Los Suenos Institute
WOULD YOU GO TO WORK NAKED?
by Sueños on 01/19/17
Would you go to work naked? Would you go to work without getting physically dressed? Well I suspect some would but most would not. Yet, everyday many of you do go to work without being mentally dressed. Everyday many people go to work with out doing their energy work. Take a few minutes every morning to do meditation or yoga. Just like your clothes it protects you from the elements. Your energy work protects you from the toxic effects of the stress you face everyday, Please take a few minutes to get mentally dressed. Don't go to work naked.
5 Habits of Successful People
by Sueños on 01/19/17
They're Committed to the Moment
In Zen Buddhism this concept is often symbolized by a mirror, often associated with the expression of "no-thought." So, consequently, many people who begin meditation start by trying to think of nothing. However, that's a lot like saying, "Don't think of a bear." Well what are you going to do? Chances are you immediately pictured a bear. What the concept of ,"no-thought," is trying to convey is a oneness with current existence that is devoid of analytical judgment. It is removing the feedback from a sound system. It is existence without labels, and allowing the stimuli which we are constantly perceiving to speak for themselves.
They're Grateful for What They Have
"The fault finder will find faults even in paradise and thereby miss the joys that recognition of the positives bring."-Henry David Thoreau. It is easy at all points in our life to find the things we find displeasing, things we wish we could improve. However, there was one point in your life where you wished you were where you are now. It's the common idea of enjoying the journey not the destination, because the journey is where the learning happens. It's where we are pushed beyond what we have previously experienced, and learn what we are newly capable of. Celebrating this journey through gratitude is how come to grow to our highest potential. At no point during a flower's blossoming is it ugly, and at no point during your journey are you off of the path.
They Think of What's Possible
To achieve greatness, one must think of great things. One must begin to become great at thinking. It is not conducive to success to constantly poopoo your own ideas, dreams, and aspirations. You have to be your own cheer leader. Create the largest, most far-fetched dream possible. Even if you come to the end of your life and your dream was not achieved, at least you lived your life in pursuit of something you were passionate about. What good is a big house, nice cars, expensive watches, if they were obtained through means that never made you feel truly alive?
They Think From the End
Or in other words "Fake it til you make it." What it essentially means is act in such a way that your wildest dreams have already come true. Act as though the joy you are chasing has already come. Because it is that person who is capable of finding the answers. It is taking the idea of genius from something external, and realizing it's something that you have.
They See Their Life as Under Their Control
This is key. I've talked about an internal locus of control before, and how important it is to one's individual happiness. However, it's also important to the achievement of personal success. It's this idea that we, as individuals, have control over our relationships, our jobs, and how we react to things that happen to us. There will always be an element of the unexpected, in essence that's what makes life interesting. However, perceiving your life as something you can take the reigns of at any time, is not only true, but also critical to achieving your goals.
The Do's and Don't's of Spiffs
by Sueños on 01/17/17
I worked in an aggressive sales position throughout my undergrad. During that time I saw all kinds of spiffs, $1 for each product sold, contests for large prizes based on total sales for the month, the list is endless. However, these practices aren't always what's proven to be the most effective. I wanted to take a moment to discuss what means are the most effective for driving performance, and increasing cohesion.
Variable-Ratio Reinforcement Schedules
There are two types of reinforcement schedules, fixed-ratio and variable-ratio. Fixed ratios are just that, fixed. For every product, or perhaps every 3 products an employee sells, they receive a reward. A variable ratio is similar, however, the reward is instead issued an average of 3 times. This can be likened to a slot machine. The behavior, pulling the lever, rewards us an average of 12 times. Meaning sometimes it takes exactly twelve, sometimes it takes less than twelve, sometimes it takes much more than twelve. The interesting thing about variable-ratio reinforcement schedules is they tend to elicit the desired response more steadily than fixed-ratio reinforcement schedules, and with less of a delay between receiving the reward and beginning work again. Here's a study done with pigeons exhibiting this concept.
The more you think about it the more sense it makes. If you know you need 10 sales to receive a bonus, you will probably work very hard to receive the first three sales. However, by the time you get to three, getting a sale feels less exciting, and you still need 7 more before you're reinforced. So, you still work, but not as aggressively, towards getting the remaining sales. Eventually you hit 8, well now you only need 2 more sales to receive your bonus. Well then you start working very hard to get those last two sales, because your reward is just around the corner! With a variable-ratio schedule the reward could always be just around the corner. Because of this, you see less severe scalloping. (The pattern of hard work, lull, and then hard work talked about with fixed ratio schedules. Named after the pattern it leaves when graphed). A great, and easy, way to do this is allowing an employee to spin a wheel for prizes each time they make a sale, or perform a desired task. You can then customize the ratio you want the wheel to pay out at, and see what ratio is the most cost effective.
Don't Make Initial Goals Unreachable
Goal setting can be tricky, especially in sales. If you're reading this, then you probably know that. What I want to emphasize is that it should be a stretch, so that the employee has to think of new ways to succeed, but not so much that the employee never meets quota. Not being rewarded at all is a sure way to watch someone's performance drop off the deep end. If an employee is performing poorly, one should instead set goals that require a slight change in behavior. This in essence is a practice known as shaping, which is rewarding a subject for successive approximations. It's how dogs learn to do back flips, and it's also how humans learn the new behaviors that comprise a killer work ethic.
No Contests
This may sound heretical, as competitions go with sales like peanut butter and jelly. However, this conclusion comes as an antecedent of our discussion of fixed ratio schedules. If the potential for reward is removed or its size reduced suddenly, the desired behavior will begin to decrease, a phenomenon known as extinction. Contests can artificially produce this scenario. This happens because some employees may fall so far behind that of another, that the chances of them receiving the prize severely decreases to what they perceive as zero. Even though the employee may still receive their ordinary commission, the size of the reward for the behavior is now reduced, subsequently so is the frequency of the behavior.
For more on ratio schedules and Operant conditioning, check out this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ofbt16AJgg
This is a guest blog by one of our coaches Diego Andreas. If you like what you read, check out his blog www.wonderingintomyself.com
What to Remember This MLK Day
by Sueños on 01/16/17
It is easy to look at black and white stills of the deep south from 50 years ago and think as though segregation happened in some far off distant time. However, the time span we're actually talking about is relatively small. Both of my parents remember Martin Luther King Jr's stunning speeches, and his unfortunate assassination. In the memory of his incredible legacy, I wanted to take a moment to talk about what we can all learn from his life.
Martin Luther King Jr. faced indomitable odds. The enemy was the state and the complacency of its people, who in the wake of WWII had seen growth and prosperity unlike any other country before. Yet, in a country that had tried its best to crush the will of his people, he dared to dream. Hope is the willingness to dream in the face of total crushing darkness. It is knowing that the sun will always rise, even in the deepest darkness.
So, it this day that we celebrate perhaps the most powerful dreamer this world has known, that I hope you will continue to dream of a better tomorrow. That you see broken systems in your home, at work, or in your community, and that you begin to function as an agent for change. That in the face of bitter injustice you will link arms with your brothers and sisters. That no matter how dismal the outlook of the future, you will remember, that you always have the power to dream.
This is a guest post from one of our coaches, Diego-Andreas. If you like this post, and want to see more like it, check out his blog at www.wonderingintomyself.com
3 Scientifically Proven Methods to Increase Employee Engagement
by Sueños on 01/13/17
Employee engagement is consistently tied to long term retention, and improved performance. However, it takes much more than a ping-pong table in the break room to create it. Today I want to give you what the latest research has to offer on amplifying employee engagement.
Allow Space For Job Crafting
In a paper from the University of Michigan Justin M. Berg et al. describes Job Crafting as, "Captur[ing] what employees do to redesign their own jobs in ways that can foster job satisfaction, as well as engagement, resilience, and thriving at work." They note three particular ways of doing this. First, an actual reorganizing of procedure to make a task more enjoyable, or a reorganizing of responsibilities that utilizes an employee's strengths. Second, changing the nature of the relationships with other people at work. (The example they give is of a computer technician increasing the sense of reward from his job by helping newer, inexperienced technicians). Lastly they name a cognitive restructuring of one's duties. This could be done by helping an employee think of their job as a way of serving people, or a way to improve skills that are more fulfilling to the individual. They use the example of a a hospital worker thinking of his job as a service to sick people, or an aspiring actor using his job as a phone agent to develop new characters. In a new study that observed the effects of job crafting as a mediator for individual engagement and team performance, they found that teams who were allowed to collectively draft their responsibilities on a project together felt more responsible to their team, exhibited higher individual engagement, and performed better overall.
Allow Your Employees to be Heard
Another important way of boosting employee engagement is creating some sort of process by which employees suggestions can be heard and implemented, or if they cannot be implemented, an explanation as to why. It was found in a study published by Human Resource Management that having such a method boosted employee engagement and acted as a counterbalance for the emotional exhaustion which can result from a performance management system. I remember when I worked as a phone associate for Home Depot during my sophomore year of college. They had a big white board in the middle of the break area, and anyone was free to write a suggestion as to what could make Home Depot better. It was wiped clean weekly, and the top responses each month would either be integrated into policy, or explained to the company in its entirety. I can personally vouch that it created a much deeper sense of belonging.
Authentic Relationships With Leadership
Authentic leadership is a burgeoning topic in positive occupational psychology, and is becoming the cornerstone for many leadership coaching services. The premise is that by building rapport between leaders and employees, leaders are able to more effectively drive performance. The relationship between authentic leadership and employee engagement was studied in Taiwan, and it was shown that leaders who exhibited authentic leadership behaviors, were positively correlated with employees who were more engaged.
