MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

Coaching session using the Positivity Ratio.Take two minutes to complete the Positivity Self Test now. Your score provides a snapshot of how your emotions of the past day combine to create your positivity ratio.

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Objectives

01. Positivity Ratio: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Emotion Importance: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Workplace Emotions: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Positive Emotions: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Negative Emotions: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Emotional Triggers: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Emotional Control: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Group Emotional Intelligence: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Emotional Culture: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Increasing Positivity: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Resilience: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Team Performance: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month

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Strategies

01. Positivity Ratio: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Emotion Importance: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Workplace Emotions: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Positive Emotions: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Negative Emotions: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Emotional Triggers: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Emotional Control: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. Group Emotional Intelligence: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. Emotional Culture: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Increasing Positivity: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Resilience: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Team Performance: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.

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Tasks

01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Positivity Ratio.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Emotion Importance.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Workplace Emotions.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Positive Emotions.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Negative Emotions.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Emotional Triggers.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Emotional Control.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Group Emotional Intelligence.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Emotional Culture.
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Increasing Positivity.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Resilience.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Team Performance.

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Introduction

Control your energy instead of your time.

Steve Wanner, a partner at Ernst & Small who is 37 years old, is well-liked and married with four young children. He was working 12- to 14-hour days when we first met him, always felt weary, and struggled to completely engage with his family in the evenings, which made him feel guilty and unsatisfied. He had trouble sleeping, didn’t find time to work out, and rarely ate healthy meals; instead, he would grab a snack while he was on the go or sitting at his desk.

Wanner’s situation is not unusual. The majority of us increase our work hours in response to increasing demands at work, but this will eventually have an adverse effect on our physical, mental, and emotional health. As a result, there is a decline in employee engagement, an increase in distraction, high rates of turnover, and skyrocketing medical expenses. Over the past five years, the Energy Project has provided consulting and coaching to numerous large enterprises, working with thousands of executives and managers. These CEOs tell us they’re working harder than ever to keep up with things and that they increasingly feel like they are reaching their breaking point with startling consistency.

The fact that time is a limited resource is the main issue with working longer hours. Another matter entirely is energy. Energy, which in physics is defined as the ability to operate, originates in humans from four basic sources: the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. By establishing specialised rituals—behaviors that are deliberately repeated and meticulously organised, with the objective of making them unconscious and automatic as rapidly as possible—energy can be methodically extended and routinely renewed in each.

The fact that time is a limited resource is the main issue with working longer hours. Another matter entirely is energy.

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Organizations must change their focus from getting more out of people to investing more in them in order to motivate and enable them to bring more of themselves to work every day. This will effectively reenergize their workforces. Individuals need to take responsibility for changing their energy-draining activities regardless of the situation they find themselves in in order to recharge.

Wanner’s life was changed by the routines and habits he developed to better manage his energies. He gave up drinking because it was keeping him up at night and set an earlier bedtime. Because of this, he awoke feeling more refreshed and inspired to work out, which he now does virtually every morning. He shed 15 pounds in less than two months. He now has breakfast with his family after working out. Wanner continues to put in hard hours at work, but he often rejuvenates himself in the process. He normally goes outside for a morning and an afternoon walk, and he gets up from his desk for lunch. He is more at ease and able to connect with his wife and kids when he gets home in the evening.

Simple rituals like this can be established to produce impressive benefits throughout businesses. We put a group of workers through a trial energy management programme at Wachovia Bank and then compared their output to a control group’s. In terms of a number of financial criteria, including the amount of loans they produced, the participants beat the controls. Additionally, they reported significant improvements in their interactions with customers, their commitment to their jobs, and their level of pleasure.

Wachovia’s Linking Capacity and Performance

The majority of large firms make investments in the knowledge, competence, and skills of their workforce. Few contribute to the development and maintenance of their capacity—their energy—which is frequently taken for granted. In reality, increased capacity enables more to be accomplished in less time with better involvement and sustainability.

How Energy Renewal Programs at Wachovia Increased Productivity

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Employees at Wachovia Bank who took part in an energy renewal initiative performed better than a control group,…

Participants were also questioned about how the programme affected them personally. It improved their relationships with clients and customers, according to 68% of respondents. Seventy-one percent of respondents claimed that it significantly or noticeably improved their performance and productivity. These results supported a wealth of anecdotal data we’d gathered about the success of this strategy among executives at other big businesses like Ernst & Young, Sony, Deutsche Bank, Nokia, ING Direct, Ford, and MasterCard.

The Emotions: Energy Level

Regardless of the stress they are under from the outside world, people can increase the quality of their energy when they are able to better manage their emotions. To do this, people must first become more conscious of their emotions and the effects those emotions have on their productivity during the course of the workday. Most people are aware that their performance tends to be at its highest when they are feeling upbeat. They find it shocking that when they are feeling any other way, they are unable to lead or perform successfully.

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We are unfortunately not physiologically able to sustain intensely joyful feelings for extended periods of time without intermittent recovery. When faced with constant demands and unforeseen difficulties, people frequently experience negative emotions (the fight-or-flight response) several times during the day. They start to feel nervous and insecure, perhaps angry and impatient. Such mental states sap people’s energy and lead to conflict in their interpersonal connections. Clear, logical, and reflective thought are also all but impossible when experiencing fight-or-flight feelings. Executives have a higher ability to control their reactions when they learn to identify the circumstances that make them feel bad.

Expressing gratitude to others, a ritual that seems to be as helpful to the giver as it is to the receiver, is a strong one that fosters happy emotions. It can be delivered orally, in writing, via email, phone call, or in-person interaction, and the more exact and thorough, the more powerful the message. Like other rituals, the likelihood of success is greatly increased by designating a specific time to carry it out. Ben Jenkins, vice chairman and president of the General Bank at Wachovia in Charlotte, North Carolina, included his ritual of appreciation into the allotted period for mentoring. He started scheduled frequent lunches or dinners with his employees. Previously, he had only met with his direct reports to offer them annual performance reviews or to receive monthly updates on their financial success. He now prioritises praising their achievements and conversing with them about their lives and objectives during meals rather than their immediate job obligations.

Finally, by learning to alter the stories they tell themselves about the events in their lives, people can learn to nurture positive feelings. Conflicted individuals frequently play the victim, attributing their issues to other people or outside forces. Understanding how the facts of a situation differ from how we interpret those facts can be powerful in and of itself. Many of the individuals we work with have found it to be a revelation that they have a choice in how they interpret an event and that their story has a significant impact on the feelings they experience. Without downplaying or rejecting the realities, we instruct students to provide the most upbeat and personally empowered narrative they can in any given circumstance.

By learning to alter the narratives they tell themselves about the events in their lives, people can learn to cultivate positive energy. We instruct them to tell the most upbeat tales we can.

The best method to change a tale is to look at it from one of three new perspectives, all of which are different from the victim’s point of view. For instance, while using the reverse lens, individuals ask themselves, “What would the other person in this conflict say and in what ways might it be true?” They question, “How will I most likely evaluate this issue in six months?” using the long lens. They question themselves, “Regardless of how this issue turns out, how can I develop and learn from it?” using a broad lens. Each of these perspectives can assist individuals in consciously cultivating more joyful emotions.

When Sony experienced many battery recalls in 2006, Nicolas Babin, head of corporate communications for Sony Europe, served as the lead person for calls from reporters. Over time, he grew more and more worn out and dis