BWSmallBiz -- Managing February 13, 2009, 5:00PM EST

How Positive Psychology Can Boost Your Business

(page 4 of 4)

Pollay's seminar helped CargoWise's top U.S. employees find common purpose David Yellen

is Stanford's Albert Bandura, a pioneer on overcoming phobias and in designing disease prevention campaigns. Few would argue with the notion that change is difficult, but research suggests that if you can master self-discipline in something as seemingly inconsequential as your posture, it will seep into your work life.

Coach Maymin delves into this with her clients, many of whom seek her out when they are between ventures. She says that to be able to get routinely into the mental state that Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced "cheeks sent me high"), another founder of positive psychology, calls "flow"—complete absorption in a task—entrepreneurs must craft a workload that's challenging but not too tough. Its demands should fully use an entrepreneur's abilities, the same way endurance athletes train just at their physical limit. "In the athletic domain, everyone can see it," she says. Psychologically, too, "self-regulation is a muscle you can train over time." She assigns her clients a small, daily exercise challenge each week, based on research that says if you accustom your body to pushing just past its comfort zone toward ever-retreating goals, "you can do the exact same thing in your company"—push past your comfort zone and achieve goals once thought to be out of reach.

Including, perhaps, smoothing out a messy merger. CargoWise EDI was, until 2006, a 50-person software company in Mount Prospect, Ill., serving the freight-forwarding industry. Founder and then-President Cris Arens called for a psychology coach after a combination with an Australian counterpart quadrupled its size, bruised egos, turned longtime policies and procedures upside down, and dashed morale. During Christmas 2006, Pollay ran a daylong seminar to get CargoWise's top U.S. employees to appreciate their individual strengths and find common purpose. They recalled when they were at their best. They thought about the company's wider purpose: creating jobs that support hundreds of families; cooperating while doing something they enjoy; producing useful products that facilitate commerce. None of it was groundbreaking, but employees didn't usually articulate these things. They talked about negative forces that were beyond their control and vowed not to be derailed by them.

"We're from the freight industry, so there was a lot of cynicism," says Arens, who calls himself "a blue-collar, down-to-earth person." But he also says the boost to morale was palpable. He brought Pollay back the next year to train the rest of the North American team. Now he's using the same techniques at HarneTech, his new green-building certification company.

Aliota at Carolina Seal says happiness science has led him to make lasting changes. For one, he regularly recalls and dissects his moments of entrepreneurial triumph, "times when I was truly in the zone, utilizing my natural strengths and having fun" as a sort of happiness fuel. One such moment came during a visit by respresentatives of a maker of giant water purification systems. Escorting the visitors on a tour of his newly renovated industrial facility, he introduced the whole staff by name. He shared the story of building the business up from two plastic shelves in his garage. He queried his prospects about their needs. During lunch, they connected over family and community matters. When Aliota and his prospects shook hands in the parking lot, the guests said they were ready to sign a deal—during a break, they'd canceled visits to two of Aliota's competitors.

Return to the BW SmallBiz Feb/March 2009 Table of Contents

Jill Hamburg Coplan writes about topics including finance, family, and religion, and teaches journalism at New York University. She has been a regular freelance contributor to BusinessWeek since 2000.

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