[MUSIC PLAYING] [APPLAUSE] KIM CAMERON: Thank
you for coming. I'm impressed and
flattered that you'd come, number one, to hear me. And number two, I
mentioned to Mark earlier, the world would come to a
screeching halt without Google. I'm just pretty
convinced of that. We are all so dependent
now on Google. So it's actually pretty
much of an honor to be here, to talk to you. What I want to do is talk to
you a little bit about the work we're doing at the university. And we have a
research center there. And I want to
share with you some of what I think is
important for organizations, for leaders, and maybe
for parents, and friends, and colleagues, even. That is, I want to talk
to you about the power of and the importance of positive
leadership, positive practices, positive dynamics,
for individuals and for organizations. So I want to have you think
about a line across this slide as representing a
deviance continuum. Now, in English,
the word "deviance" has a negative connotation. So normally deviance
means you're in trouble. You're doing something wrong. If I call you a deviant,
normally a criticism. But deviance just
means an aberration from the norm, unexpected,
not normal behavior. So there are
several implications of thinking of deviance
on a continuum. So you can think of
negative deviance, but you can also think
of positive deviance. Several implications,
one of which is, all organizations exist
to eliminate deviance. The reason we organize
is to eliminate unexpected, aberrant,
not normal behavior. So Mark stands up,
everybody stops talking, everybody looks forward. We organize,
otherwise it's chaos. We can't get anything done. So all organizations
aspire, by definition, toward the middle
of that continuum. That is, we don't want deviance,
unexpected, aberrant behavior. So for the most part,
organizations, or organizing, puts us in the middle. Another important
implication is, we know a lot more about
one end of this continuum than the other. So for example, think
of physical health. On the left hand side,
we call that illness. I got the flu. I got diabetes. I got heart disease. 90% of all medical
research focuses on the gap between the left
hand side and the middle. Right? If I'm sick, if I'm ill,
if I'm having difficulty, I will get studied. There will be pharmaceutical
products produced for me. People will do all
kinds of tests. As soon as I'm healthy, I
mean, I get a physical exam once in a while. But for the most
part, medical science doesn't pay much
attention to me. So we know a lot more
about the left hand side than the right hand side. Another important implication
is that hardly any research is done in psychology
on anything except the left hand
side of that continuum. So for example, physical
health gets a lot of attention. But psychological health
gets a lot of attention too. For the most part, psychologists
are in the business-- 95% of publications focus
on schizophrenia, stress, depression, anxiety. I'm not doing so well. Emotional difficulties,
that's where we focus. But see, on the right hand
side of that continuum, there is something called
positively deviant health. Physically, it's
Olympic fitness levels-- 5% body fat for men,
15% body fat for women. The ability to run an
Iron Man competition. Somebody different than me. You know, some
research, not much. Psychologically, it's similar. Some years ago there was a
book written called "Flow." It describes a condition
where you're so immersed in a task you care
about, you lose track of time, you lose track of
physiological needs. If you put electrodes
on your brain, you're using more of your
brain capacity than normal. It's not zoning out
in front of a screen. It's hyperactivity mentally. Not much research on that. Little bit, not much. So there is positively
deviant phenomena. We just don't pay
much attention to it. Organizationally,
it's very similar. If you go to the business school
at the University of Michigan, many of the courses, half
the courses, probably, will hand you a case study. The normal assignment is, all
right, what are the issues? What are the challenges? What is going wrong? Come up with some
recommendations, and defend yourself. How are we going to make money? How are we going to
overcome the competition? And so on. That is, we go from the left
hand side to the middle. Just fine, but on
the right hand side, there is positively deviant
organization performance. Now, there are several
important implications of thinking of the right
hand side of that continuum. I refer to the right hand
side as abundance gaps. I refer to the left hand
side as deficit gaps, problem solving gaps, challenge gaps. Almost everything we study
is focused on the left hand side of that continuum. On the right hand side, I refer
to that end of the continuum as a virtuous condition. Now, virtuousness,
as a concept, is not really acceptable in scholarly
rigorous circumstances. Too religious,
too philosophical. But in the original
Latin and Greek, virtuousness just means the
best of the human condition. The highest aspirations
we have for ourselves is a virtuous state. So when you're at your
very best, at your peak, that's virtuousness. See in music,
virtuosos are the best, most inspiring performers. Virtuosity-- in fact, if
the world was virtuous, there would be no
war, no poverty, everybody would
be well educated. It's the best we can imagine. So the whole point
of this introduction is to get to this slide. That is, to separate
problem solving deficit gaps from abundance gaps. Here's the most important point. When you focus on
abundance gaps, you unleash something called
the heliotropic effect. Do you know what the
heliotropic effect is? You do, you just
don't know you do. You put a plant in the window. Over time, it will lean
toward the light, which is an example of the
heliotropic effect, which is defined as follows. Every living system,
everything alive, has a tendency toward the
light and away from dark, or toward positive energy,
away from negative energy. See, in nature, the sun is
the source of positive energy. It's the life-giving force. So most accurately defined,
the heliotropic effect is, every living
system has a tendency toward that which is life
giving and away from that which is life depleting. Now, that makes
sense, doesn't it? You think of evolutionary
processes over time. Every species is
attracted to that which gives life and
is repelled, or avoids, that which endangers,
or detracts, from life. Now, if that's true-- if every human being-- not to mention every system,
every living system-- if every human being flourishes
in the presence of the positive and languishes in the
presence of the negative, it has big implications for
how we rear our children, what kind of incentive systems
we have in organizations, how we treat our colleagues,
how we manage the folks who report to us, and so on. So what I want to do
is try to prove to you, convince you, that the
heliotropic effect exists. And then if it does, then
we're going to talk about, therefore what? What's the relevance to Google,
to parents, to colleagues, to friends? I'm going to share with you
a very small percent, maybe 1% or 2%, of the
research available. So very little,
but a few studies. So here's one study. Let's assume that
I am a researcher, and you are all students. But let's say
you're 10 years old. Just a normal every day,
a group of students. I have three teachers who
are naive to the experiment. They don't know this is
an experiment, but it is. So I say to teacher
number one, look, we have a group of
students in this class who are incredibly bright,
IQ points off the charts. They are really
aggressive students. It's going to take
a great teacher to help these kids flourish. Can you do it? You bet. Teacher number two,
a group of students in this class who have
enormous diversity of ability levels, some really smart,
some really challenged, lots in between. It's going to take a
great teacher to handle real variety of ability levels. Can you do it? Sure. Teacher number three, we
have a group of students in this class who come
from difficult backgrounds, failed a lot, struggled,
have not done well. It's going to take
a great teacher to help these kids flourish. Can you do it? Sure. Then I simply ask the teachers
to teach for one year. Now, the students
are all the same. I simply ask the
teachers to teach for one year, same subject. At the end of the year,
I give all the students a standardized test, and I
find statistically significant differences in the results. Who scores the best? Above average scores, average
scores, below average scores. If I think I'm teaching
geniuses, I am. I've learned from
US army generals, with whom I spend
several days a year. 60% of the outcome of
Navy SEALs training, Army Ranger training,
Special Forces training, is due to the expectation
of the instructor. It's called the
Pygmalion effect. Happens with airline
pilots, all the way through preschoolers
learning shapes and colors. All right, that's one study. Another study done
here on our campus has been replicated
several times. So a physician puts
a drop of liquid at the bottom of your nostril,
in which there's cold virus. They call it rhinovirus. You breathe in the virus. Some people get sick,
and some people don't. And the question
is, well, how do you explain who
succumbs to the virus and gets a cold versus not. Turns out, the temperature
at the back of your throat, where your esophagus
meets your nasal passage, a half a degree difference
in that temperature causes you to succumb to the
virus versus be resilient, and your emotional state
affects the temperature. Happy, optimistic,
positive people become sick significantly
less often, half as often, as depressed, angry,
cynical people. But the classic study
that illustrates this is called the nun study. It's a study of 678 Catholic
nuns living in a convent. Now, this was originally
designed as an Alzheimer's disease study. So these women were between
the ages of 75 and 104, and some of them had
Alzheimer's disease. But see, they had the same diet,
same regimen, same environment. You can control for
a lot of factors. Well, there was a
side finding that emerged from that research. And here it is. It was especially
interesting to me. They found the journals or
diaries of 180 of these women when they entered the
convent 60 years before. Some of these women
are saying things like this in their journal. This is a culmination
of my life's dream. I'm so happy to enter the order. This is such a blessing. Some are saying, this is
going to be a real challenge. It's going to be a sacrifice. It's going to be difficult.
But I'm committed. I'm going to follow through. Difference? They simply put
nuns in two groups, depending on which type of
journal they were keeping. Then the study was, at
the end of 60 years, they simply counted the number
of nuns alive in each group. Now, these numbers
aren't precise, but they're very close, and
they represent the difference. Of the 90 nuns in the
first group, 70 were alive. Of the 90 nuns in the
second group, 20 were alive. And in every decade, there's
a significant difference in mortality rates. 13 years difference,
as it turns out. I mean, you live longer on that
happy, optimistic, positive perspective. Another study. Let's assume that for a minute,
I'm interested in having all of you become better bowlers,
B-O-W-L-E-R-S. All right. And I'm so committed
to this, I'm going to give you
a big incentive. In fact, I'll give you $1,000
if you can improve your bowling score by an average of 10 pins. All right, pretty
good incentive. The challenge is, I'm going
to give you only 30 days. So we got to get a baseline. We're all going to go
down and bowl three games. I'm going to film
you as you bowl. Then for you folks, I'm going to
show you when you were bowling, I'm going to show you only when
you made strikes and spares, when you knocked all
the pins down, OK. I'm going to show you
when you were bowling, I'm going to show you
only when you did not make strikes and spares. So square up, work
on your approach, try to improve, all right. 30 days later, we
come back together, we all go down and
bowl three more games. Some of you get the money. Who'd get the money? These folks would get the money. The question is why. Would these folks do
better just by watching themselves make
strikes, versus these who are trying to improve? That's kind of easy, isn't it. Getting comfortable,
I'm getting confident. Except think about this. The first time you went
out and played basketball, didn't you mostly miss? What didn't you
learn how to miss? Because most of the data
is coming back wrong. First time on the golf course,
went this way, went this way. First time in a tennis court,
bounced off your racket, went over there in the net. Why didn't you learn
how to do it wrong? The answer is
heliotropic effect. Inherent in your DNA is a
tendency to learn the positive. If you didn't, you
wouldn't be this old. You would have died before now. You would not have adapted. So you don't have to choose-- I'm going to show
you in a minute. You don't have to choose. You have an inherent
inclination. It is in your DNA. I showed you a picture of
a cell in the last slide. It's at every cell
in your body has the receptors to
light, which transforms into life giving energy. It's at the cellular DNA level. The heliotropic effect creates
an inclination in all of us toward the positive. I'll show you some more
data in just a minute. One more study. I used to do this in my classes. I don't do it anymore, but
it's done all over the world. Let's assume all of
you are in my MBA class at the University of Michigan. And I say to you, OK, students. In my class, you are
required to keep a journal, and you have to write in
your journal every day. OK? However, you folks,
every day, are going to write in your journal
three things for which you're grateful. All right? So five minutes before
you go to bed tonight, just write down the
three best things that happened to you
today, or three things for which you're grateful. You write down three
events, or three things that were frustrating,
or problems you faced. So I got a journal group. I've got a gratitude
journal group. All right. Now, at the end
of this semester, I'm going to do several studies. All of these studies
are published. For example, I'm going to
give all of you a flu shot. Seven days later,
I'm going to test for the number of
antibodies in your system. You're going to be
healthier in seven days, detectably, physically
healthier, more antibodies in your body, than are you. Now look, this is a
gratitude journal. This is just putting
yourself in a virtuous, or in this case, a gratitude
condition, once a day. I can get a physical difference. This is not something
difficult. This is not losing weight, or
giving up coffee, or training for a marathon, or something. This is put yourself in
a virtuous condition. Another. I give you a mental acuity test. What's that? You have to memorize
information. You have to remember
information. You have to come up with
sophisticated decision rules for complex data. More mental acuity
here than here. I can affect your test scores. I'm going to show
you in a minute. I give you a creativity task. What's that? Well, think of all the
things you can use this for. Or a ping pong ball, or a brick. More ideas here, and a
broader variety of ideas here. It's called mental flexibility. Here than here. This is a gratitude journal. This is a pretty
easy intervention. There's a study done
about six months ago, now. They claimed it's the
only one of its kind. I can detect if you have heart
disease on the basis of blood chemistry. I'm not a medical doctor, so
I don't know how that works. But that's apparently the case. So what they did is took
heart disease patients, and they simply put
them in two groups. One's a control group. The other one, they asked them
to keep gratitude journals for eight weeks, every day. At the end of eight weeks, they
simply tested blood chemistry. Those people who were
keeping gratitude journals were healthier. Their blood chemistry
was healthier than those who did not. I mean, they said, holy cow. First study of its kind to
show that kind of evidence. And then I've learned
from these military folks, if you lose a spouse
to death or divorce, zero deep depression
six months later here. 30% deep depression
here six months later. So the whole notion is, this
virtuous, positive practices has physical differences,
cognitive differences, academic differences, and so on. I'll show you some more. Earlier this year, I
was on a group of-- I had a chance to select the
best doctoral dissertation done on the planet in
this general area. This is the winner. Done by guy who went to Bhutan. And he selected high schools. So he had 11 high schools in
an experimental condition, nine high schools in
a control condition. What did that mean? In 11 high schools, he
changed the curriculum, so students were
exposed to virtuousness, positive practices,
positivity, and so on. He then measured one year
later, and then two years later, simply a measure of well-being. How are you doing? Are you feeling
good about yourself? Do you like school? You getting along
with your friends? And so on. Well-being. Significant improvement in those
exposed to this positive stuff. Then here was the real surprise. He then measured scores
on standardized tests. Now in America, that
would be SAT, ACT tests. Significant differences a
year later, two years later. Academically, they
performed better. The only difference
is they're getting exposed to positive practices. Then he went to Mexico. Approximately 70,000
students in that study. That is 35 high schools
in each condition, experimental condition,
control condition. Significant improvement. Well-being, academic
performance. Then he went to Peru. 700,000 students, 347
schools in each condition. Significant differences. And we can affect
your test scores. I mean virtuousness
actually has an impact. And here's why. There are interesting studies
done of heart rhythms. So for example, I
have a good friend at an organization
called Heart Math. They study heart rhythms. In a frustrated, angry,
upset, depressed condition, your heart rhythms are very
unpredictable, go like this. In a positive, virtuous
state, like for example, inducing gratitude, your
heart rhythms go like this. You don't have to choose it. It's heliotropic. So now, you know why after 60
years, some nuns are alive, and some are dead. Their heart just works better. Another study, they
simply asked people to contemplate, ponder, a
positive, optimistic future versus a neutral
or negative future. So now I have you
in a mental set. Now I'm going to put you
through an MRI machine and scan your brain. Turns out, those in the
positive, optimistic mental set had more areas of
your brain activated. And of those activated, they're
activated to a greater extent. You literally are smarter in
that positive, virtuous state. You don't have to choose it. It's heliotropic. Your brain works better in
that virtuous, positive state. Sorry I don't have these
slides to show you. Another study. There was a study done of
kidney dialysis patients, people who were hooked up to a
kidney dialysis machine. So they can't go anywhere. And the question is-- I mean, the assignment
was, we want some of you to receive a phone call
from other people expressing love, support, and concern. That is, you're going to receive
a phone call for some people. And for some people, we want
you to place a phone call expressing love,
support, and concern. At the end of that
period of time, at the end of a two
year period of time, those people who had
placed the phone call, those people who had
received support, and love, and concern from other people
were significantly better off than those who did not. And here's the
explanation for that. If you are significantly
overweight, the probability of
dying early is 20%. If you are an excessive drinker,
probability of dying early, 30%. My MBA students
always want to know what the definition
of excessive means. If you're a smoker, probability
of dying early, 50%. If you are in poor
social relationships, probability of dying early, 70%. Bad social relationships
trump the physical factors we normally pay attention to. I mean, it matters a lot. And there's a whole
bunch of research that suggests that
that's the case. If you're in a conflicting,
difficult relationship, you're going to
have a hard time. That is, your body,
for many reasons, is not going to do well. All right, well, the
question is, why is that? Well, most of the time,
we say, well, it's because I'm getting
my needs met. I mean, I want to be popular. It feels good to have somebody
care for me, and so on. Except that's not
the explanation. Here's the explanation. And these studies were all
done in our university. So I have a colleague
who's a psychologist, who took entering freshmen at
the University of Michigan. These are all 17-,
18-, 19-year-old kids. She simply asked them
to identify their goals for the year. Now, everyone has lots of goals,
but she categorized the goals into two types. One type were called
achievement goals. I want to get good grades. I want to be popular. I want a girlfriend. I want to make the
team, and so on. The other kind of goal was
called contribution goals. I want to make a difference. I want to have something
better, because of what I've contributed. Now, she put people
in two groups, depending on which type
of goal was dominant. Then the study was, she
simply followed these students for approximately a
year, academic year, measuring things like
how well they get along with their roommates; how many
minor physiological symptoms they've experienced-- cold,
headache, nausea, flu, cramps, stuff like that; how many
times they missed class; what their grade point average
was; how many times they made the team, or got elected
to a club office, or something. See, social factors, academic
factors, physical factors. On every single dimension,
contribution goals trumped achievement goals
in predicting performance. It's what they contributed,
more than what they got. Second. This is one of my
favorite studies. It's a study of multiple
sclerosis patients. These folks, half of them
were assigned to place a phone call once a week to somebody. Half of them were asked
to receive a phone call from somebody once a week. Two years later, they
measured well-being-- you can see on the right
hand side of that slide-- self-efficacy, confidence,
competence, physical activity, hope, depression. Those who placed the phone
call were eight times healthier at the end
of two years than those who received the phone call. It was the contribution
that caused them to flourish physically. You know Borders bookstore. It used to be in Ann
Arbor, now bankrupt. World's largest bookseller. While they were
in business, they created the Borders Foundation. The Borders Foundation was
simply a unit within Borders where you could
contribute money. And then if people had a
sick child, or an accident, or needed financial
support, you could apply to the Borders
Foundation, get results, or get financial support. One of our doctoral students
did a study, the hypothesis of which was, if you have
received money from the Borders Foundation, loyalty, commitment,
engagement, will go sky high. Turns out no difference. If you receive money, if
you hadn't received money, didn't matter. What did matter
was the opportunity to contribute to the
Borders Foundation. If you had given money to
the Borders Foundation, commitment, loyalty, sky high. Borders is bankrupt. The Borders Foundation
will not die. It still exists. Now they're trying
to get mom and pop bookstores around
the country to join who don't have safety nets. People will not stop giving
if they have a chance to give. Turns out contribution in
relationships is the predictor. So when we think about
positive leadership, it's not, I want to be famous. I want to get. Make sure you give me things. It rather is, what can I
contribute to the well-being or flourishing of other people? And there is a whole bunch of
ways to think about doing that, because almost all
organizations, when you do especially
well, give you stuff. You're giving them
financial incentive. You get your
picture on the wall. Somebody gives you some
recognition in a newsletter. You're a receiver. Turns out, if you
have an opportunity to give or contribute
to somebody else, that's a much better incentive. Like for example, if Mark
does especially well, I'm going to ask him
to coach somebody else because they need to
become as good as he is. That is his reward, is he gets
a chance to teach or coach. That's just one example
of many that you can use to contribute in organizations. OK, and I'm going to skip these. Now, the question is-- all right. I've got the brainwaves camera,
and I got the heart rhythms, and all that stuff. OK, but wait a minute. Organizations are much more
complex than are individuals. That is, you can get a bunch
of happy people together. It does not make for
a great organization. So the question is,
does this actually work in organizations,
when I'm held accountable for profitability,
and productivity, and quality, and customer
satisfaction, and so on? That's been my
research for 15 years. That's been the question. Yeah, but does it
work in organizations? Turns out, after 15
years, the bottom line is if you implement
in an organization positive practices-- we haven't talked about
what that is at all. But virtuous practices,
compassion, kindness, forgiveness,
gratitude, and so on. You will get higher
levels of profitability. You make more money by far
than the industry average. Productivity is
significantly improved. Quality goes up, fewer errors,
less waste, fewer mistakes. Innovation, new product ideas,
creativity, all improve. The scores on creativity go up. Customer satisfaction, customer
loyalty, customer retention goes up. Employee satisfaction,
employee retention all go up. That is-- that's what
you're held accountable for. All of those are
significantly improved when you implement
positive practices. I'm going to not show you
hardly any of the research. But let me just give
you a couple of studies. One of the most
surprising studies is this one, because we said,
where is the least likely place anybody would care about this
positive, virtuous, saccharin sweet, soupy, syrupy,
touchy feely, naive-- eww-- pollyannish stuff? Likely, Wall Street. I mean, if I got $100 million
invested in that portfolio, and I'm in a hedge
fund, I want to know if it's going up or down,
because I've got one goal. Show me the money. That's all I care about. I don't care if you
treat people well. I don't care if you downsize. I don't care if you-- I don't care what you do. I want a return. So we picked 40 firms. When they implemented
positive practices, some did better than others. So we measured change. Or in other words, how--
are you getting better? Are you getting worse? Are you staying the same? When organizations improved,
got more and more virtuous, essentially, we could
account for almost 50%-- 0.45-- 45% of their
financial performance. Now, I don't know anything
that predicts Wall Street performance by 45%. But we could. Plus a bunch of other
things, turn over, and you know, satisfaction,
and all those kinds of things. That is, even in the least
likely and most hostile environment you can imagine,
positive performances paid off. And in the health care,
you sort of expect that. But over a two-year
period of time, double digit improvement,
where the industry average is 1% or 2%, double
digit improvement on these various dimensions
that really count, that people want to improve. So the whole point is, with
only a very small sampling of the information, what
we know is actually, positive practices pay off
physically, cognitively, socially, and they pay
off organizationally. When you implement
positive practices, organizations do better. We improve what we want-- what we're held accountable
for, what we want to improve. All right. There's a bunch of resources
that are available, if you want to get them. There's a website that
we have for our research center where there's
long lists of videos, and references, and papers,
and syllabi for courses, and all those kinds of things. I'm going to stop
here, because I've just talked for 32 minutes. Questions, comments, yeah buts. Anything on your mind? AUDIENCE: Hey, my
name is Dominique, and I do have a question
about if you ever did a study on Google. I feel like a lot
of the brackets you talked about in
positive leadership, and quite a few of
our pillars, I think, our senior leadership
takes pretty seriously. Have you ever looked at-- KIM CAMERON: I
have never done a-- I've never done a
study on Google. I'd love to. AUDIENCE: I just was curious. [LAUGHS] KIM CAMERON: I--
well, I would like to. My prediction-- I'll
finish the thought. My prediction is that there are
pockets that are spectacular, extraordinary, and pockets
that are-- could be improved, I would guess. And one of the nice things
about studying Google is to try to find
out where those are and what the practices
are, specifically, here that would create the
spectacular performance. So far, there is no
disconfirming evidence that this pays off in
organizations, so far. I can disconfirm any evidence
about anything, but not this. Thanks. AUDIENCE: First
of all, thank you for coming out here
and speaking to us. I was wondering if you have--
similar to the question about Google-- but have you
done any research around, like, nonprofits and those
who work there? Or maybe are in some
sort of service, such as nursing or firemen. You know, just
helping the community. KIM CAMERON: Yeah, that's
a really good question. How about not-for-profits? It turns out, we've
done a lot of work in the following industries. There's a lot of
work in education. That is, implementing
these positive practices changes test scores, changes
academic performance, and so on. We've done a lot of
work in health care. I showed you one little, quick
study of that in hospitals. We've done a lot of work in
the national intelligence agencies, CIA, FBI,
NSA, DIA, 16 agencies. See, you can't
manufacture enough bullets to keep the world safe, can you? So there have got to
be some alternatives. They get it. And it's been pretty
inspirational to me to see how the FBI is
trying to figure out a way to implement positive practices,
or positive leadership, you know. So that's another. Military, army generals,
especially US army generals-- I'm not working
on any, you know, the non commissioned
officers, and so on. But from that one, two,
three, four star level, boy, I'll tell you what. I'm impressed with them. From their perspective,
setting strategy for the world, this resonates and matters. So they've been working on this
for seven, or eight, or nine years, you know,
this whole topic. So that. We did a big study
of nursing, nurses. Similar kind of outcome
with nursing care. And probably some others. But there's a lot of
not-for-profit work that's being done.
