Senia Maymin, MBA, MAPP, PhD, is the coauthor of Profit from the Positive. Maymin is an executive coach to entrepreneurs and CEOs. Maymin runs a coaches network and is the founder and editor in chief of PositivePsychologyNews.com. Her PhD is in organizational behavior from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Full bio.
Senia's solo articles are here, her articles with Margaret Greenberg here, and with Kathryn Britton here.
Lisa Sansom and Martin Seligman
Welcome to the fifth episode of PPND TV, the interview series inspired by TED talks where we bring our readers the crux of positive psychology in brief video interviews of researchers and practitioners. For the complete series, see PPND-TV.
Today’s guest is an organizational development expert, speaker, blogger, and group organizer Lisa Sansom.
Interviewer’s Note: Today and tomorrow (July 17 and 18), the Canadian Positive Psychology Association is having its conference. Follow the research and events at #cppa2014 on Twitter HERE.
Lisa’s background in a nutshell:
- Lisa’s LVS Consulting website at http://www.lvsconsulting.com
- Lisa shares articles and stories of interest about positive workplaces and positive psychology on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/
LVSConsulting - Twitter: https://twitter.com/
lvsconsulting - LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/lisasansom
- More information about the Canadian Positive Psychology Association can be found at http://
positivepsychologycanada.com/ - More information about the alumni from the University of Pennsylvania Master of Applied Positive Psychology program can be found at http://mappalum.org/, including the new searchable directory
Today’s interviewer is Senia Maymin
(Direct link to the interview on YouTube).
Key take-aways from Lisa (with minute:second marks):
- 00:16 Lisa’s background
- 01:55 The positive psychology research finding that has most changed Lisa’s life
- 03:04 What are strengths constellations?
- 04:55 What is individualized consideration?
- 06:11 A specific example of individualized consideration
- 08:14 Lisa’s big next project: “Catch Them Doing Things Right”
- 10:38 Lisa on her tips for organizing groups and events
- 12:46 The tradeoff of one’s own vision and collaborating with others
- 13:15 Lisa’s one main piece of advice to improve your life
10 comments
Great interview Senia and Lisa!
It’s so nice to see what you are like ‘in person’ 🙂 Also, I love how Lisa seems to have so much personal experience with pp interventions in the workplace, which makes the whole science come more alive.
Some time ago I interviewed Lisa via Skype, which was great. The interview is pretty complementary to this one and can be found here: http://positivepsychologyprogram.com/interview-with-lisa-sansom-personal-journey-through-positive-psychology/
@Lisa: If I can help you out in any way in gathering data for, or promoting ‘Catch them doing things right’, just let me know.
Cheers!
Seph
Terrific upbeat interview, Senia and Lisa! I was smiling the whole time. I particularly enjoy the personal questions that are frosting on the cake for the questions empowering learning. Lisa, you are a whirling dervish of positivity. I admire you greatly. Your smile is as contagious as all your great works. THANK YOU!
Senia, thanks for continuing to bring the movers and shakers of PP to your interviews. I look forward to them like a child waiting for Christmas. I am so grateful to you.
Seph, you are also one of the most generous guys on the planet. I used so many of your resources as well as both ladies’ here when I taught a Positive Psychology Coaching course for Ben Dean at MentorCoach this summer. All my students got to know you 3 by proxy. They are as grateful as I am.
Your work immensely helps me as a practitioner. Love your discussion of strengths constellations, as my clients grab that concept so appreciatively.
Lisa, I will be first in line to buy your book. And do a 5 star review, too, as I know you! Good luck with it.
For your work, big hugs of thanks to you all.
Thank you both Seph and Judy – I appreciate the kindness and positive support! I’ll be virtually knocking on your doors when I am at that point!
Cheers,
Lisa
You bet, Lisa! Keep forging on into novel PP territory!
Senia and Lisa, excellent interview. Lisa, you reminded me of Sonja’s book just in time for a client meeting tomorrow. He is ‘gratitude’ challenged and rolled his eyes at my last assignment. I will find another for him in Sonja’s book. Also, is there a profile that looks at constellations? I know my experience matches your comments and would like to use a different profile if there is one that shows the interrelationship of different strengths. Thank you both.
Hi, Andrea, I learned about constellations as well as helping clients create new names for their combined strengths years ago from classes with Robert Biswas-Diener at Positive Acorn. For example, “Resilience-ator” one client used to label his super-power strength. He has a tough job, he but thrives using his powers of optimism and initiative when negativity nudges in trying to sink his positivity ship.
Judy, Thank you. I know Robert and his work well. I will do a search about that aspect.
Hi, Andrea. We are both lucky to know and appreciate Robert as well these fine ladies here. Good luck in your search and I would love to hear about it if you have the time. Many thanks!
Ladies, look what I found. Thanks for letting me know where to look. http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/3382/biswasdiener-kashdan-2011-strengths-jopp.pdf
Bless your heart, Andrea.
Todd shared this article with us when he taught a course at MentorCoach, but I had forgotten it. As soon as I saw that graphic on the optimal use of strengths, I smiled. Thanks for the great memory and for taking the time to search for it. Your are so kind. Thanks much!