Can You Use Positive Emotion to Move Beyond Fear? with John Hagel
Jul 30, 2021
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John Hagel, recently retired partner from Deloitte and founder of Deloitte Centre for the Edge, discusses how positive emotions can help us move beyond fear. Topics include the importance of psychology in strategy, the power of alignment with narratives, the benefits of productive friction in teams, and the fusion of passion and purpose with a learning mindset.
Psychology is equally important as strategy in driving performance by understanding and addressing individuals' emotions.
Narratives empower individuals to move beyond fear by creating a sense of agency and inspiring collective action towards achieving a shared vision.
Deep dives
The Importance of Psychology in Performance
The podcast episode discusses the significance of psychology in relation to performance. The speaker, John Hagel, highlights the observation that without understanding the emotions of individuals involved in developing and implementing strategies, the desired impact cannot be achieved. Hagel emphasizes that psychology is even more important than strategy itself, as it influences the actions and perspectives of individuals. By recognizing and addressing fear in the workplace, individuals and organizations can turn challenges into opportunities that spark hope and excitement. Hagel introduces three pillars of positive emotion, including narratives, passion, and platforms, which help individuals move beyond fear and enhance performance.
The Power of Narratives
The podcast explores the concept of narratives as a powerful tool in overcoming fear and driving action. Unlike stories, narratives are open-ended, with resolutions depending on the choices and actions of individuals. Hagel explains that narratives empower individuals by creating a sense of agency and calling them to contribute to the outcome. Narratives exist at multiple levels, including individuals, organizations, geographies, and movements. By articulating their personal narratives and shifting from a fear-driven perspective to an opportunity-based narrative, individuals can motivate themselves and inspire collective action towards achieving a shared vision.
The Passion of the Explorer
The podcast delves into the passion of the explorer as an essential component for driving performance. This passion differs from other forms of passion as it involves a long-term commitment to increasing impact in a chosen domain. Those with the passion of the explorer embrace unexpected challenges as opportunities for learning and seek connections with others to navigate and address those challenges together. This mindset fosters a learning orientation, allowing individuals to continually explore, develop, and achieve more impact in their endeavors. By aligning personal and organizational passions, individuals can experience greater fulfillment and contribute to collective success.
Creating Learning Platforms for Impact
The podcast highlights the need for learning platforms as powerful tools for fostering growth and achieving greater impact. Traditional platforms focus on short-term transactions or social networking, while learning platforms prioritize the creation of new knowledge. Through learning platforms, impact groups consisting of three to fifteen individuals come together to learn faster by taking action and creating new knowledge in pursuit of a shared outcome. These groups meet frequently to reflect on progress, challenges, and implications for future actions. The learning platform facilitates shared workspaces and connections between groups, enabling the exchange of real-time information, emotional support, and productive friction. By engaging with learning platforms and impact groups, individuals can enhance their learning mindset, accelerate their impact, and overcome fear.
John Hagel, who’s recently retired as a partner from Deloitte, where he was the founder and chairman of the Silicon Valley-based Deloitte Centre for the Edge, which focuses on identifying emerging business opportunities that are not yet on the CEO’s agenda. With more than 40 years of experience as a management consultant, author, speaker, and entrepreneur, John has just released a new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, which addresses the psychology of change. And he’s also developing a series of programs to help people navigate through change at many levels.
In this week’s episode, we chat with John Hagel, who helps us discover how positive emotions can help us move beyond fear.
Thanks so much for joining me again this week. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.
You can also listen to all the episodes of Making Positive Psychology Work streamed directly to your smartphone or iPad through stitcher. No need for downloading or syncing.
Until next time, take care! Thank you, John!
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