July 20, 2025 • 38 mins
Summary
In this conversation, Dr Alfredo Borodowski discusses the significant impact of having a clear purpose within organizations. He highlights how purpose can lead to a 40% increase in productivity and a similar rise in customer satisfaction, supported by various studies that quantify these benefits.
Speaker Short Bio:
Dr. Alfredo Borodowski is a global keynotespeaker and expert in peak performance and positive psychology. He helps leaders and teams break through resistance to drive sustainable performance,innovation, and energy.Contact:
www.linkedin.com/in/alfredo-borodowski/Takeaways
Purpose increases productivity by 40%.
Customers of purpose-driven organizations report 40% higher satisfaction.
The benefits of purpose are supported by numerous studies.
Psychological capacity is enhanced by a clear organizational purpose.
Organizations with purpose see tangible improvements in performance.
Purpose-driven companies foster better customer relationships.
Quantifiable data supports the importance of purpose in business.
A strong sense of purpose can transform organizational culture.
Purpose is linked to higher employee engagement and satisfaction.
Investing in purpose can lead to long-term success.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Positive Psychology and Peak Performance
05:44 The Importance of Purpose in Leadership
09:12 Consequences of Missing Purpose in Organizations
15:06 Positivity and Its Impact on Company Culture
19:29 Quantifiable Benefits of Purpose and Well-Being
22:13 The Evolution of Workplace Well-Being
24:27 Sustaining People for a Sustainable Future
27:04 From Motivation to Commitment
29:09 Re-engaging Disengaged Teams
31:13 Transforming Team Dynamics through Strengths
33:33 Gaining Clarity Amidst Uncertainty
34:59 Embedding Values in Onboarding
37:01 Shifting Mindsets: From Fixing to Nourishing
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
That purpose increases productivity 40%.
OK, that around the same numberson customer relationships.
People have a purpose that customers have a satisfaction
rate like 40% higher with. It's all quantifiable.
It's all study after study afterstudy of the best labs in the
world measuring tangible, actualbenefits of what we called
(00:25):
psychological capacity at organizations.
Welcome to Sustainability Transformations podcast where we
explore bold ideas to drive positive change for people, the
community and business. And today we have Doctor Alfredo
(00:47):
who is insightful, purpose driven, transformational science
parked and inspirational is a global keynote speaker, expert
in peak performance and positivepsychology.
He helps leaders and teams breakthrough resistance to drive
sustainable performance, innovation, and energy.
Thank you, Alfredo, your equation positivity plus purpose
(01:10):
equals peak performance, is powerful.
Where did this framework begin for you, and how has it evolved?
It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for the opportunity
and I hope I bring some wisdom and I help people to achieve
peak performance. Like most good stories, they
come from life, from personal story.
In my case, wow, I went through something, you know, I never
(01:32):
expected, you know, to be an expert on positive psychology or
peak performance. It happened to me out of my life
turning upside down. In 2013, I was arrested or
impersonating a police officer. At that point in life, I was a
rabbi of a very prestigious community, one of the largest
(01:55):
here in the United States. I was on top of the world.
I had an office at the facing Central Park in Manhattan.
You know, coming from Argentina,middle class, I made it big.
I was going in the morning, sitting, putting my feet on my
desk, coffee and watching through the Wyndham Center Park.
And coming from middle class in Argentina, I made it big, as big
(02:18):
as it could get, and never thought about big performance
and positivity. I was there.
I was living it, OK. It was natural to me until that
morning of 2013 Juneteenth, I was arrested for impersonating a
police officer. What happened is that the few
months before congregant of mine, who was a retired
(02:39):
detective, gave me one of those friends and family Shields.
I am not sure you have been those in the UK.
By here policemen can give to their family a kind of small
version of their shield, OK, Which I think is crazy.
OK, It should don't be legal, but he gave me one and he said,
Alfredo, with this, you are going to have no problems.
(03:01):
And I was manic. I was taking the wrong
medication and antidepressant. And they gave me the shield.
And basically I adopted the personality of a policeman.
And I began basically directing traffic at the highways of New
York and telling people how to drive until I show my badge to a
young lady. And three minutes later, I have
(03:22):
three patrol cars behind me and I was arrested.
He happens to be Enoch. I later on learned that the lady
wore the fiance or one of the caps on one of the policemen in
town of old people, you know, and I was arrested.
I was accused of impersonating apolice officer.
I was fired from my job. My friends gave that you know,
basically gave their back to me.They stopped talking to me.
(03:45):
They stopped emailing to me. I was diagnosed by in a
hospitalized and diagnosed bipolar and because I was a
prestigious rabbi, they written press made a circus out of me
and they called me the road ragerabbi and I went by it all.
I was on front page of newspapers in Japan and Erl
Island again, I didn't touch anybody was in violent, but it
(04:08):
was a sensation. The rabbi impersonates a police
officer and I went into the deepest depression for eight
months. I was on a couch on fiddle
position until 1 morning. I don't know how I felt the
force moving me to go up to my office, you know, go up the
stairs to my office. And I went, you know, and on top
(04:29):
of my desk I found something that I do not know yet how it
got there. I found a yellow file and I open
it and I saw the results of a test on positive psychology I
had taken a few months earlier. And I I looked at my top five
strengths, creativity, love of learning, curiosity,
(04:49):
perseverance and bravery. And something turned on instead
of me and I went back to school and with depression, with the
court cases, I went through social work school and did
fantastic, became a social worker and then became an expert
on positive psychology. And it made a promise to me, to
myself, that I would help peopleto find the top five strengths
(05:14):
to have to go to fulfill the dreams I experience, how they
can transform your life. And what is crazy is that we
know from research that 2 thirds, 70% of people do not
know the top strengths, 70% of people.
(05:38):
There is an epidemic of strengthblindness.
I am on a quest to help people find and cover lock their
strengths. That's a very moving story.
Moving story by turning around from the adversity, the
challenge, as you've vividly explained.
(05:58):
Why is clarifying purpose so essential for leaders and teams
right now? Purpose, The definition of
purpose, the one I follow, is the best of yourself for the
benefit of others. That's what purpose is, giving
the best of yourself for the benefit of others.
(06:18):
And that's why I like a principle that says purpose
first. Sometimes when people talk about
purpose, they locate purpose at the end.
The purpose of something is to go on that direction.
The objective and people are confusing.
Objective and purpose are not the same purpose.
(06:39):
Force purpose is motivate you toget to the objective.
And when the purpose is to give the best of yourself for the
benefit of others, you will get the objective because is the
best of what you have, the best of who you are.
And once you have your purpose, you are going to get to the
objective. The result of purpose is
(07:03):
fulfillment, no success. And that's another confusion,
confusing success and fulfillment.
Success, usually ephemeral, is external, is getting something.
Fulfillment is receiving something out of giving your
best for the service of others. And fulfillment usually comes in
three kinds. First, gratitude.
(07:23):
Gratitude when somebody comes back to you and said, says for
what you done for me, I achievedwhat I couldn't without your
help. That's the greatest kind of
fulfillment. The second count kind of growth
when you see somebody else growing and they don't come back
to you and say thank you, but you witness the the effect of
your actions. And the third one is inner
(07:45):
growth, how you grow by fulfilling your purpose.
Interestingly, the third one is only 10% of fulfillment and we
usually think that the inner satisfaction is 90%.
But we all know that the people we love more in life and at the
end of life, when it used to be a rabbi as as people, who was
(08:08):
the person who had the greatest influence?
Usually a teacher, parent, a coach, they were the ones who at
some point touch your life and made you who you are.
And from the point of view of purpose, that's the greatest
gift you can give to somebody and the greatest fulfillment you
get in return. Then good leaders, you know what
(08:31):
is, who is the leader? A leader is the one that from
his or her position, give the best of themselves for the
benefit of others and get in return to witness how the others
achieve the great potential. And if they do that, by the way,
the company will grow, people are going to be at the best,
they will get loyalty, they willget commitment.
(08:52):
All those things will come. But out of this equation of
positivity purpose a big performance.
I spoke to a leader. The leader asked me what does
the leader of sustainability looks like you've just given me.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You've just given me what how toattempt to answer.
What have you observed when purpose is missing in an
(09:15):
organization? You know clearly all the things
we know, burnt out, lack of commitment, lack of loyalty,
lack of motivation, OK, you don't have a purpose then
basically the best of yourself is not being manifested, OK.
And we think that purpose is going to be generating by having
some kind of quarterly report orperformance assessment that
(09:40):
you're going to trace goals, OK.And now you have to produce a
certain amount which are clearlynecessary for a company.
You have to have objective external validation.
But that's not going to happen if we don't have first, the
opportunity for people to give the best they have and they are
for the common good. And, and, and something I tell
(10:02):
companies, and I see a lot, you know, is that we are in a
culture of fixing instead of a culture of nourishing.
Culture of fixing. Instead of culture of
nourishing, you know, some people ask me, Alfredo, you
could say all that you want to say in one phrase.
OK, I have an answer. Moving from a culture of fixing
(10:22):
to a culture of nourishing. Since childhood, our parents
love us. Love, but they try to fix us OK
at school, they always look at what you're not doing well and
where you need to improve OK at jobs and like I said that the
performance and the performance report the manager, what do you
need to improve? And what we know from positive
(10:44):
psychology that the biggest revenue comes from doing better
when you do good than rather fixing what you're not good at.
Then we are focusing on the wrong things.
The best is to maximize what functions and not to fix what
doesn't function unless it's something absolutely necessary,
by the way. But in general, OK, the effort
(11:06):
is on maximizing the strength that people already have and not
to zoom in on how to elevate theweaknesses that people have.
That will not work, will burn people out, will not get people
to top performance to pick performance, and purpose is part
of that. Purpose is part of the equation
(11:28):
in which people give the best ofwho they are, and by doing that
they maximize their potential. While you mentioned resonates,
they have knowledge where sometimes I find some leaders
are trying to teach a fish how to fly or a bed how to swim.
It's so important to focus on the strengths, not ignoring the
(11:50):
weaknesses. But if you disproportionately
focusing so much on the weaknesses.
And in other instances, I also find where you have graduates
where in university or in education you were getting 85%
to 90% setting work settings, maybe focus on the 10% that
(12:12):
wasn't got right instead of focusing on the 90% which was
right. Some leaders or teams only get
so bogged down into 10%, which was not enough.
Especially males. Males were trained to be fixers.
So you had to fix the error conditioner.
You had to fix the whatever the window you had to fix.
(12:33):
You know, males were trained that if we don't fix things, we
has lost our masculinity. The great role model of the male
is somebody who fixed something.It's ingrained to us and we need
to get out of that paradigm. And we know that the the world
of the emotions, the world of strengths, you know, something
that is happened is a big revolution today in science that
(12:57):
most businesses is another way beginning in 1998 with the birth
of positive psychology and positive psychology, the science
of flourishing and optimal will be in optimum optimum well-being
and optimum functioning in the science that study hope, hope,
optimism, resilience, motivation.
(13:18):
We know today and we didn't knowthis 30 years ago that we have
measured, we have measured, you know, we have studies, journals,
lab experiments, and we can measure the increase tangible
increasing productivity and efficiency.
When optimism, hope, motivation,resilience are brought into
(13:41):
companies, then like I say to CEO's is not only good to be
good at the company for good sake, because good is good, but
also because good is good for business.
Business Today we can prove scientifically that being good
is good for business, quantifiable.
We have the data. Then you don't want to be good
because you know, they used to call it soft skills, you know,
(14:06):
emotional skills or the soft skills.
No, we do, though. We know today there are hard
skills that hope, well-being, optimism are on the DNA of the
bottom line of corporations. And if you go into the AI
technology era thinking that you're going to be able to
replace people with technology and to replace the emotional
(14:31):
with technology, then what you're doing, you're cracking
the foundations of the bottom line, not just the emotional,
but what we know today is productivity and efficiency.
And that's what they help companies with, by the way, to
maintain their human advantage as they go into transitions,
technological transition. OK, they had to go hand on hand.
(14:53):
They had to go together. It's not one or the other.
The the the we are tipping too much into replacing the human
with the technological without understanding what are the
effects of a transition which not managed well.
So you mentioned about the positivity.
(15:13):
How does the positivity create coaches of trust, accountability
and innovation? Look, when you talk with people
about the positivity of what they do well, you get the
stress, you get the trust. We are teammates, OK?
The manager, the leader is thereto make people better.
First of all, we need to get outof the power play of control.
(15:35):
And we think that companies weredesigned a lot on the control
mechanisms in which reviews and performance give to the manager
a sense that they're in control,OK?
And isn't about control, it's about maximizing somebody else's
capabilities, OK? And that will not make you lose
(15:58):
control. You're not relinquishing power,
OK? You want to use the paradigm of
power. You become more powerful by
being a mentor, that by being a controller.
But what happened is that the the model of companies you look
at, the origin was borrowed fromthe medical field.
OK. OK.
(16:19):
The origins of organizational consulting and psychology come
from the medical field then of curing illnesses.
And that's what we have diagnostics and all that
language applied to it. Then we borrow the first models
for the medical field and it's all about preventing illness, of
curing disease in companies, OK,instead of maximizing health,
(16:45):
OK, well-being OK, Many companies are beginning to
understand this, by the way, this is going on in
transformation, but not enough of what you should, OK.
Most of them still working on the old paradigm of preventing
sickness and curing sickness andwhat you do when you do that.
By the way, you need to find sickness to feel that you're
doing your job, OK? OK, you're an illness seeker.
(17:09):
Otherwise, you're not the manager, I'm not managing well,
you're victim of the paradigm that you're trying to get out
of. It's a full self fulfilling
prophecy. Then you put, I tell you a
story. I was in Argentina and may have
been like 1314 years old and I worked with my father at the
supermarket. No Walmarts at that point, but
(17:30):
something like it. And I wanted the bicycle.
Bicycle 40 years ago in Argentina was you bought a car
and then a bicycle was a big expensive thing.
Today you go and buy a bicycle for a couple of $100.
At that point was the gift of the lifetime.
Then my father wasn't going to buy the bicycle.
No way. Then he says to me, Alfredo, go
around the store and count how many pregnant women are here and
(17:54):
I said this is crazy great deal.I go around on the pregnant
women and I get the bicycle. The question is how many
pregnant women? If you know how many?
5 fun on each aisle. It's like all the pregnant women
of Buenos Aires came for the convention at the supermarket.
Why did they see so many pregnant women?
Because I was looking for them, right?
(18:14):
And we see what we are pretty determined to find, right?
By the way, my father was a genius because at that point I
forgot all about the bicycle. I was so shocked Women that you
know, he was fantastic or he didn't know any positive
psychology, but I think intuitively he knew more than
it. And then it's an issue we are
(18:36):
looking for. For if we are looking for
illness, we're going to find illness.
If we are looking for advantagesbased on strength, we're going
to find those. Clearly some we need healthy,
healthy corporations and businesses and there are things
to fix. It's not an on or nothing, but
what is your tendency? What are you seeking for?
What make you feel fulfilled? Sickness or strength?
(19:00):
That's a decision that each corporation, each leader, each
manager has to make is going to give you a completely different
kind of leadership. Leadership and management and
company and culture and teams. Teams who achieve through fear
and then they burn out, all to achieve through positivity and
performance and purpose and theyfeel energized and motivated.
(19:20):
You mentioned that the a body ofevidence that's when companies
do good share some of those incredible insights because I'm
very curious to know about some of the insights.
Around they give you they give you some, you know, e-mail, for
example. We know that if somebody knows
(19:42):
the strengths, just knowing their strengths.
The top five strands of poetic psychology There are 24 strands
in poetic psychology Humor, law of learning, leadership,
curiosity 24 If somebody knows the top five, just by knowing
them, they have the capacity to flourish 9 times more if they
(20:04):
apply it. 18 times more, which means that people who are blind
to the strength are working from18 to 9, from 9 to 18 times
below what they could. And by the way, I will tell now
your audience how to get the strengths because I will not
leave you go now take your anybody who's listening, take
(20:25):
your smart, your phone and text the word positive to 337 your
phone and text positive. Do it yourself, you know,
positive to 33777 and you are going to get, they're going to
send you 24 strengths of positive psychology and a couple
(20:47):
of questions on how to determinewhich one.
You're a top five and everybody who's listening will have a
chance to maximize their potential nine times and 18
times. OK, couldn't be easier.
OK, I used to give my last name or something like that.
I don't know even how to spell my own last name.
Imagine when I was asking peopleto do it now it's so easy.
(21:08):
Positive 33777 then then now I could spend the rest of the
podcast just giving statistics that purpose increases
productivity 40% OK that around the same numbers on customer
relationships. People have a purpose.
The customers have a satisfaction rate like 40%
(21:29):
higher with it's all quantifiable.
It's all study after study afterstudy of the best labs in the
world measuring tangible actual benefits of what we called
psychological capacity at organizations.
All quantifiable is not anymore just about being nice, which is
good. The well-being of your employees
(21:51):
is going to have a direct impactin your bottom line.
Plain and simple. Plain and simple.
All scientifically demonstrate. Well-being is more obvious
because if people to have a goodwell-being, very interesting
with the purpose because there is a body of knowledge within
the sustainability space where employees who are not engaged in
(22:12):
companies, employees who are leaving companies, employees who
want to join companies, there isa significant 50% or so, yeah.
The difference, right? The difference that the movement
of, well-being in great companies was like having
daycare for your kids, right? Having a massage, massage parlor
at work, having free coffee and cookies, having dry cleaners,
(22:37):
which is great, by the way. All that is great.
Yeah, OK. But now we know something else.
well-being is working on hope, optimism, resilience and
confidence. Those are the four things.
Hope. Well-being.
Well-being, hope, optimism, resilience and confidence, those
are the four pillars. OK, OK, then you can give all
(22:59):
the dry cleaner and you can giveall the daycare.
OK, but you don't have exerciseson hope and workshop on hopes
and use the language of hope, and you don't have a real
program on optimism and how to establish optimism.
It will be way beyond a podcast to, you know, to tell you how to
do it. But there are programs, there
(23:19):
are strategies on increasing optimism, hope, resilience and
confidence. OK then.
And the leader has to know how to talk the hopeful language,
the resilient language, the confident language and the
optimistic language. Then it's not any more about
cookies and coffee. Now, because of the revolution
(23:40):
of the last 30 years on POSI psychology, you have the
language, the programs and methodology, strategies to work
directly to the core of the strengths.
First of all, everybody who worked at the company today
should go through a strength to go through an exercise to know
the strengths. And management should be based
(24:03):
on what the job demands, based on the strengths.
And teams should be put togetherbased on a variety of strengths,
okay? We have all the data, okay?
And teams that have variety of strengths are much better than
teams that have no variety of trends.
But you don't know what the strengths of the people are and
they don't know their own strengths.
(24:24):
Then you are working, you're putting seems blindly.
Today we have all the data, all the knowledge to be effective in
those domains. I'd ask it so how do leaders
deliver the hope, the optimism which is real, but it's not just
so for example, the climate change, how do companies within
(24:45):
sustainability and biodiversity?Taking care of I sustain, yeah,
I sustain people and the business.
Sustaining people, OK, And I think that we do not sustain
people. Nothing else is sustained.
OK, then my sustainability plan is sustain people.
You want to go to optimism? We know just to take one one
thing, optimism is the capacity to tell yourself that you can.
(25:10):
Tell oneself. Not somebody not telling
somebody. Tell yourself.
When somebody else had to help you, tell yourself that you can.
A good manager, a good leader. OK, then two people can confront
the same challenge and one tell him or herself I can't and the
other will say I can that it wasbased on what is called imposive
(25:31):
psychology. The explanatory style.
Every person has an explanatory style by which they tell
themselves the story of the events that happen in the life.
We are storytellers and we writethe biggest story in our head.
Companies also write their own stories about the can and what
they can't and usually that story is transmitted by the
(25:51):
leader. For example, when something
wrong happens, optimistic leaders reduce what happened
wrong in time and space. This happened to us because this
quarter and because some external thing that affected our
normal functioning. OK, let's say you know oil was
expensive this month. Non optimistic leaders talk
(26:15):
always about never and always they take the crisis and talk
about this always happens to us.We will never get and they
expanded on time and place. Then there is a language to
optimism and what good leaders and managers do.
Instead of blaming, they create an explanatory style that
(26:35):
contains crisis. OK.
Then optimism has to do a lot with the language we use and how
we explain what happened to us, which explanatory style, OK.
And that's something that I loveto work with companies to
develop a language that created optimistic company.
More optimism, more production, more efficiency.
It's not only a feeling, and emotion is directly connected to
(27:00):
efficiency, right? So even though it's a feeling,
is still connected to efficiency.
Absolutely measure. Today we can measure it.
So you say motivation isn't about missing desire but
misdirected energy. Can you explain how leaders can
redirect or align that effectively?
Today we don't, you know, today many of us who are in the
(27:21):
positive psychology, we don't talk anymore about motivation.
We talk about commitment. There is a shift, shift in
language. Motivation is a little bit, you
know, ephemeral is something that you feel and goals.
I feel motivated today. I don't feel motivated tomorrow.
Conviction is a deeper kind of feeling, more resilient and
(27:42):
reliable. And commitment has to do with
the idea that what I am doing isworthy.
There is worth to what I am doing.
And once you transfer me to the people working in the company,
what they do is worth. You create commitment is the
idea all the time is about making the revenue of the
quarter and the issue why you are doing what you're doing is
(28:03):
important. You are reducing commitment.
Loyalty turns over. OK, then we need to go back to
commitment. Commitment is based on the
sacrifice I make is worthwhile. The hours I put are worthwhile.
They get in late home and working extra hours are
worthwhile. The pressure I am feeling is
(28:23):
worthwhile. OK, then you have to have the
equation of sacrifice and worth worthiness.
And when you have that, you havecommitment much deeper.
And sometimes companies feel we don't have to explain anything
to anybody or motivate anybody. After all, they have to be
grateful to have a job, and we are paying them.
And what we don't understand is that besides not being nice, we
(28:43):
are hurting the bottom line and we are making people to be less
committed, less effective and less loyal.
Self self injuring. It's it's.
It's unnecessary and wrong and not wise.
There is a body of evidence where there is employees
themselves reporting or federal research which shows that there
(29:04):
is a lot of disengaged employees, disengaged teams.
Is it worth it? And I think from my own
experience, I remember many instances where I've asked
myself, is this worth it? An example, I was working last
year with the company okay and before I work with the company I
do research. One of the things I do, I read
the website very carefully. This company at the end of the
(29:28):
website very interesting, very very bold on they have.
I remember was that the 10 core values of the company?
10 That's a lot. And I was so happy because there
are 24 strengths of positive psychology, and many of those 10
core values overlap with positive psychology.
Then I met with the CEO. Not even the CEO was aware of
(29:48):
the values they were put together.
Who knows, 50 years ago when they created the company.
Nobody ever taught them. Nobody talked about them.
I didn't talking with managers, nobody knew all the values.
I went. They asked me to do the workshop
on motivation. You know what they did?
I taught them their own values, motivational commitment.
I taught them their own values. They felt through the years that
(30:11):
that's not important for efficiency, it's not important
for bottom line, it's not important for productivity.
It was nice to have them. OK, somebody thought about them.
That's good. They never pay attention to why
they were do what they were doing and it was there all in
front of their eyes. I don't have to create values.
I had to show them the values they forgot about.
(30:31):
And I imagine that every companyhad those values that at some
point the founders or somebody thought about them and they were
just filed. They were filed on the routine
and the craziness of the day-to-day.
And sometimes you have to stop the machine to look what the
machine is about because you don't know what the machine is
about. Then you're not going to have
(30:53):
people who are loyal and committed because there is no
worthiness of what they're doing.
They're doing it for to get a paycheck, to have security, go
to inertia, to climb the ladder,feel power.
All those are the good recipes for burned out and emptiness.
So what are the common signs of resistance in teams, and how can
(31:14):
leaders move from control to influence?
That's very easy. Look, it's easier the way you
think. You know, once I work with the
team and we do a value qualification and everybody get
the strengths and we have a workshop of two hours in which
we have like a strength market in which everybody get to
(31:34):
discover their strengths and share the strength with others.
And we have exercises and games on strengths sharing.
And then I usually bring a couple of cases and situations.
They are dealing with actual challenges and they apply their
strengths. A new dynamic, a new language, a
new collaboration emerges in twohours.
(31:54):
Because this is about ignorance and sometimes you know you're
willing to open your eyes and learn your strengths.
Ignorance could be dissipated very fast, very fast.
And I seen in two hours transformations.
Clearly you had to have a reportand a plan of follow up of
maintenance. But the lot can be done in a
very short time because this hasto do with the unknown.
(32:17):
That becomes evident through I give them diagnostic instruments
like the Maya bricks, which is very well known.
I give them the via balancing action for positive psychology.
I gave them a new instrument called the purpose factor that
give people the personal purposeand the purpose of the company.
We put a package together of Maya bricks, which is styles via
(32:39):
balancing action of positivity and purpose factor of purpose.
We put that all together. A new language emerges, a new
energy. In two hours, you begin seeing
the transformation. Wow.
So is that a blend of clinical therapy, executive coaching and
positive psychology into one transformation model?
Yes, these 30 years of me working with different programs
(33:04):
and different instruments and different insights to be able to
blend them in which each instrument is proven to be
great. The combination in the way have
putting together maximizes maximizes them, potentializes
them to a new high level. So we live in a world of
uncertainty. But I suppose I propose that
(33:25):
clarity is very important even in the mix of this uncertainty.
So what tools or assessments do you find more effective for
helping leaders gain clarity in the midst of uncertainty?
Your strengths are your strengths up.
When you know your five top strengths doesn't change,
reality changes and certainty comes.
(33:46):
But you're solid on your five step in your top five strengths.
OK, you know this is like your tool kit.
OK, reality will always shift, but your strengths remain solid
in you and you developed and exercises them.
They grow with you. Okay, then I all begin with what
(34:06):
are your top five strengths? Okay, that's basically, and
again, 70% of people do not knowthem and they already have them
and then in some way they're using them.
But because they're not conscient, they don't use them
to the full potential. Thanks for sharing that.
So you have a lot of companies when onboarding do have some
(34:28):
psychometric tests. But I'm curious to know how to
embed all these principles that you've talked about into
onboarding of employees so that you have employees which have
the right values that suit the companies or purpose or sharing
those values with them. Not only what the values that
they're bringing, but also we'vetalked about the leadership
development, but I'm curious to explore onboarding but also
(34:50):
their everyday behaviour becausea lot of companies training
tends to be too much content, content, content as knowledge.
How can they embed these principles to onboarding?
Some companies bring me for the process of hiring.
OK, then they need a profile of a person who supplements, who
(35:11):
compliments the existing team. OK, Because when I do a
diagnosis, I tell you the blind spots, I tell you what you're
weak at. You need this kind of
personality. You need a person with this kind
of strengths to make a whole team where all the variety of
points of view and skills are present.
And I do some of that work in the hiring process in which
(35:32):
again, they ask about skills allthe time, but they don't ask a
person what make you feel well at work?
What make you feel well at work?That's a crucial question
because if a person is not goingto feel well at work, is not
going to be a productive, efficient, loyal person, what
made you feel good at work? I had that question.
(35:52):
I get so much information about it.
This is going to be a place that's going to maximize the
strength of the person. And then I give the strength
assessment and the hiring process.
Not after they're hired. Yeah.
OK. And when they are on board and
they're on boarding, the manageralready knows how to design the
job and match the job around what the person is at best.
(36:14):
And, and not hiring the person beta skill and resume and a
couple of references and then trying to peg the person into a
job that's preventable the worker to them before we get
there and the manager got to getthere with the attitude of I
know what this person is good and great at and we are going to
match the job to the best of this person.
(36:39):
That's the deal. It's not crazy, it's doable.
That's crazy. You need to ask the right
questions. What satisfies your work or
fulfills your work? What would be worthy to come
work? What can you see in this company
that attacks you as a changer inthe world?
OK. That question has to be part of
the hiring process. As a final thought, Alfredo,
(37:02):
what's 1 mindset shift you want every listener to walk away
with? Especially.
Those who are leading through. From fixing to nourishing.
From fixing to nourishing. OK OK Give people the incentive,
the courage to be the best of who they are.
Don't try to make them through some image that you made in your
(37:23):
mind. They work around the best of who
people are and not the other wayaround.
And by the way, I gave you the 77, you know, 3777 for positive.
I used to come by calendar, calendar there and I give 30
minutes discovery session for those who are deeper, which I do
it with pleasure, like a limitedamount of time.
(37:45):
Clearly by calendar. You know, I keep hours for
working with clients, but they have certain hours that I like
to throw with people. Potential partnerships and
growth, but but fixing from fixing to growing, from fixing
to nourishing, OK, that's the big part of the line that we had
to go through enough. Huge thank you to Alfredo for
(38:07):
giving us your incredible insight, but also for giving us
your time. If listeners want to find more
of your work, where can they find you, Alfredo?
Yeah, you know, you know, I'm going to go back to positive
37777 because because idea you have a calendar, OK, and, and,
and you can make an appointment with me, which is, you know, no,
(38:28):
no strings attached to get to know each other, OK, and and you
can find your strengths. That's great.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Pleasure, really. Thank you.
Very good questions by the way, that made me made me think.
As kids. OK, and bring the best out of
me. You actually were not fixing,
you were nourishing. That's good to hear.
(38:48):
Thank. You for that?
Yeah, yeah. And that's good to hear.
That purpose increases productivity 40%.
OK, that around the same numberson customer relationships.
People have a purpose that customers have a satisfaction
rate like 40% higher with. It's all quantifiable.
It's all study after study afterstudy of the best labs in the
world measuring tangible, actualbenefits of what we called
(00:25):
psychological capacity at organizations.
Welcome to Sustainability Transformations podcast where we
explore bold ideas to drive positive change for people, the
community and business. And today we have Doctor Alfredo
(00:47):
who is insightful, purpose driven, transformational science
parked and inspirational is a global keynote speaker, expert
in peak performance and positivepsychology.
He helps leaders and teams breakthrough resistance to drive
sustainable performance, innovation, and energy.
Thank you, Alfredo, your equation positivity plus purpose
(01:10):
equals peak performance, is powerful.
Where did this framework begin for you, and how has it evolved?
It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for the opportunity
and I hope I bring some wisdom and I help people to achieve
peak performance. Like most good stories, they
come from life, from personal story.
In my case, wow, I went through something, you know, I never
(01:32):
expected, you know, to be an expert on positive psychology or
peak performance. It happened to me out of my life
turning upside down. In 2013, I was arrested or
impersonating a police officer. At that point in life, I was a
rabbi of a very prestigious community, one of the largest
(01:55):
here in the United States. I was on top of the world.
I had an office at the facing Central Park in Manhattan.
You know, coming from Argentina,middle class, I made it big.
I was going in the morning, sitting, putting my feet on my
desk, coffee and watching through the Wyndham Center Park.
And coming from middle class in Argentina, I made it big, as big
(02:18):
as it could get, and never thought about big performance
and positivity. I was there.
I was living it, OK. It was natural to me until that
morning of 2013 Juneteenth, I was arrested for impersonating a
police officer. What happened is that the few
months before congregant of mine, who was a retired
(02:39):
detective, gave me one of those friends and family Shields.
I am not sure you have been those in the UK.
By here policemen can give to their family a kind of small
version of their shield, OK, Which I think is crazy.
OK, It should don't be legal, but he gave me one and he said,
Alfredo, with this, you are going to have no problems.
(03:01):
And I was manic. I was taking the wrong
medication and antidepressant. And they gave me the shield.
And basically I adopted the personality of a policeman.
And I began basically directing traffic at the highways of New
York and telling people how to drive until I show my badge to a
young lady. And three minutes later, I have
(03:22):
three patrol cars behind me and I was arrested.
He happens to be Enoch. I later on learned that the lady
wore the fiance or one of the caps on one of the policemen in
town of old people, you know, and I was arrested.
I was accused of impersonating apolice officer.
I was fired from my job. My friends gave that you know,
basically gave their back to me.They stopped talking to me.
(03:45):
They stopped emailing to me. I was diagnosed by in a
hospitalized and diagnosed bipolar and because I was a
prestigious rabbi, they written press made a circus out of me
and they called me the road ragerabbi and I went by it all.
I was on front page of newspapers in Japan and Erl
Island again, I didn't touch anybody was in violent, but it
(04:08):
was a sensation. The rabbi impersonates a police
officer and I went into the deepest depression for eight
months. I was on a couch on fiddle
position until 1 morning. I don't know how I felt the
force moving me to go up to my office, you know, go up the
stairs to my office. And I went, you know, and on top
(04:29):
of my desk I found something that I do not know yet how it
got there. I found a yellow file and I open
it and I saw the results of a test on positive psychology I
had taken a few months earlier. And I I looked at my top five
strengths, creativity, love of learning, curiosity,
(04:49):
perseverance and bravery. And something turned on instead
of me and I went back to school and with depression, with the
court cases, I went through social work school and did
fantastic, became a social worker and then became an expert
on positive psychology. And it made a promise to me, to
myself, that I would help peopleto find the top five strengths
(05:14):
to have to go to fulfill the dreams I experience, how they
can transform your life. And what is crazy is that we
know from research that 2 thirds, 70% of people do not
know the top strengths, 70% of people.
(05:38):
There is an epidemic of strengthblindness.
I am on a quest to help people find and cover lock their
strengths. That's a very moving story.
Moving story by turning around from the adversity, the
challenge, as you've vividly explained.
(05:58):
Why is clarifying purpose so essential for leaders and teams
right now? Purpose, The definition of
purpose, the one I follow, is the best of yourself for the
benefit of others. That's what purpose is, giving
the best of yourself for the benefit of others.
(06:18):
And that's why I like a principle that says purpose
first. Sometimes when people talk about
purpose, they locate purpose at the end.
The purpose of something is to go on that direction.
The objective and people are confusing.
Objective and purpose are not the same purpose.
(06:39):
Force purpose is motivate you toget to the objective.
And when the purpose is to give the best of yourself for the
benefit of others, you will get the objective because is the
best of what you have, the best of who you are.
And once you have your purpose, you are going to get to the
objective. The result of purpose is
(07:03):
fulfillment, no success. And that's another confusion,
confusing success and fulfillment.
Success, usually ephemeral, is external, is getting something.
Fulfillment is receiving something out of giving your
best for the service of others. And fulfillment usually comes in
three kinds. First, gratitude.
(07:23):
Gratitude when somebody comes back to you and said, says for
what you done for me, I achievedwhat I couldn't without your
help. That's the greatest kind of
fulfillment. The second count kind of growth
when you see somebody else growing and they don't come back
to you and say thank you, but you witness the the effect of
your actions. And the third one is inner
(07:45):
growth, how you grow by fulfilling your purpose.
Interestingly, the third one is only 10% of fulfillment and we
usually think that the inner satisfaction is 90%.
But we all know that the people we love more in life and at the
end of life, when it used to be a rabbi as as people, who was
(08:08):
the person who had the greatest influence?
Usually a teacher, parent, a coach, they were the ones who at
some point touch your life and made you who you are.
And from the point of view of purpose, that's the greatest
gift you can give to somebody and the greatest fulfillment you
get in return. Then good leaders, you know what
(08:31):
is, who is the leader? A leader is the one that from
his or her position, give the best of themselves for the
benefit of others and get in return to witness how the others
achieve the great potential. And if they do that, by the way,
the company will grow, people are going to be at the best,
they will get loyalty, they willget commitment.
(08:52):
All those things will come. But out of this equation of
positivity purpose a big performance.
I spoke to a leader. The leader asked me what does
the leader of sustainability looks like you've just given me.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You've just given me what how toattempt to answer.
What have you observed when purpose is missing in an
(09:15):
organization? You know clearly all the things
we know, burnt out, lack of commitment, lack of loyalty,
lack of motivation, OK, you don't have a purpose then
basically the best of yourself is not being manifested, OK.
And we think that purpose is going to be generating by having
some kind of quarterly report orperformance assessment that
(09:40):
you're going to trace goals, OK.And now you have to produce a
certain amount which are clearlynecessary for a company.
You have to have objective external validation.
But that's not going to happen if we don't have first, the
opportunity for people to give the best they have and they are
for the common good. And, and, and something I tell
(10:02):
companies, and I see a lot, you know, is that we are in a
culture of fixing instead of a culture of nourishing.
Culture of fixing. Instead of culture of
nourishing, you know, some people ask me, Alfredo, you
could say all that you want to say in one phrase.
OK, I have an answer. Moving from a culture of fixing
(10:22):
to a culture of nourishing. Since childhood, our parents
love us. Love, but they try to fix us OK
at school, they always look at what you're not doing well and
where you need to improve OK at jobs and like I said that the
performance and the performance report the manager, what do you
need to improve? And what we know from positive
(10:44):
psychology that the biggest revenue comes from doing better
when you do good than rather fixing what you're not good at.
Then we are focusing on the wrong things.
The best is to maximize what functions and not to fix what
doesn't function unless it's something absolutely necessary,
by the way. But in general, OK, the effort
(11:06):
is on maximizing the strength that people already have and not
to zoom in on how to elevate theweaknesses that people have.
That will not work, will burn people out, will not get people
to top performance to pick performance, and purpose is part
of that. Purpose is part of the equation
(11:28):
in which people give the best ofwho they are, and by doing that
they maximize their potential. While you mentioned resonates,
they have knowledge where sometimes I find some leaders
are trying to teach a fish how to fly or a bed how to swim.
It's so important to focus on the strengths, not ignoring the
(11:50):
weaknesses. But if you disproportionately
focusing so much on the weaknesses.
And in other instances, I also find where you have graduates
where in university or in education you were getting 85%
to 90% setting work settings, maybe focus on the 10% that
(12:12):
wasn't got right instead of focusing on the 90% which was
right. Some leaders or teams only get
so bogged down into 10%, which was not enough.
Especially males. Males were trained to be fixers.
So you had to fix the error conditioner.
You had to fix the whatever the window you had to fix.
(12:33):
You know, males were trained that if we don't fix things, we
has lost our masculinity. The great role model of the male
is somebody who fixed something.It's ingrained to us and we need
to get out of that paradigm. And we know that the the world
of the emotions, the world of strengths, you know, something
that is happened is a big revolution today in science that
(12:57):
most businesses is another way beginning in 1998 with the birth
of positive psychology and positive psychology, the science
of flourishing and optimal will be in optimum optimum well-being
and optimum functioning in the science that study hope, hope,
optimism, resilience, motivation.
(13:18):
We know today and we didn't knowthis 30 years ago that we have
measured, we have measured, you know, we have studies, journals,
lab experiments, and we can measure the increase tangible
increasing productivity and efficiency.
When optimism, hope, motivation,resilience are brought into
(13:41):
companies, then like I say to CEO's is not only good to be
good at the company for good sake, because good is good, but
also because good is good for business.
Business Today we can prove scientifically that being good
is good for business, quantifiable.
We have the data. Then you don't want to be good
because you know, they used to call it soft skills, you know,
(14:06):
emotional skills or the soft skills.
No, we do, though. We know today there are hard
skills that hope, well-being, optimism are on the DNA of the
bottom line of corporations. And if you go into the AI
technology era thinking that you're going to be able to
replace people with technology and to replace the emotional
(14:31):
with technology, then what you're doing, you're cracking
the foundations of the bottom line, not just the emotional,
but what we know today is productivity and efficiency.
And that's what they help companies with, by the way, to
maintain their human advantage as they go into transitions,
technological transition. OK, they had to go hand on hand.
(14:53):
They had to go together. It's not one or the other.
The the the we are tipping too much into replacing the human
with the technological without understanding what are the
effects of a transition which not managed well.
So you mentioned about the positivity.
(15:13):
How does the positivity create coaches of trust, accountability
and innovation? Look, when you talk with people
about the positivity of what they do well, you get the
stress, you get the trust. We are teammates, OK?
The manager, the leader is thereto make people better.
First of all, we need to get outof the power play of control.
(15:35):
And we think that companies weredesigned a lot on the control
mechanisms in which reviews and performance give to the manager
a sense that they're in control,OK?
And isn't about control, it's about maximizing somebody else's
capabilities, OK? And that will not make you lose
(15:58):
control. You're not relinquishing power,
OK? You want to use the paradigm of
power. You become more powerful by
being a mentor, that by being a controller.
But what happened is that the the model of companies you look
at, the origin was borrowed fromthe medical field.
OK. OK.
(16:19):
The origins of organizational consulting and psychology come
from the medical field then of curing illnesses.
And that's what we have diagnostics and all that
language applied to it. Then we borrow the first models
for the medical field and it's all about preventing illness, of
curing disease in companies, OK,instead of maximizing health,
(16:45):
OK, well-being OK, Many companies are beginning to
understand this, by the way, this is going on in
transformation, but not enough of what you should, OK.
Most of them still working on the old paradigm of preventing
sickness and curing sickness andwhat you do when you do that.
By the way, you need to find sickness to feel that you're
doing your job, OK? OK, you're an illness seeker.
(17:09):
Otherwise, you're not the manager, I'm not managing well,
you're victim of the paradigm that you're trying to get out
of. It's a full self fulfilling
prophecy. Then you put, I tell you a
story. I was in Argentina and may have
been like 1314 years old and I worked with my father at the
supermarket. No Walmarts at that point, but
(17:30):
something like it. And I wanted the bicycle.
Bicycle 40 years ago in Argentina was you bought a car
and then a bicycle was a big expensive thing.
Today you go and buy a bicycle for a couple of $100.
At that point was the gift of the lifetime.
Then my father wasn't going to buy the bicycle.
No way. Then he says to me, Alfredo, go
around the store and count how many pregnant women are here and
(17:54):
I said this is crazy great deal.I go around on the pregnant
women and I get the bicycle. The question is how many
pregnant women? If you know how many?
5 fun on each aisle. It's like all the pregnant women
of Buenos Aires came for the convention at the supermarket.
Why did they see so many pregnant women?
Because I was looking for them, right?
(18:14):
And we see what we are pretty determined to find, right?
By the way, my father was a genius because at that point I
forgot all about the bicycle. I was so shocked Women that you
know, he was fantastic or he didn't know any positive
psychology, but I think intuitively he knew more than
it. And then it's an issue we are
(18:36):
looking for. For if we are looking for
illness, we're going to find illness.
If we are looking for advantagesbased on strength, we're going
to find those. Clearly some we need healthy,
healthy corporations and businesses and there are things
to fix. It's not an on or nothing, but
what is your tendency? What are you seeking for?
What make you feel fulfilled? Sickness or strength?
(19:00):
That's a decision that each corporation, each leader, each
manager has to make is going to give you a completely different
kind of leadership. Leadership and management and
company and culture and teams. Teams who achieve through fear
and then they burn out, all to achieve through positivity and
performance and purpose and theyfeel energized and motivated.
(19:20):
You mentioned that the a body ofevidence that's when companies
do good share some of those incredible insights because I'm
very curious to know about some of the insights.
Around they give you they give you some, you know, e-mail, for
example. We know that if somebody knows
(19:42):
the strengths, just knowing their strengths.
The top five strands of poetic psychology There are 24 strands
in poetic psychology Humor, law of learning, leadership,
curiosity 24 If somebody knows the top five, just by knowing
them, they have the capacity to flourish 9 times more if they
(20:04):
apply it. 18 times more, which means that people who are blind
to the strength are working from18 to 9, from 9 to 18 times
below what they could. And by the way, I will tell now
your audience how to get the strengths because I will not
leave you go now take your anybody who's listening, take
(20:25):
your smart, your phone and text the word positive to 337 your
phone and text positive. Do it yourself, you know,
positive to 33777 and you are going to get, they're going to
send you 24 strengths of positive psychology and a couple
(20:47):
of questions on how to determinewhich one.
You're a top five and everybody who's listening will have a
chance to maximize their potential nine times and 18
times. OK, couldn't be easier.
OK, I used to give my last name or something like that.
I don't know even how to spell my own last name.
Imagine when I was asking peopleto do it now it's so easy.
(21:08):
Positive 33777 then then now I could spend the rest of the
podcast just giving statistics that purpose increases
productivity 40% OK that around the same numbers on customer
relationships. People have a purpose.
The customers have a satisfaction rate like 40%
(21:29):
higher with it's all quantifiable.
It's all study after study afterstudy of the best labs in the
world measuring tangible actual benefits of what we called
psychological capacity at organizations.
All quantifiable is not anymore just about being nice, which is
good. The well-being of your employees
(21:51):
is going to have a direct impactin your bottom line.
Plain and simple. Plain and simple.
All scientifically demonstrate. Well-being is more obvious
because if people to have a goodwell-being, very interesting
with the purpose because there is a body of knowledge within
the sustainability space where employees who are not engaged in
(22:12):
companies, employees who are leaving companies, employees who
want to join companies, there isa significant 50% or so, yeah.
The difference, right? The difference that the movement
of, well-being in great companies was like having
daycare for your kids, right? Having a massage, massage parlor
at work, having free coffee and cookies, having dry cleaners,
(22:37):
which is great, by the way. All that is great.
Yeah, OK. But now we know something else.
well-being is working on hope, optimism, resilience and
confidence. Those are the four things.
Hope. Well-being.
Well-being, hope, optimism, resilience and confidence, those
are the four pillars. OK, OK, then you can give all
(22:59):
the dry cleaner and you can giveall the daycare.
OK, but you don't have exerciseson hope and workshop on hopes
and use the language of hope, and you don't have a real
program on optimism and how to establish optimism.
It will be way beyond a podcast to, you know, to tell you how to
do it. But there are programs, there
(23:19):
are strategies on increasing optimism, hope, resilience and
confidence. OK then.
And the leader has to know how to talk the hopeful language,
the resilient language, the confident language and the
optimistic language. Then it's not any more about
cookies and coffee. Now, because of the revolution
(23:40):
of the last 30 years on POSI psychology, you have the
language, the programs and methodology, strategies to work
directly to the core of the strengths.
First of all, everybody who worked at the company today
should go through a strength to go through an exercise to know
the strengths. And management should be based
(24:03):
on what the job demands, based on the strengths.
And teams should be put togetherbased on a variety of strengths,
okay? We have all the data, okay?
And teams that have variety of strengths are much better than
teams that have no variety of trends.
But you don't know what the strengths of the people are and
they don't know their own strengths.
(24:24):
Then you are working, you're putting seems blindly.
Today we have all the data, all the knowledge to be effective in
those domains. I'd ask it so how do leaders
deliver the hope, the optimism which is real, but it's not just
so for example, the climate change, how do companies within
(24:45):
sustainability and biodiversity?Taking care of I sustain, yeah,
I sustain people and the business.
Sustaining people, OK, And I think that we do not sustain
people. Nothing else is sustained.
OK, then my sustainability plan is sustain people.
You want to go to optimism? We know just to take one one
thing, optimism is the capacity to tell yourself that you can.
(25:10):
Tell oneself. Not somebody not telling
somebody. Tell yourself.
When somebody else had to help you, tell yourself that you can.
A good manager, a good leader. OK, then two people can confront
the same challenge and one tell him or herself I can't and the
other will say I can that it wasbased on what is called imposive
(25:31):
psychology. The explanatory style.
Every person has an explanatory style by which they tell
themselves the story of the events that happen in the life.
We are storytellers and we writethe biggest story in our head.
Companies also write their own stories about the can and what
they can't and usually that story is transmitted by the
(25:51):
leader. For example, when something
wrong happens, optimistic leaders reduce what happened
wrong in time and space. This happened to us because this
quarter and because some external thing that affected our
normal functioning. OK, let's say you know oil was
expensive this month. Non optimistic leaders talk
(26:15):
always about never and always they take the crisis and talk
about this always happens to us.We will never get and they
expanded on time and place. Then there is a language to
optimism and what good leaders and managers do.
Instead of blaming, they create an explanatory style that
(26:35):
contains crisis. OK.
Then optimism has to do a lot with the language we use and how
we explain what happened to us, which explanatory style, OK.
And that's something that I loveto work with companies to
develop a language that created optimistic company.
More optimism, more production, more efficiency.
It's not only a feeling, and emotion is directly connected to
(27:00):
efficiency, right? So even though it's a feeling,
is still connected to efficiency.
Absolutely measure. Today we can measure it.
So you say motivation isn't about missing desire but
misdirected energy. Can you explain how leaders can
redirect or align that effectively?
Today we don't, you know, today many of us who are in the
(27:21):
positive psychology, we don't talk anymore about motivation.
We talk about commitment. There is a shift, shift in
language. Motivation is a little bit, you
know, ephemeral is something that you feel and goals.
I feel motivated today. I don't feel motivated tomorrow.
Conviction is a deeper kind of feeling, more resilient and
(27:42):
reliable. And commitment has to do with
the idea that what I am doing isworthy.
There is worth to what I am doing.
And once you transfer me to the people working in the company,
what they do is worth. You create commitment is the
idea all the time is about making the revenue of the
quarter and the issue why you are doing what you're doing is
(28:03):
important. You are reducing commitment.
Loyalty turns over. OK, then we need to go back to
commitment. Commitment is based on the
sacrifice I make is worthwhile. The hours I put are worthwhile.
They get in late home and working extra hours are
worthwhile. The pressure I am feeling is
(28:23):
worthwhile. OK, then you have to have the
equation of sacrifice and worth worthiness.
And when you have that, you havecommitment much deeper.
And sometimes companies feel we don't have to explain anything
to anybody or motivate anybody. After all, they have to be
grateful to have a job, and we are paying them.
And what we don't understand is that besides not being nice, we
(28:43):
are hurting the bottom line and we are making people to be less
committed, less effective and less loyal.
Self self injuring. It's it's.
It's unnecessary and wrong and not wise.
There is a body of evidence where there is employees
themselves reporting or federal research which shows that there
(29:04):
is a lot of disengaged employees, disengaged teams.
Is it worth it? And I think from my own
experience, I remember many instances where I've asked
myself, is this worth it? An example, I was working last
year with the company okay and before I work with the company I
do research. One of the things I do, I read
the website very carefully. This company at the end of the
(29:28):
website very interesting, very very bold on they have.
I remember was that the 10 core values of the company?
10 That's a lot. And I was so happy because there
are 24 strengths of positive psychology, and many of those 10
core values overlap with positive psychology.
Then I met with the CEO. Not even the CEO was aware of
(29:48):
the values they were put together.
Who knows, 50 years ago when they created the company.
Nobody ever taught them. Nobody talked about them.
I didn't talking with managers, nobody knew all the values.
I went. They asked me to do the workshop
on motivation. You know what they did?
I taught them their own values, motivational commitment.
I taught them their own values. They felt through the years that
(30:11):
that's not important for efficiency, it's not important
for bottom line, it's not important for productivity.
It was nice to have them. OK, somebody thought about them.
That's good. They never pay attention to why
they were do what they were doing and it was there all in
front of their eyes. I don't have to create values.
I had to show them the values they forgot about.
(30:31):
And I imagine that every companyhad those values that at some
point the founders or somebody thought about them and they were
just filed. They were filed on the routine
and the craziness of the day-to-day.
And sometimes you have to stop the machine to look what the
machine is about because you don't know what the machine is
about. Then you're not going to have
(30:53):
people who are loyal and committed because there is no
worthiness of what they're doing.
They're doing it for to get a paycheck, to have security, go
to inertia, to climb the ladder,feel power.
All those are the good recipes for burned out and emptiness.
So what are the common signs of resistance in teams, and how can
(31:14):
leaders move from control to influence?
That's very easy. Look, it's easier the way you
think. You know, once I work with the
team and we do a value qualification and everybody get
the strengths and we have a workshop of two hours in which
we have like a strength market in which everybody get to
(31:34):
discover their strengths and share the strength with others.
And we have exercises and games on strengths sharing.
And then I usually bring a couple of cases and situations.
They are dealing with actual challenges and they apply their
strengths. A new dynamic, a new language, a
new collaboration emerges in twohours.
(31:54):
Because this is about ignorance and sometimes you know you're
willing to open your eyes and learn your strengths.
Ignorance could be dissipated very fast, very fast.
And I seen in two hours transformations.
Clearly you had to have a reportand a plan of follow up of
maintenance. But the lot can be done in a
very short time because this hasto do with the unknown.
(32:17):
That becomes evident through I give them diagnostic instruments
like the Maya bricks, which is very well known.
I give them the via balancing action for positive psychology.
I gave them a new instrument called the purpose factor that
give people the personal purposeand the purpose of the company.
We put a package together of Maya bricks, which is styles via
(32:39):
balancing action of positivity and purpose factor of purpose.
We put that all together. A new language emerges, a new
energy. In two hours, you begin seeing
the transformation. Wow.
So is that a blend of clinical therapy, executive coaching and
positive psychology into one transformation model?
Yes, these 30 years of me working with different programs
(33:04):
and different instruments and different insights to be able to
blend them in which each instrument is proven to be
great. The combination in the way have
putting together maximizes maximizes them, potentializes
them to a new high level. So we live in a world of
uncertainty. But I suppose I propose that
(33:25):
clarity is very important even in the mix of this uncertainty.
So what tools or assessments do you find more effective for
helping leaders gain clarity in the midst of uncertainty?
Your strengths are your strengths up.
When you know your five top strengths doesn't change,
reality changes and certainty comes.
(33:46):
But you're solid on your five step in your top five strengths.
OK, you know this is like your tool kit.
OK, reality will always shift, but your strengths remain solid
in you and you developed and exercises them.
They grow with you. Okay, then I all begin with what
(34:06):
are your top five strengths? Okay, that's basically, and
again, 70% of people do not knowthem and they already have them
and then in some way they're using them.
But because they're not conscient, they don't use them
to the full potential. Thanks for sharing that.
So you have a lot of companies when onboarding do have some
(34:28):
psychometric tests. But I'm curious to know how to
embed all these principles that you've talked about into
onboarding of employees so that you have employees which have
the right values that suit the companies or purpose or sharing
those values with them. Not only what the values that
they're bringing, but also we'vetalked about the leadership
development, but I'm curious to explore onboarding but also
(34:50):
their everyday behaviour becausea lot of companies training
tends to be too much content, content, content as knowledge.
How can they embed these principles to onboarding?
Some companies bring me for the process of hiring.
OK, then they need a profile of a person who supplements, who
(35:11):
compliments the existing team. OK, Because when I do a
diagnosis, I tell you the blind spots, I tell you what you're
weak at. You need this kind of
personality. You need a person with this kind
of strengths to make a whole team where all the variety of
points of view and skills are present.
And I do some of that work in the hiring process in which
(35:32):
again, they ask about skills allthe time, but they don't ask a
person what make you feel well at work?
What make you feel well at work?That's a crucial question
because if a person is not goingto feel well at work, is not
going to be a productive, efficient, loyal person, what
made you feel good at work? I had that question.
(35:52):
I get so much information about it.
This is going to be a place that's going to maximize the
strength of the person. And then I give the strength
assessment and the hiring process.
Not after they're hired. Yeah.
OK. And when they are on board and
they're on boarding, the manageralready knows how to design the
job and match the job around what the person is at best.
(36:14):
And, and not hiring the person beta skill and resume and a
couple of references and then trying to peg the person into a
job that's preventable the worker to them before we get
there and the manager got to getthere with the attitude of I
know what this person is good and great at and we are going to
match the job to the best of this person.
(36:39):
That's the deal. It's not crazy, it's doable.
That's crazy. You need to ask the right
questions. What satisfies your work or
fulfills your work? What would be worthy to come
work? What can you see in this company
that attacks you as a changer inthe world?
OK. That question has to be part of
the hiring process. As a final thought, Alfredo,
(37:02):
what's 1 mindset shift you want every listener to walk away
with? Especially.
Those who are leading through. From fixing to nourishing.
From fixing to nourishing. OK OK Give people the incentive,
the courage to be the best of who they are.
Don't try to make them through some image that you made in your
(37:23):
mind. They work around the best of who
people are and not the other wayaround.
And by the way, I gave you the 77, you know, 3777 for positive.
I used to come by calendar, calendar there and I give 30
minutes discovery session for those who are deeper, which I do
it with pleasure, like a limitedamount of time.
(37:45):
Clearly by calendar. You know, I keep hours for
working with clients, but they have certain hours that I like
to throw with people. Potential partnerships and
growth, but but fixing from fixing to growing, from fixing
to nourishing, OK, that's the big part of the line that we had
to go through enough. Huge thank you to Alfredo for
(38:07):
giving us your incredible insight, but also for giving us
your time. If listeners want to find more
of your work, where can they find you, Alfredo?
Yeah, you know, you know, I'm going to go back to positive
37777 because because idea you have a calendar, OK, and, and,
and you can make an appointment with me, which is, you know, no,
(38:28):
no strings attached to get to know each other, OK, and and you
can find your strengths. That's great.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Pleasure, really. Thank you.
Very good questions by the way, that made me made me think.
As kids. OK, and bring the best out of
me. You actually were not fixing,
you were nourishing. That's good to hear.
(38:48):
Thank. You for that?
Yeah, yeah. And that's good to hear.
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