your chances at a successful and contented life. These are helpful for anger management as well. Most of us have negative, destructive tapes playing continuously in our heads (‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m lazy’, ‘I can’t do it’ and so on). These old tapes must be reprogrammed with positive, supportive, encouraging tapes to help you become more resilient and active.

The Top 10 Core Beliefs read something like this…

Core Beliefs That Work Towards Well-being

1. You are incredibly important and matter tremendously to the rest of us.

2. You are not alone. You are surrounded by others who care.

3. There is no failure, only delayed success.

4. Lessons are repeated until learned.

5. Learning never ends.

6. The present is a better place to live than the past or the future.

7. You can handle it.

For all 10 core beliefs, visit the my top secret new blog at drjohnsblog.wordpress.com.

My thought was to share these new, supportive beliefs with anyone who is interested. If they resonate with you, simply play them a few times a day in the background while you work. Repetition is key to reprogramming old tapes.

Hopefully, they resonate with you as much as they did for me and my client yesterday.

Live happy,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

New blog: http://drjohnsblog.wordpress.com

Site: http://www.GuideToSelf.com

PS If you’d like a  FREE copy of my book on how to quiet the voices in your head, turn down the volume on negative emotions and turn up the volume on positive emotions, click here for instant access!

Posted in Danville CA, Overcoming failure, Curiosity, Hope, Subliminal messages, Optimal Human Functioning, Men's feelings, De-escalating anger, Well-being, Resiliency, Men's emotions, Happiness, Guide to Self, Life coach, Dr. John Schinnerer, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Depression, Subconscious mind, Anger Management, Emotional management, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

29. May 2010 by John Schinnerer.

From EurekAlert!…

‘Will we succeed? The science of self-motivation

Can you help you? Recent research by University of Illinois Professor Dolores Albarracin and Visiting Assistant Professor Ibrahim Senay, along with Kenji Noguchi, Assistant Professor at Southern Mississippi University, has shown that those who ask themselves whether they will perform a task generally do better than those who tell themselves that they will.

Little research exists in the area of self-talk, although we are aware of an inner voice in ourselves and in literature. From children’s books like ‘The Little Engine That Could,’ in which the title character says, ‘I think I can,’ to Holden Caulfield’s misanthropic musings in ‘A Catcher in the Rye,’ internal dialogue often influences the way people motivate and shape their own behavior.

But was ‘The Little Engine’ using the best motivational tool, or does ‘Bob the Builder’ have the right idea when he asks, ‘Can we fix it?’

Albarracin’s team tested this kind of motivation in 50 study participants, encouraging them explicitly to either spend a minute wondering whether they would complete a task or telling themselves they would. The participants showed more success on an anagram task, rearranging set words to create different words, when they asked themselves whether they would complete it than when they told themselves they would.

Further experimentation had students in a seemingly unrelated task simply write two ostensibly unrelated sentences, either ‘I Will’ or ‘Will I,’ and then work on the same task. Participants did better when they wrote, ‘Will’ followed by ‘I’ even though they had no idea that the word writing related to the anagram task.

Why does this happen? Professor Albarracin’s team suspected that it was related to an unconscious formation of the question ‘Will I’ and its effects on motivation. By asking themselves a question, people were more likely to build their own motivation.

In a follow-up experiment, participants were once again parsed into the ‘I will’ and ‘Will I’ categories, but this time were then asked how much they intended to exercise in the following week. They were also made to fill out a psychological scale meant to measure intrinsic motivation. The results of this experiment showed that participants not only did better as a result of the question, but that asking themselves a question did indeed increase their intrinsic motivation.

These findings are likely to have implications in cognitive, social, clinical, health and developmental psychology, as well as in clinical, educational and work settings.

‘We are turning our attention to the scientific study of how language affects self-regulation,’ Professor Albarracin said. ‘Experimental methods are allowing us to investigate people’s inner speech, of both the explicit and implicit variety, and how what they say to themselves shapes the course of their behaviors.’

For full press release, click here to go to EurekAlert. 

Will you have a fantastic weekend? You will!

Will I have an amazing weekend? I will!

Cheers,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Positive Psychology Coach

Posted in Self-compassion, Optimal Human Functioning, Unsconscious mind, Executive coach, Alamo CA, San Francisco Bay Area, Self-motivation, Executive leadership, Well-being, Emotion & productivity, Overcoming failure, Guide to Self, Managing stress, Business & psych, Positive Psychology, Anger Management, Consciousness, Awareness, Resiliency, Subconscious mind, Sports Psychology | Print | No Comments »