Harvard-09- From Vision to Goals I-Psychology of Leadership-Tal Ben Shahar [eTati].mp4

hi hi good morning good morning good morning so just a couple of announcements before we jump into the material today we have a lot of exciting stuff the this Friday I think in there will be one or two maybe other Fridays in the semester we have a guest lecture now I know that on Fridays people usually don't go to class I know that you know you'll want to watch in a video but I ask you're making a special request to be here on Friday and I'll also email out the class our speaker is coming from afar and a farm being Richmond Virginia she is one of the leading scholars on on leadership she's also going to introduce and this whom I think is probably the founder of the field of organizational behavior a woman by the name of Mary Parker Follett whose name has not come up a lot when people talk about the founders of the field and and her name should come up more it's been a very very male-dominated field for many years and I think what the work that she's doing bringing up that name again should not go unrecognized she's going to be here she's a wonderful speaker one of the leading scholars and and please be here you know it wouldn't be nice if she just had three people here in the front row or four people up there so please do make an effort to come in Friday I'd also email you about it later today or tomorrow also for those who be interested there is especially for the economists and the psychologists but for everyone Daniel Kahneman who's a Nobel Prize laureate in economics but does a lot of work in in psychology he's actually the Princeton psychology department he's coming to speak this afternoon he'll be speaking in William James Hall 1 that's the basement of William James Hall at 4 o'clock so I highly recommend going to listen to him I want to say a couple of words just about the midterm and perceived quite a few a few emails about it so here is what the midterm will look like there'll be some multiple-choice questions there will be some very straightforward basic objective questions they'll only be drawn from the readings and the lecture so if you had spoken about something in in section that wasn't discussed in the readings or in the or in the lecture it will not appear in the midterm the length the lecture the sections are there to reinforce the material the reason we're doing it is because we cannot have uniformity across all sections you know we tried it we thought it would work at the beginning but it just doesn't work and every section leader brings in his or her strengths which is more important for us than covering exactly the same material only what is covering the readings the lecture very straightforward there will be no trick questions it's not in paragraph seven of the article by Heath he writes about dot dot dot you will not have such questions it will when you read the articles understand the general principles in the article know what the article is about the main points with the lectures what appears on the on the powerpoints again not in terms of you have to memorize quotes but central ideas when I talk about certain studies the central idea in that study we're not looking here for you know for K for a gotcha games just so that you get a I'm looking at it actually then work both the midterm has the and the final as an opportunity for you to synthesize the material because right now you're getting bits and pieces you remember one thing from the first lecture but can't really tie it to the seventh lecture well the midterm will help you do or studying for the midterm studying for the final will help you do that by the way that's that's the only real value I see in in the and it's an opportunity to to to synthesize the material are there any questions about this or anything else about the midterm or anything else yes didn't hear a thing sorry no it's not all multiple choice there are also short short questions but you know what is the main idea in this study for example I mean I don't know I'm not I'm not I'm actually not going to write the midterm your TF sorry but I'm gonna synthesize it and make sure that it's things that are covered in in the material so yeah it's both other questions or comments yeah the lecture videos will be online I'm a little bit concerned about so the midterm is Monday week I'm a little bit concerned about the Wednesday lecture so just make sure you're here but I'm gonna I'm gonna tell them it's a mature man to make special effort to to get it online but yes yeah yeah thesis riders I said it in the first posture for those of you who weren't here thesis riders can take it after Spring Break you know being there done that I know that you're somewhat busy it's good to see you in class actually yeah anything else okay I want to start today by talking about something we spoke about last time and I didn't want to elaborate on it or I didn't play and rather to elaborate it too much on it too much but I think it's a critical issue what do you do with people who have weaknesses and serious weaknesses you're not even just talking about well I'm not that good with a large audience or I'm not that good you know in terms of ability to read other people's feelings these are important weaknesses to to consider but I'm talking about weaknesses such as the gentleman who was sitting here last time talk you know when you have dyslexic people or if you have people who have certain learning disabilities how can we say let's focus on their strengths rather than on their weaknesses well the thing is and I want to reinforce this I'm not saying only focused on strengths I'm not saying do only appreciative inquiry focus on the good things and the things at work what I'm saying is let's shift the pendulum because our society our culture right now is deficiency focused our society right now is weakness focused remember the study that was run throughout the world Asia Middle East Africa Europe and the Americas found that universally when you ask people what is more important for you to work on they said on our weaknesses and the right answer is both and I would say with even a little bit more focus on the strengths so I want to focus on that and Jeff told me Jeff brought here many of you note told me a story about one of his students and actually after class and I asked him to share it with you so do you want this or do you want to sing or do you want to go all right um thanks towel I firstly just want to handle one logistical thing before we forget I know that's a little bit late in the game but we did get a course pack together of all the readings printed out and it's at nomen copy for anybody who wants to buy a printed copy of all the articles that are online but it's a hefty amount of them so right now they're just doing them as you order but they asked if I would take a straw poll of people it's fifty one dollars for this class so if you think that you might be interested in that just give me a little bit of a sense just so if I could tell them to print up some so that people aren't waiting okay thanks and we're also going to have them for 1504 - that's $25 for positive psych for the course pack there so and the other thing before telling my story that actually speaks to this point that was raised is I wanted to give a shout out to the women's ice hockey team who last weekend I had an inaudible overtime against Clarkson and several players are in this class and Captain Carys shroyer and a couple of those senior leaders Jen Ramon D and Ally bow so there I just wanted to acknowledge them here today ok my story actually is about I was I taught special needs actually with special needs and gifted in the same class in the early 80s when I was in Germany working at the American Elementary School in Erlangen it was a military base and these were the children of the soldiers stationed over there and it turned out to be a long-term substitute gig for a special ed teacher special needs teacher there and the story I tell it's really actually it is one of my I feel like really one of my success stories teaching that I'm proud of so I'm really grateful for the opportunity to be able to share this it was a classroom that had only a few students it was whatever students that day that we're having problems in their mainstreamed classroom they were sent down and some of them were there for most periods of the day and some were there for just a couple periods and I had this one student Dale who was there for several periods throughout the day and he was one of these students who had was easily frustrated he was a bit disheveled and it's sort of like I don't know if you know the Charlie Brown the Pigpen character who always had sort of a mess around him his desk always had you know a ton of papers when he would he liked math a lot but when he would be doing math problems if he made any mistake he would he race hard and it would go through the paper to the bottom and he'd get very frustrated he'd scrunch out up the paper and throw it down and and so he had some problems with what they call impulse control and and and being organized so one day just by chance he I mean pen and pencil work were deadly for him and many of you are doing the myers-briggs this week in your sections and there's been a lot of work connecting myers-briggs profiles and learning styles so he had the learning style that when you talk into your sections about myers-briggs we're sort of would probably characterize the sensation on the second dimension and perceiving on the last dimension so an SP profile which is a more than a third of students in early grades have that profile and they become less represented as you get further along in the system and are hardly at all represented in graduate school because very few teachers in schools are actually structured for these sort of students this sort of student who basically is a kinesthetic learner a hands-on learner who needs to be involved in their learning and and that was what Dale was he was an infected Milton Academy at school outside of Boston right now there's a student who's suing his school district because he said this is his learning style and that the school does not meet it so Dale was definitely one of these students and so just by chance one day I had he was so frustrated doing a long division problem that I had him up the board up the board do it so when he made a mistake he still got very frustrated but he realized that he could just erase and all was not lost he could actually race and keep going and and not have to start over all the way from the beginning so he had so much success in this medium that that we made him the long division expert of the class so that anytime anybody needed to learn long division or work on their long division they would go to Dale and for at least three months I had probably Dale do nothing else in that class but long division and I realized what a difference it was making one day when it's 7:00 a.m. right when the school they were started he came in he was like mr. Perotti when you put a long division problem on the board and make it a really long one so each day we would have a long division problem on that head like I don't even know what long division is do people still do that in school well I'll have an example up here on the board but you know he had like all these numbers and he would just do long division all day and oh the one thing I didn't tell you is that at the very beginning of this he what he stuttered horribly like he couldn't finish a sentence without with without stuttering and over the course at over the course of this time period which was not much more than three months he stopped stuttering completely he really blossomed and I saw such a change in his mood in his demeanor and his ability to handle frustration so there were several things that I think went on that helped this to happen not the least of which the attention that he got for being successful in this way but I really think that it was it was a great example of identifying his strengths and cultivating it and not sort of like they're not teaching the rapid that he had a swim but by and very much connected to the broaden and build theory that Barbara Frederickson talks about in her article that people read in positive psyche that because he experienced success in this area it really was able to give him a boost of confidence that made it better able to handle his interpersonal relationships and handle other areas of his life so that's my story with dare about Bob Dale and I want to just show you just a few pictures that I dug up from back at this time period that Tao is going to help me here so this first picture is here me in 1983 haven't changed the bed huh I'm wearing I'm wearing a red jumpsuit here now do you think my colleagues knew that I was gay when I walked in with that red jumpsuit that day I don't know but you know when I look back at I'm thinking what was I thinking you know I was obviously much more secure than than I am now I would never wear that today but here it was a crimson jumpsuit I think you know when you look back you see what messages you were giving off that you may not have known okay so this is airline these are this is my class of of students here and they were dying eggs that day so the egg activity maybe that'll appear one of my sections I don't know people found eggs gotten from in front of the Science Center today this was talked about hands-on learning they were very into that day you see this one student there with the hood on behind behind Eddie here with the two eggs a little to the right that's the back of a student that was Anthony that's his coat you see with a hood on came into class every day with the hood above his head and and he was one that was just such a troublemaker until the day that we made him in charge of the class that he was in charge and then he realized I can't believe these students how they're not listening to me that really changed him anyway so that was special that was a group of them this is one day when we went to the zoo that's Dale you could see the one talk about hands-on learning he was the one here grabbing for the rhinoceroses touch so what is this an antler or something I guess I should know my animals behind the zebra there so that's Dale back there and then the next picture I think is another one at oh here's a long division problem all right I never knew this really I never I never knew what you could do with a PowerPoint presentation I have to do is Google long division and you get an image to insert here okay when I took okay and then this one that's Dale right there going about to go make friends with the elephant here and you could see this was at the end of the semester after he had really come out of his show and was feeling good okay and here is fabulous movie that is very inspirational about a teacher who was very successful with challenging students so I will I certainly I recommend this movie to you as well as the title song and I think if you click one more time you'll see a little special image air-sea and every day that could happen alright thank you very much okay so the interesting thing about the Dell story is how focusing on his strengths in one area and it was a tiny area have a trickle effect for other areas the same works in an organization the same works for you as a leader if you can identify the things that work with other people who are working for you working with you they will blossom not just in that particular area there will be a trickle effect too to other domains the same in your life if you focus on your strengths and you cultivate your strengths you shed light on it that seed will blossom but so will other areas that with which you're dealing some of which might have been weaknesses you will come out of your shell so to speak it's a good metaphor um the other thing I want to do now is show you that video that I promised you last time which would you send me the with the autistic kid and many of you have seen it it's been going around the the internet but here it is the quality is not amazing but worth worth seeing high school in Rochester New York has a new special by the name of Jason is the Riley the puzzle really horrible name because he is autistic jason says he's used to feeling different but never does different this wonderful team on CBS News ratchet I don't know how many times I've watch it every time I tear when I said it it's just so amazing I've been following the story since since I got it by email and thank you very much for sending it to me I've been following it on on Google and checking out what people are saying about it and many people are experts in autism are saying that this could be a breakthrough story for the exact same reason that we've been talking about in class because it shows that people with autism or people with any difficulty learning disability social disability if we learn to identify the things in their lives that they are passionate about he loves basketball he wants to be there I mean you saw how he came out of his shell you know this normally autistic kid just coming out of his shell when you're finding the intersection between his passions and what turned out to be his strength I mean this was a new school record by the way you know what what is 20 points in in a couple of minutes so when you are identify these things and everyone has it it's not what is this child smart it's what is this child smart act what is my employee smart at what am i smart at worries my intersection is a leader between my passions and my strengths this is the zone of great leadership look what he did this can transform a life it has transformed a lot and Magana not now I'm quoting experts on autism aren't experts on special ed they say this can transform the lives of many people if we learn to identify that zone of greatness passions and strengths not just a theoretical construct the one that can really truly make a difference in our lives and especially as leaders in the lives of others let's go back to the vision because a vision in a sense is the greatness that we want to achieve whether it's a personal vision that we work on or an organizational vision and remember a vision at least the structure that we will talk about that you will do your response papers on comprises four parts it comprises the mission statement which is like a guiding star and extract sentence or two which is under underlying reason for being for Nike it was to crush competition for what for Disney it was to make people happy whatever it is for you the second part are long-term goals and that's where we're going to start today long-term goals ambitious concrete and meaningful goals for one to thirty years down the line you're going to come up with your own long-term goals long term goals are the equivalent if you have the guiding star which is abstract which you can't really touch and reach the long-term goals are concrete things you can it's like the distant Shore that you want to get you these have to be what does it mean when we say ambitious ambitious means that we have a 50% chance of attaining Richard Hackman in his work on leading teams talks about the ideal goals to set are ones that we have a 50/50 percent chance of achieving in the early 60s John F Kennedy set the goal for NASA to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade this goal mobilized NASA this goal led NASA to succeed after the 20th of July 1969 when the goal was achieved there was this significant slump in New York for NASA from NASA employees significant slump in Lev levels of motivation efficiency success because they didn't no longer had the ambitious concrete you can't get more concrete than someone step taking steps on the moon very ambitious they weren't sure that we're going to achieve it and certainly meaningful to be the first country to plant its flag on the moon I want to show you a clip now from the hist by now historic speech JFK speaking at Rice University sharing with the rest of the country what this goal is those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the Industrial Revolution the first waves of love division and the first wave will be and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space we need we choose to go to the other thing they project will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills because that challenge is one that were willing to accept all we have given this program day by day even though I realized that this is installation and activate condition for we do not promise what benefits await us but if I was saying like that we shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away from the control station a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall made of new metal alloys some of which have not and then what a great leader then we must we must be bald were you envious when he said almost as hard as it is here today I was so just a couple of things that he said what he said about the goal it will organize it it will bring out our efforts together this is what a great bald vision does it brings people together as we'll see next time it brings them toward and channels their energies toward a common goal this was a real lofty goal they didn't know there they barely made it by the end of the decade 20th of July 1969 wasn't there wasn't much to spare also what he said an act of faith a vision this is a great leader this is a leader who has quote unquote unrealistic optimism people within NASA said to him you're crazy but there were also people who said to him maybe we can make it and he took the leap act of faith some of the alloys weren't even invented at that time that's an act of faith that's a vision that's seeing a seed not seeing the whole tree concretely seeing the seed and saying it has the potential to be their tree and then articulating it I have a dream that's what it's all about but it's grounded optimism it's not detached Pollyannish unrealistic optimism I mean unrealistic in the true sense it seemed the seed and recognizing the potential and the same applies to a space program or to an individual an individual such as Dale an autistic individual or one who was labeled autistic it applies to each person and it applies to the people with whom you will interact as leaders Scott snook and I have been working together for over ten years one of the projects we were working on one of the projects that has been the most meaningful thing I've ever one of the most meaningful things I've ever done was working with South African journalists the story is that in 1995 one year afternoon Nelson Mandela came to power he realized that most of the leaders in most areas in South Africa were still White's there were very few blacks in leadership positions and the blacks who were in leadership positions were not trained to be leaders because one of the things that the apartheid regime did was deprived many of the blacks of the education that they had and he recognized that there was a need not just for the affirmative action that wasn't enough there was a need for real concrete actual training and one of the things that he focused on was on the media the media very much shapes opinions he said we need more black leaders in the media and what he did toward that end with his ministers they created a leadership program a one-year leadership program that was initially a trial program for journalists later to be expanded to other areas and that's program most of the time they spent in South Africa and universities during leadership courses six weeks out of the one year they were going to spend here at Harvard and under the Nieman Foundation the Nieman Foundation but does a lot of work with with journalists out of that six weeks the Nieman Foundation approached the Harvard Business School and said can you give us two weeks on leadership Scott snook was the point person there he recruited me and he recruited another professor at the Harvard Business School Joshua Margolis and together he said left put together a two-week Leadership Program for them it was a real challenge to do it what we decided to do was take them for outward-bound for a few days to have experiential work and then to bring them back into the classroom where we taught them I was the person in charge of the outward bound program I actually went there and I spent you know days and night with them and then went back and taught some of the stuff that I'm that I'm teaching here the experience was extraordinary from that these two weeks I learned much more about leadership than they learned because all these people were activists they were very close to Mandela himself and there were activists in the anti-apartheid movement and they told me about their experience and they told me something which I found very interesting they said you know until 1994 life was rough it was tough this was the three or the apartheid era life was tough it was rough many of their colleagues had died many of their colleagues spent their time in jail doing what they were doing they were literally living on the edge they said it was difficult we didn't know whether we would be alive the day after we didn't know whether we would be Free People the day after but like was exciting we had a purpose we had a calling we knew what we were here for our calling our vision our long-term goal was a free South Africa concrete ambitious they didn't know that that many of them started in the 60s with Nelson Mandela they didn't know whether they were going to make it in their lifetime but we had a reason to get up in the morning in 1994 when Nelson Mandela came out of prison out of robin's Island when he was voted to become the first democratic president of South Africa there was elation ecstasy when they were talking about it to a person they had tears in their eyes euphoric our dream come true and they continued to celebrate for weeks and months but then the celebrations ended and there were in the day to day again and all of them to a person became depressed unhappy what am I gonna do now with my life what is my calling it was there for so many years and suddenly it was achieved just like NASA it was there for so many years and suddenly it's gone we've landed a man on the moon we have a free South Africa what now well some of them were able to identify another calling another goal whether it was in journalism whether it was to build the new South Africa some of them found it in their families because for the first time they could have a family or a proper family where they could get up in the morning spend time with their spouse and with their children and come back in the evening so this for them was the calling this for them this is what I have worked for my entire life for others they weren't able to find a goal that replaced that and some of them a small number but some of them still today and I'm in touch with some of them today still feel a void you see when people tell us that to be idealistic is to be impractical that's not true the exact opposite is true to be idealistic is the most practical thing in the world if we want to lead a fulfilling and happy life being idealistic is practical it's a human need to have an ambitious meaningful goal to have a vision it is it is a human need just like we need water and air and social and friends we also need to have an ideal for which wills will strive whether it's a free South Africa whether it's a man on the moon whether it's to have a successful business whether it's to have a happy family whatever it is we need that and we need to articulate it it needs to be explicit both for being more successful as we'll talk about next time and for being happier let me share with you some examples first of all my own my personal goal and has been for the last ten years is by the time I'm 40 she's five years from now to have a Leadership Institute to run a Leadership Institute which will promote many of the values that I believe in I'm much closer to it today than I was 10 years ago will I achieve it by the age of 40 I don't know it for me it really is a stretch and I will have to get out of my comfort zone in many ways but that's my personal goal that's what's keeping me moving Ford early in the 1900s this was Henry Ford's vision to make it accessible to all people become the dominant player in the commercial aircraft and bring the world into the jet age Boeing back in 1950 they certainly did that remember the very competitive mission statement that um Nike had from last time well they're heaven equally where they had back in 1960 when they were founded an equally ambitious long term goal remember a long term goal is concrete it's not like a guiding star that you can never touch it's a distant Shore something that you actually wanted to achieve and they did it Walmart very concrete bottom line by 2000 become that in Walmart has now a new goal for the year to 2010 which they will achieve or maybe not but it's something that keeps them going now the prize for the loftiest vision of them all the loftiest long-term goal goes to Stanford University who back in the 1940s had the goal of becoming the Harvard of the West which to a great extent they have not quite there yet they have a long way to go but but they're getting there again very big they just started off how would they differentiate themselves from every other college that was founded at that time in the world many colleges founded them this was their concrete long-term goal let me move on to the third part of a vision the core values core values are an organization's or persons most fundamental and inviolable called codes of action they're equivalent to the Ten Commandments things that are central there are key to to what the document is because the Bible is a vision there are the core values that no matter what we don't violate no matter what for instance I walk down the street and I see a person in front of me drop her wallet and I pick it up and I see in it you know hundred dollar bills I will return it to her even though it's not in my short-term self-interest because I can make a lot of money right there no one knows there's no one around me I will still return it why because honesty is an important goal 99.9% of people would return that wallet because honesty is an implicit goal for most people can be implicit or explicit core values the ones that I personally make explicit or the ones that I want to be reminded of day in and out I read my core values every morning every morning I go over the my personal core values are integrity which mean being honest with others and honest with myself it's maintaining calm it's expressing rather than impressing and again these things have meaning to me they may not have meaning to anyone else there are my core values it's about having empathy it's another core value of mine it's unconditional acceptance toward myself and others another core value of mine that I remind myself of every morning and my final core value is happiness identifying meaning and pleasure in the activities that I do let me share with you some core values of organizations Disney I love their core values no cynicism this is such an important message in today's culture I love their second value as well nurturing and promulgation of wholesome American values some of these wholesome American values are the no cynicism are the almost naivete that Americans have always been or attributed to Americans and I think these are the values that made America great the sense of idealism but we shouldn't lose because it's so practical and so important because it's that sense of idealism that landed a person on the moon that democratized the automobile at the same time they're not detached it's about creativity dreams and imagination and fanatical attention to details people who have worked with Disney know that in other words very concrete they're grounded it's almost it's genuine thinking lofty goals and ideals in naivete and dreaming and at the same time pay attention to details ingenuity and thinkers their preservation and control of the Disney Magic that's how they do it core values comprise sometimes of a word for me it's a word and then followed by a few sentences or just by sentences like these and you'll use the template that is given in the article that you'll be reading when you come up with your own Sonne elevation of the Japanese culture and national status above all and they have been doing it very successfully for a long time being a pioneer not following others doing the impossible encouraging individual ability and creativity there's a lot of genuine thinking here because on the one hand focus about you country focus about Japan some people associate that with conformity you know the nail that sticks out is pounded back in but they say no genuine thinking be a pioneer be individualistic because that the only way will succeed in this business genius in thinking looking in both directions at the same time very successfully and finally the last part of a vision is a vivid description remember the first part a mission statement long-term goals core values and then a vision a vivid description what a vivid description does it brings the vision to life through words that create images this is a certain paragraph certain program that you will come up with but this also applies them as we'll see next time to your entire vision you want to make it real you want to make it vivid you want it to inspire through words through stories through images and through metaphors certainly the last part but the entire vision as well when you communicate it much more on that later kahlan's and Porras say think of it as translating the vision from words into pictures or creating an image that people can carry around in their heads an example an automobile Ford back in the 1900s early 1900s I will build a motor car for the great multitude I will be it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one and enjoy with this family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces when I'm through everybody will be able to afford one and everyone will have one the horse will have disappeared from our highways the automobile will be taken for granted and we will give a large number of men employment at good wages is it there maybe not quite yet but getting close vivid description of his dream he was a visionary many people called Henry Ford detached Pollyannish unrealistic yes he had unrealistic he was unrealistically optimistic but not really because he saw the seed and he realized that being idealistic having a lofty vision is the most practical thing a leader can do I'll see you on Friday

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Keywords: 09, March, 8, From, Vision, to, Goals, I, the, voice, of, calling, Psychology, of, Leadership, Tal, Ben, Shahar, eTati

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Length: 48min 26sec (2906 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 31 2012