transformational leadership: inspiring motivation utilizing advances in positive psychology and...

Transformational Leadership: Inspiring Motivation Utilizing Advances in Positive Psychology and

Sports Performance

Author: Student Sandra Dunn, [email protected]: December 18 2015

Abstract

A high performance Cyber Security team is essential for today’s successful and profitable enterprise business navigating through an increasingly difficult and dangerous internet. These teams need a strong leader who embraces the role as a Transformational Leader and uses its four foundational components: Idealized Influence, Intellectual Stimulation, Individualized Consideration and Inspirational Motivation to successfully manage the team. There are substantial financial benefits for business’s that invest and embed Inspirational Motivation into their culture. Inspirational Motivation increases profits, accelerates creativity, engages employees more deeply, and employee sick days and turnover are reduced.

Companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, Patagonia, and Toyota are looking beyond the traditional methods of inspiring employees to new visionary approaches from Flow research in extreme athletes, advances in performance sports coaching, and new positive psychology discoveries. The required business investment to benefit from these new Inspirational Motivation approaches is simply a determined optimism that anything is possible, a positive, thankful attitude and a Relentless Solution Focus.

1. Introduction

The Transformational Leaders role is critical to the success of the business. It’s

unthinkable that a group of even the most talented football players could win a Super

Bowl without a strong coach. The same is true for business; amazing people need an

amazing leader.

Inspirational Motivation Utilizing Advances in Positive Psychology and Sports Performance 2

Abraham Maslow, James MacGregor Burns, and Bernard Bass provided pioneering

research on human motivation, Transformational Leadership, and amazing leadership.

Their work has been pivotal for businesses to understand the different types of leadership,

what characteristics to look for, and what makes a great leader.

1.1. Self-Actualization and Flow

In 1943 Abraham Maslow’s paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” he provided

an unprecedented theory of human motivation describing a five level hierarchy of needs

that change as each previous level is met. The first basic level includes physiological

needs such as food, water, and sleep. Each level adds more psychological needs as

physical needs are met. The most advanced fifth level includes the most complex

psychological need of self-actualization. Self-actualization refers to the internal drive

people feel to meet their full potential, "What a man can be, he must be” (Maslow, 1954,

p.93). Maslow was the first to write about “Peak Experiences” a state he described as

“rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate

an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect

upon the experimenter” (Maslow, 1964). People that reach the highest level in Maslow’s

hierarchy of self-actualization often experience the euphoria of a Peak Experience.

Another twentieth century positive psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, who studies

the meaning of life and happiness, gave a different name to Peak Experiences calling it

“Flow”. Their research identified an intrinsic value for goals and motivation that

provided an internal reward and was separate from an extrinsic or external reward.

Czikszentmihalyi described Flow as, “a state in which people are so involved in an

activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will

continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it“(Cskikszentmihalyi,

1990, p.4).

Sandra Dunn, [email protected]


A Transformational Manager, who understands the hierarchy of employee needs

and the value of intrinsic motivators such as Peak Experiences and Flow, can set goals

that align with maximum motivation for their employees.

1.2. The Roots of Transformational Leadership

In the book “Leadership”, James MacGregor Burns used and extended Maslow’s

work on human motivation. Burns provided the first concept of Transformational

Leadership and founded the field of Leadership studies. Burns was the first to compare

Transactional Leadership to Transformational Leadership. He described Transactional

Leadership as a punishment and rewards system where leaders are concerned with people

following a process and are not interested in employee development. In comparison,

Burns described Transforming leaders as "leaders and followers help each other to

advance to a higher level of morale and motivation” (Burns, 1978, p.20).

Bernard Bass expanded on Burns research by providing the psychological details

behind what made Transformational leaders different and provided details on how they

were different. He also changed Burns description from “Transform“ to

“Transformational.” “These outcomes occur because the transformational leader offers

followers something more than just working for self-gain; they provide followers with an

inspiring mission and vision and give them an identity” (Bass, 1990). Because of

employee’s fear of risk and lack of support for creativity, Bass identified the worse issue

with Transactional Leadership is mediocrity. “In many instances, however, such

Transactional Leadership is a prescription for mediocrity” (Bass, 1990, p.20).

One of the most important contributions introduced by Bass was a method to

measure leadership and with a Multifactor Leadership Quiz. It is still the most popular

way to measure and compare leadership in organizations (Bass, 1985).

The research by Maslow, Burns, and Bass helped organizations realize that as

they determine management goals throughout their organization that motivating entry

level position and advanced position require different management styles to meet peak

performance goals. Cyber Security Professionals specifically are recognized as a group

that require Transformational Leadership and bristle at any infringement on their need to



be creative, solve problems, and acceptance of facts, all characteristics of Maslow’s

highest human motivational need of Actualization.

New research on using the optimal Flow state to maximize potential, strategies on

performance coaching, and the recognized business benefits of Positive Psychology offer

even more remarkable potential to maximize employee contributions with

Transformational Leadership and Inspirational Motivation.

1.3. Flow in Business

Rarely are extreme athletes and studious professors discussed in the same

conversation. Extreme athletes are the ones we see in the Red Bull commercials or watch

in awe at the X-games. These seemingly complete opposite group of people made the

same Flow and Happiness discovery as Czikszentmihalyi and Maslow although they

didn’t have a name for it or know why it drove them to push limits and seek new

aspirations. Extreme athletes find the Flow state frequently, and they don’t wait for Flow

to find them. They purposely and actively seek Flow to capture the next level of extreme

achievement. Extreme athletes also provided the discovery of “Flow Triggers”. Flow

Triggers are specific actions that enable Flow instead being fully dependent on a lucky

Flow intervention.

Steven Kotler researches and studies Flow and calls Flow “the source code for our

intrinsic motivation“ (Kotler, 2011, p. 19). He believes Building “Flow triggers” into the

fiber of a business is the most important objective that will impact future success and sees

Flow as the holy grail of business productivity. Most employees want to be challenged

and engaged. By creating a Flow positive environment employees are happier, and

business is more productive. He points to statistics on the lack of employee motivation

and engagement provided by a 2014 Gallup poll on US employees. It found 31.5

employees are engaged, 51.00 not engaged and 17.5 percent actively disengaged. These

numbers reveal most U.S. business are running at 30 % productivity (Adams, 2014).

Enabling even small improvements in Flow would raise the productivity and engagement

significantly. Research on Flow in Business executives by Cranston and Keller support

the benefits of increasing the Flow state by even a small amount. They found that



executive were five times more productive when they were in Flow but reported they

only spent about 10 % of their time there. Even a modest increase of Flow time to 20 %

would accelerate a significant increase in their performance and productivity (Cranston,

Keller, 2013).

1.4. Performance Coaching

Jason Selk, a mental sports performance coach and director of sports psychology

for the St. Louis Cardinals provides performance coaching to businesses and top

executives. Many of the tools and techniques he uses to coach businesses are the same

tools he uses to coach the world’s top athletes to maximize their performance. One of the

big surprises Selk found in the business performance world was the lack of process goals

and an understanding of their relationship with product goals (Selk, 2011). Selk coaches

businesses who are looking to improve performance on the vital importance of optimism

to meet performance goals and the importance of changing from being problem focused

to being Relentlessly Solution Focused (RSF).

Product goals are focused on final results Process goals focus are the daily

activities that need to happen to meet the product goal (Selk, 2011). Breaking product

goals into process goals gives people the tools to clearly understand daily goals, see daily

success, and receive immediate feedback some of the important ingredients for

establishing the high performance Flow state.

1.5. Business Benefits of Positive Psychology

In Shawn Achor’s ground breaking research “The Happiness Advantage” he

provides statistical evidence that happier environments are more financially successful.

His research aligns and builds on the findings of Burns, Bass, Maslow, Csikszentmihalyi,

Kotler, and Selk. All these researcher point to the importance of meaning, optimism and

the importance of a positive attitude, that happiness and optimism are the best fuel for

success. Achor’s research provides the blueprint and building blocks to make the change.



One of the most important insights his research discovered was the standard

happiness formula, be successful, and then you will be happy is broken and often doesn’t

bring the happiness that has been consistently pushed over the horizon. Research supports

that being successful is a result of being happy.

“You are not just your genes and your environment…Happiness can be a choice. But

it’s a choice that we can influence through our organizations. And when we do so, it

becomes the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy” (Shawn Achor’s 7

Principles of Positive Psychology, n.d.).

2. The Four I’s of Transformational Leadership

Transactional Leadership and Transformational Leadership are often compared and

their differences highlighted. Bass described Transformational Leadership as raising

Transactional leadership to the next level. In his book “ Transformational Leadership

Bass wrote, “Transformational leadership involves inspiring followers to commit to a

shared vision and goals for an organization or unit, challenging them to be innovative

problem solvers, and developing followers’ leadership capacity via coaching, mentoring

and provision of both challenge and support” (Bass, 1990).

Transactional Leadership is based on a transaction between the employee and the

Transactional leader. There is a recognized agreement on the exchange of reward for

effort. The Transactional Leader looks for any deviation from the rules and steps in and

takes corrective action if the agreed standard has not been met. A Transactional Leader

may manage closely (micro manage) or take a more hands off approach (Laissez-Faire).

(Bass, 1990).

2.1. Transformational Leadership characteristics:

Idealized Influence: Transformational leaders serve as role models to build

employee trust and confidence. Idealized Influence is comprised of two separate

components, the behavior of the leader, “I believe we can beat these sales



numbers” and secondly how employees perceive him. “He is the hardest working

person in the company.”

Inspirational Motivation: Transformational leaders’ actions motivate and inspire

the people they lead. They ensure that goals and priorities align with the

company’s vision and mission. They connect meaning, purpose, and challenge to

employee goals and objectives. The leader motivates employees by providing a

shared vision that bonds and builds a unified team.

Intellectual Stimulation: Transformational leaders inspires employees to be

innovative and find creative solutions. They encourage them to question

assumptions and look at problems from a different perspective. Employees are

given permission to take risks and permission to fail. Failures are learning

opportunities and viewed as a forward fail that moves the company closer to

success.

Individual Consideration: Transformational leaders focus on each individual’s

strengths and weaknesses for growth and achievement. They are both coach and

mentor and view their primary role as facilitating the employee to exceed

expectations. Transformational Leadership mentoring that aligns to individual’s

skill safeguards against the fish in a tree syndrome that Einstein described in his

famous quote: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to

climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

3. Meaning, the Fuel for Inspirational Motivation



Creating Meaning and making work meaningful is a prerequisite for Inspirational

Motivation and part of priming the happy Flow state where employees are their most

productive. Inspirational Motivation and Meaning challenge employees to stretch outside

of their comfortable boundaries, to think big, to do the impossible. Meaning is described

as something that involves high stakes, is a challenge, something that the employee feels

matters, will make a difference or hasn’t been done before.

3.1. Mission Statements and Vision Statements

Mission Statements and Vision Statements are the foundations for creating

meaning, but Csikszentmihalyi encourages leaders to go one set further and align



employees with the Soul of the company’s vision. The Soul is the business contribution

back to the world, the value that isn’t financial.

3.2. Creating Meaning

Be Authentic: Actions are more valuable than words. Embed the visions and

values in every objective and then live them. Leaders communicate much more

with what they do and how they act then with what they say.

Use Stories: To provide meaning to employee’s its common for leadership to use

a turnaround story, or we are getting out played by our competitor story. Use

more varied and unique meaning stories to reach everyone and motivate across

the team. What is meaningful will resonate differently with different employees.

Look for stories from within your business that capitalize on the importance of

what employees are doing.

o A story about a great user experience where a customer was able to use

your product to reach out to people in need.



o A first, such as your company helping a customer climb a mountain that

hadn’t been climbed before.

o A story where your organization provided the technology and security

awareness training to protect data at a world peace conference.

Clear Communication of Goals: Use Specific, Measurable, Attainable,

Realistic, and Time-related (S.M.A.R.T) goals. Employees that clearly

understand for what and how they will be measured can prioritize on what is

important to their manager and the business. They should also be able to

connect the importance of their work to the rest of the organization and its

impact on other employees, other departments, and customers.

Good Feedback Mechanisms : Employees thrive when feedback is frequent

and consistent.

Recognition of Work: Employees value small frequent gestures. Did

someone work all night to patch networks from a new exploit? Highlight their

name at the next meeting and provide a silly card to hang on their cube or

movie tickets.

Listen: Good leaders listen to ideas from all levels of contributors. The best

ideas often come from people on the front lines and in the trenches.

Ownership : Transformational Managers recognize that employees find

meaning in ownership. Shifting resources on projects is sometimes

unavoidable, but try to make it the exception, not the rule.

Avoid the Blame Game: Never create a hostile environment by publically

humiliating someone. People in information security are at especially high

risk targets for taking it on the chin when something in security fails. There is

little recognition of the many events that were resolved and the catastrophies

that were avoided; it’s that one fatal issue that people remember. Work as a

team to remediate events and then work as a team to do the post mortem to

understand what happened and why. Use this new understanding of gaps or

new attacks to fail forward and be more prepared for the next event.



4. Building a Flow Focused Business

Flow is an “optimal state of consciousness where people feel the best and perform the

best,” (Kotler, 2014, p.19). It’s found by stretching the limits, by being challenged. The

precursors to Flow are concentration, regular feedback and the actual skills or ability to

accomplish the task. The goal is not to be in 100 % Flow state, but to get there much

more frequently and able to be there purposely.

Building Flow triggers into a business requires good communication, awareness of

each employee’s strengths, their specific skills, and transparency from leadership on risks

and goals.

Creating an optimal Flow environment requires closer and more frequent personal

communication between employees and their managers. The extra investment has a

substantial pay back, companies willing to invest in an optimal Flow environment give

themselves a competitive edge.

Tracking Flow state should be included in progress meetings between managers and

employees. Questions such as:

o Are you getting enough time to focus?

o Do you feel you are constantly interrupted?

o Do you have peers that you are actively sharing creative ideas with?

o How do you feel about the challenges you are working on?

Flow Triggers are specific events or actions that facilitate the Flow state. Embedding

Flow Triggers into the Cyber Security environment gives people the best possible

opportunity to achieve the highly happy productive state.

4.1. Flow Triggers

Flow Triggers How to Enable in Business EnvironmentIntensely focused attention / serious concentration

Avoid open office plans. Schedule no interruption times, for

example, specific days that no meetings are scheduled, or signs for cubes that say “do not disturb.”

For meetings have goals, keep them on



task and have a no laptop / phone policy.

Clear goals / shared clear goals Confirm employees clearly understand the goal, their goal, and how it connects to the company vision.

Group Flow can provide exponential results for creativity and problem solving leveraging the combined higher focus state.

Increase goal difficulty by about 4% to achieve the Flow state but to avoid the panic state.

Immediate feedback / shared communication / close listening / familiarity / positive motion

Immediate feedback reinforces that the goal is on track. If a rock climber thinks they have enough strength to hang onto a ledge but falls, it is immediate feedback they either need to choose a different direction or need to lift weights to be stronger. A Transformational Manager leveraging Flow uses immediate feedback by understanding that meeting weekly for 15 minutes is much more effective than meeting for an hour monthly.

It is essential, especially in group Flow, to listen closely to people and that the conversation moves forward in a positive direction. Conversations should be additive, not argumentative.

Group Flow needs familiarity. It provides a common language and immediate understanding for forward momentum. Group Flow is seen when a champion NBA team or an orchestra that has played together for a long time perform almost as if they are a single breathing entity.

Challenge to skill ratio / equal participation Use the rubber band theory to expand goals but to not overstretch or break the employees trying to achieve them. Flow happens right above the comfort zone but beneath the panic anxiety line.

Group Flow is achieved when people are at the same skill and have the same



role level. If there is an unequal role authority or newbie to advanced skill level there is a misappropriate weighting and Flow rarely happens.

High consequences / risk For an extreme athlete, this often involves bodily harm. In a work environment, it could be committing to being open about how you really feel about the interface for the new project.

Risk / to Gain ratio innovation is fear driven. Having skin (actual skin or reputation other similar loss) motivates synapses.

“Fail forward.” If employees have the space to fail, then they have the ability to take risks and find Flow for the next great idea.

Rich environment / deep embodiment, sense of control novelty, unpredictability complexity, and creativity.

Seek out complexity, open employees mind’s to think about stars, have them contemplate ancient Greeks accomplishment in math, or look at Hong Kong on Google Maps. The idea is to use complexity to spark their own big ideas.

Spark creativity by having people thing about big ideas. Open a meeting with a twenty minute discussion on how to create a universal alphabet or a brain storming session on solving a long existing security challenge like BYOD.

A deep embodiment involves turning off the filter, no mental debate on whether to keep or toss the information it’s just absorbed.

Extreme athletes use risk to spark creativity, but less extreme ways are simple things like choosing a different way to drive home from work, brushing your teeth with the wrong hand, or trying something completely new.



5. Performance, Make it Happen

Jason Selk has built his performance program around the “power of three.” A

frequent misconception is to be more successful there is a need to be busier. Instead of

being successful people find themselves frantically running from one goal to the next not

successful but very busy. A better method is to use Selk’s power of three which identifies

three top product goals and then three processes for each of the three goals and the daily

activities to achieve them (Selk, 2011). Focusing effort on the three most important goals

puts personal resources where they will have the most valuable impact.

5.1. Product Goals

Product goals are results oriented and the type of goals most people set. Product

goals are measurable. Win the World Series, lose ten pounds, and increase sales by

$20,000,000.00 are an example of Product goals. Setting Product goals clearly identifies

the target, where the finish line is, and the need prioritize resources to achieve it.

5.2. Process Goal

Process goals are the daily activities needed to achieve the product goals. For a

sales person that has a product goal of increasing their annual sales by 20 %, a daily

process goal could be ten new cold calls a day. For a team that has set their sights on

winning the team championship that maybe increased reps in the weight room and an

additional 15 minutes of daily watching game tape of upcoming competitors. Weight loss

tools like Fitbit and calorie counters are good examples of daily process tools that help

meet product goals.

5.3. Daily Success Journal

To achieve maximum effectiveness both product goals and process goals must be

written down in a trackable format. The tracking format can be flexible to align with the

individual employee and their preferences. Examples of good tracking tools are a

centralized employee goal tool, a work journal, or a simple Word or Excel worksheet.



The important thing is that it is in a form that can be written in daily. This one simple step

makes the likelihood of achieving the goal nine times more likely (Wilson, Kohl, 1997).

Example of Daily Success Log (Selk, 2012)

Employee Name Success Log

Date / /

1. What three things did I do well today?

2. What is the number one most needed improvement for tomorrow?

3. What is the one thing I can do differently to help make the needed improvements?

4. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being total completion of each process goal), how well did I do today with the completion of my priority 1 process goals?1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10





5.4. Quarterly Evaluations

Once a quarter a Transformational Manager should compare a summary of the daily

process goals. Important items to track are:

Is the employee on target to meet their product goal?

How well did the person do from quarter to quarter?

Are there any areas where you could stretch and add more challenge?

Capture feedback from the employee on the daily process goal activity. Do they feel

more productive? Has it improved their job satisfaction? Look for any areas that need

adjusting. Transformational Leadership recognizes the uniqueness of each individual and

the need to be flexible and finding the best solution that fits them. Something that works

extremely well for one person may not be the right mentoring tool for the next person, so

be willing to adjust.

5.5. The Importance of Optimism

Optimism is believing you can. Optimistic people use hope and confidence to find

a solution instead of focusing on the problem. A simple shift and a rewiring of thoughts

and communication can provide an immediate infusion of optimism.

The natural human tendency is to focus on negative problems and immediately

see what is risky, wrong, or harmful. People talk about how hot it is on a warm sunny

day, not how beautiful it is or the amazing sunshine is. Compliment someone on their

new car and they will likely mention the large car payment, and how they don’t make

cars like they used to. It’s rare for someone to mention how wonderful the roads were on

their way to work, it’s much more common to hear about their horrible daily commute.

It’s possible this default human nature to see the problems was tied to survival when the



things that could harm or kill people had a significantly higher number of outcomes, and

daily survival depended on identifying them before they could. Like many of the tools

from prehistoric history, it is not suitable for surviving current threats and its left people

with a natural tendency for what Selk calls Problem Centered Thinking (Selk, 2012).

Problem Centered Thinking (PCT) focuses on the problem. Relentless Solution

Focus (RSF) is the exact opposite of PCT, and it’s the key to building optimistic teams.

RSF asks, “What can I do to make this better?” A complete solution to a problem is

rarely apparent but focus on the +1 action. +1 is any action that takes a problem one step

toward a solution. Enough +1 and the complete solution is made apparent (Selk, 2012).

Actively commit to RSF and build RSF into leadership thinking and your team’s

thinking. Once I recognized the second nature of PCT thinking and started thinking in

RSF the biggest surprise to me was how much happier I was. I had managed the parallel

shift in thinking; I no longer had problems I had unknown solutions. RSF thinking is a

skill and requires a daily commitment.

5.6. Develop Relentless Solution Focus

Actively practice RSF Thinking. Whenever your mind drifts to a problem within 60 seconds replace all PCT thinking with RSF thinking.

Transformational Managers should Reinforce RSF thinking when interacting with their employees. When employees come to them with “problems”, encourage them to provide the +1 solution.

Make RSF mandatory throughout your sphere of influence.

For engagements with upper staff state the priorities, why they are the priorities and the necessary solutions.

Require emails, reports, and presentations on the security area your team is responsible for stating clearly what the priority is, what the proposed solutions are, and the risk associated with either accepting or not accepting the solutions.



Have zero tolerance policy for fear mongering.

Make RSF thinking a team habit. Post “What is the one thing I can do differently to make this situation better” in the team meeting room, on the first slide for the team meeting and on the last slide.

Have RSF stickers or labels made for everyone on your team.

Post RSF sayings it in the bathrooms or coffee area.

Exercise RSF thinking Next time a co-worker, friend, or relative brings up something negative or complains ask, “Do you have ideas on a solution for that problem?

Places of congregation like the water cooler or standing in line at the grocery store naturally gravitate toward negative events. PCT thinking is contagious, and there is a constant fight to stay in the RSF zone. Purposely limit the exposure to PCT so that energy and mental resources stay in RSF.

Track RSF state in the daily success journal. Track RSF, prioritizes making it a well developed strength.

5.7. Emphasize the Start

Selk coaches Emphasize the Start (ETS) (Selk, 2012). Most of us are familiar with

ready, set, hesitate of goals. You know you will be happy if you get up and run but just

thinking about it makes you curl up and hit the snooze button one more time. The small,

simple mental change of (ETS) gets past the hesitate hump of productivity. Selk coaches

just to think about how to get started. Instead of thinking about the whole run, think about

getting your shoes on and out the door. Instead of thinking about writing the whole paper,

think about the next sentence. Instead of thinking about the huge pile of dishes, think

about filling the sink. Transformational Managers should monitor where employees are



too focused on the whole goal and help them shift to ETS thinking. Help the new

Security Awareness Program manager think about the first training program instead of

being paralyzed thinking about needing ideas for 51 more training events. Prompt the

SOC manager to focus on identifying the most critical assets for the new acquisition, and

then prioritize the rest of the network. Encourage developers to understand the first five

of the CWE / SANS top 25, and then the next five, instead of trying to absorb all 25 at

once.

6. The Happiness Advantage

Performance goals and process goals ensure that employees aren’t just busy but

productive. Product goals give the target and the finish line, but it’s important not to tie

your day to day happiness to them.

In our society, it’s common to keep happiness as a distant reward. Make your

sales numbers, now you need bigger numbers, you lose ten pounds, now you need to lose

ten more. In the Happiness Advantage, Shaun Achor provides research that pushing

happiness over the horizon has the opposite effect on happiness and productivity. If

happiness is the distant carrot that we never let ourselves enjoy the result is we are



stressed and unhappy people. Achor’s research found that instead of success making

people happy, it’s happy people that see the opportunities to be successful.

Prioritizing on a positive and happy work place should not be viewed as a

suggestion to ignore negative information or events. Being authentic is a critical

component of building a happy business culture, bad things will happen, and there will be

bad days. Both negative and positive business cultures will have similar events; the

important difference is how those events are faced.

The manager - employee relationship is the single most important relationship

that is cultivated at work and has the most impact on how happy or unhappy an employee

is at work. A Transformational manager who actively incorporates positive daily actions

and encourages similar acts in their employees can cause a ripple through the entire

company. Achor’s research showed that by actively looking for positive things and

people to write about the brain changes its pattern to look for the positive things in the

environment. He calls this the Tetris effect that happens when people continuously play

Tetris for several days. Even after they quit playing the actual game of Tetris their brain

continues to play and reports to them how to move buildings, cereal boxes, and bricks in

the wall for the next Tetris move. By actively tracking positive events, the brain actively

starts looking for them and prioritizes them over negative events (Achor, 2010).

6.1. The Happy Formula Principles

Happy Changing Mindset Actively change how activities are viewed. For example, instead of allowing negative thoughts about how walking down to the data center to physically inspect systems is a waste of time, think about it as an opportunity to burn a few calories and stretch your legs. This simple change can rewire brains with positive thoughts.

To encourage a positive mindset, have people rewrite their jobs in a job description that would encourage other people to apply for it. This exercise on a change in perspective often helps people see positive opportunities parts of their work

Understand the power of words. A Transformational Manager telling someone they



expect a positive outcome and then providing positive encouragement is much more effective than “We’re all fired if you mess this up.”

Positive Brain Training For 21 days write down three new things that you are grateful for and encourage direct reports to do the same. At the next staff meeting reinforce that this is a daily activity and list the three things you wrote. At the next staff meeting ask someone to volunteer to read theirs.

Write and ask employees to write a brief description of a positive experience in the last 24 hours.

Write and ask employees to write one quick email in the morning thanking someone in their work support team for something that they appreciated or that helped them.

Fail Bouncing Forward Management of a significant failure is one of the biggest opportunities to drive positive change and live authentic positive values. If something negative happens regroup, use it as a learning opportunity, and be better next time. Draw clear lines of engagement and have a zero tolerance policy for the blame game.

If something failed because of an advanced idea or calculated risk, reinforce support for creative ideas but determine where the initial proposal missed.

Using Core Strengths Understanding people strengths and give them opportunities to use those strengths.

Remind them of those when they need positive encouragement and confidence to stretch or do a difficult task.

Free Character Strength Test: https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register

7. Conclusion



The dynamic, interconnected array of networks that connect the majority of the

world’s people together offers businesses extraordinary opportunities. Risk adverse

businesses rely on a well-managed Cyber Security Team to protect them from these

dangerous adversaries.

Managing a highly skilled, offbeat, often zealous Cyber Security team that faces high

pressure, potentially business ending crises requires an equally vigorous and talented

manager.

A Transformational Manager that Invests in the four building blocks of

Transformational Management, Idealized Influence, Intellectual Stimulation,

Individualized Consideration and Inspirational Motivation, maximizes the team’s

effectiveness, contributes to each Cyber Security member’s job satisfaction and Cyber

Security team’s contribution to the business’s financial success.

Encouraging Inspirational Motivation using any or all of the listed suggestions and

techniques adapted from the study of Flow, Positive Psychology, and Professional Sports

Coaching can improve business performance. Equally important encouraging people to

find their Flow, focus on daily priorities, and to use a positive lens to view their reality

can improve employee’s personal lives and their impact on the greater community.

Shawn Achor inspires readers to think of think of the Chaos effect, “It has been said that

a single butterfly flapping its wings can create a hurricane halfway around the world….

Each one of us is like that butterfly. And each tiny move toward more positive mindset

can send ripples of positivity through our organizations, our families, and our

communities “(Achor, 2010, p.209).

8. References

Achor, Shawn, (2010). The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work. New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group



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Bass, Bernard M. (1990). Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share the Vision Organizational Dynamics,

Bass, Bernard M. (1985). Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). Factor-analytic studies

Burns, M. MacGregor (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper and Row

Corpu, (n.d.). Shown Achor’s 7 Principles of Positive Psychology: Retrieved January 4, 2016, from corpu.com http://corpu.com/wwwmedia/webinar/happiness_jobaid.pdf

Cranston, Susie, Keller, Scott (2013). Increasing the ‘meaning quotient’ of work. McKinsey Quarterly: Retrieved January 4, 2016, from mckinsey.com http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/increasing_the_meaning_quotient_of_work

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: Harper and Row.

Maslow, H. Abraham, (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.

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Kotler, Steven (2014). The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance. Seattle, WA: Amazon Publishing

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Selk, Jason, (2012). Success-Logs: Retrieved January 4, 2016, from enhancedperformance.com http://enhancedperformanceinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Success-Logs.pdf

Wilson, Troy, Kohl, David (1997). Business Planning: A Roadmap for Success, Agricultural Marketing


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