Jackie Insinger: Positive Psychology Is the Key to Motivate Employees

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Hello and welcome to Barron's The Way Forward. I'm Greg Bartalus, and my special guest is Jackie Insinger, a bestselling author, keynote speaker, executive, and team dynamics coach. Today she will discuss how financial advisors can harness the power of neuroscience, psychology, and data-driven frameworks to build better teams. Welcome to the podcast, Jackie.

Thank you for having me, Greg.

Ah, my pleasure. You have a book, it's called Spark Brilliance, subtitled How the Science of Positive Psychology Will Ignite, Engage, and Transform Your Team. On a high level, explain the power of psychology and how this can all help teams.

Yeah, so positive psychology is something that people are hearing a lot more about. And I want to make it clear to separate it from positive thinking because it's a very different thing. This is a science, right? This is a measured way to really build what's strong rather than just fixing what's wrong. So it's really looking at how do we take action to make progress in consistent ways to move into our potential is how I view it. And the way that I visualize it for people and clients is really if you picture a number line, right? Negative numbers to the left, positive numbers to the right, zero in the middle. And zero is your baseline. You're neutral. You're normal, right? Traditional psychology is the study of the dips into the negative numbers and how to get back to zero, how to fix what's broken, how to heal what's wrong. And that is is so important and it's so critical, but we don't focus on this whole other side of the number line where our potential really lives. And that's positive psychology, is breaking past normal, right? And getting into that space where we really shine.

Yeah, I think it's very interesting because, right, the default psychology is almost neutral psychology, if you will, because if you say the opposite of being ill, the absence of illness does not mean you're incredibly healthy, right? You're just kind of at that baseline. And it's a subtle but important point that a lot of people forget, right?

I think it's such an important point. That's what I always talk about, right? The absence of sickness is not health. The absence of sadness is not happiness. And in a work setting, the absence of poor performance is not excellent performance. And we talk a lot specifically through COVID years and then post is this idea of we just need to get back to normal. Everything needs to get back to normal. And when things were normal, were we ever like, this is so amazing, I just want to bottle this up and keep it like this? No, right? We never We never thought normal was an end goal. So we need to kind of erase that ideology a bit.

Yeah. Aim a little bit higher.

Yeah, a lot a bit higher.

Exactly. Now, you've also characterized positive psychology as the science of potential. Tell me more.

So I look at when going back to that number line, there's a limitless side that we don't tap into and we have access to. And maybe some of us do and some of us do sometimes. But looking at it as this limitless side where our potential really lives, and that doesn't have a cap on it. And so it really opens up a world of possibilities in my mind of why do we stop? Why are we even looking at a stopping point when we can move into this place where our potential and our brilliance really lives? And so that's why I look at it that way.

And tell me a little bit about the sparking brilliance idea and how it can be, I mean, I don't know if contagious is the right word, but how it's kind of a,, not a finite resource, that it can go from one person to another and keep living and expanding, if you will.

This is one of my favorite things to talk about, and I think it's one of the most important things for any human, but much less leaders, to know that emotional contagion or energy contagion or outlook contagion, it is all contagious. And in 33 milliseconds, we will read and identify someone's emotions and instantly take them on. That's 3 times faster than blinking your eyes. And as a leader, you You don't just spread it to the people right below you, but it's also the people below them, which means people you might not interact with at all will take on your mood and your outlook and emotion by how you choose to show up in a moment. And in the state of the world where there's so much negativity, right, we can show up with this positive outlook and really be the spark that changes how people feel. And so much of what I focus on is how do you make people love to come to work again. That's so important. And we have that power as leaders. It's our opportunity and our privilege.

Yeah, and one thing you said that I thought was really profound was that if you're someone who's throwing off a lot of negativity, basically, let's say there's a room, there's a lot of joy, goodwill, yay, everything's going great, and you come in and just spoil the mood with this negativity. Like you said, it's contagious. And quickly, you suck the energy out of the room. Everyone's feeling down. So that obviously in and of itself is not good, but the main point here is that that negative feeling can stay with them for a long time. It's not like they leave the room and suddenly you're back to your old chipper self. There's that, ugh.

It's like sticky.

It's sticky, that morass, that whatever, that molasses of negativity is staying with you for, I think you said like 6, 7, 8 hours, right? That's pretty interesting stuff. And the people who are dragging you down, A, they wouldn't know that presumably, and B, they might not even be aware of the extent of their behavior on others.

Yeah, I think most, most people are not. And that's why I think it's so important to, to learn this information, because once you're armed with this knowledge, you're empowered to show up differently. You're empowered to pause, to realize the impact that you're having on so many people and how it is really sticky. Right. And when it sticks, performance goes down in all areas of our lives. And that's what's so important to remember.

Tell me, for advisors who want to embrace this, maybe some practical things to keep in mind about how to get started, maybe some dos and don'ts, etc.

Yeah, to have more of a positive outlook? Yeah. So I think a big piece of it is the power of the pause, right? Because things are stressful, things are hard. Let's be real, right? It's not always rainbows and butterflies because you decide to be positive. But there's this magical intersection, like I talk about with Ted Lasso leadership, right, where authenticity and positivity meet. So those two things, I believe, create brilliant leadership. So authenticity and positivity together. Authenticity, we need to build trust, and we need to trust our leaders or people leave. 58% of people trust a complete stranger more than their boss, right? And if they don't trust their boss, they don't want to work there anymore. So we need trust, we need authenticity, people need that. And we need that positivity to get people to want to follow us, to bring people that productivity, that creativity, that safety to innovate. So we need that intersection. So when you're having a hard day, pause, decide, how do I want to show up? What mood and outlook and emotion do I want to spread? And with that, you can still be honest. You can still be transparent and say, hey, I'm having a bit of a tough morning, or I just left this hard meeting. I just need a few minutes to take a walk, take some breaths, Go pet my dog, whatever I need to do to get back into a better mindset so I don't spread that to you. And just be open and transparent about it.

Right. And that's speaking to not being like 100% relentlessly cheerful even when something bad's happening, because that would be a little tone deaf, like, well, you know, but you're acknowledging it. It's human, people get it. And then you say, okay, now let's move forward.

And yeah. Yeah. And that's what I call practical optimism, right? Because we're not, trying to be avoidant or toxic positivity, right? We want to really look at reality because we don't have the luxury of denial, right? So look at the thing and then, right, that's the truth, that's the authenticity, and then look toward the future thinking, what are some possibilities? What are some opportunities or solutions? And bringing your team along that we might not have the answer yet, but together we've got the right people to figure it out. And that builds that faith in the leader.

One thing I would love to discuss is the Platinum Rule. So tell our listeners what that is and why it's so important.

So we all probably have heard of the Golden Rule, right? Treat others the way we wish to be treated. And I think that's good for large groups, right? Because it teaches you what not to do mainly, like these things are off limits, this is inappropriate. But in real relationships, like you used the word presumptive, which I think is perfect, like who's to say that you want to be treated the same way I want to be treated, or that you're going to want feedback the same way I want feedback, or you're going to want support when you're upset the same way I want support, right? When you think about it really as humans, it doesn't really work. So the Platinum Rule is treat others the way they wish to be treated. And I truly believe that is the foundation for great leadership because we have to understand how people want to be treated in order to effectively lead them.

Yeah. And I think the wisdom contained within that extends arguably to every facet of life. I mean, to a spouse, a partner, your kids, right? It's certainly in the workplace, but everywhere else.

I've got a great example of that one, if I should share that one. Okay. So my husband, Rob, was surprising me on a great romantic getaway. And this is when our boys were little. And so we never got a chance to get away without them, right? So I had this montage, amazing image in my head of us going to these beautiful beaches and sipping fruity cocktails and connecting and all of this stuff in my head. So we get to the airport and I'm just so excited and just like anticipating. And he tells me then that he's whisking me off to Cincinnati, Ohio with VIP passes to run the bases at a Cincinnati Reds home game. Yes. Yeah. And we're not even Cincinnati fans. I'm not even a big baseball fan. So to him, this was amazing. To me, not so much. So it shows you in all areas of our lives, we really need to practice platinum. And somehow we made it through that. But we've never done this again. He's never repeated that one.

So did you actually do the running?

I did. We did. We did the running with a, you know, not the biggest smile on my face, but I ran the bases and made the best of it.

Wow, that's great. Well, you know, yeah, good intentions, right?

Good intentions. They don't always land, right? Because you're thinking about yourself like, this is so amazing. Yeah. I think a lot of people that I work with can really identify gold treatment from home situations, or times maybe you tried something with your kid and it wasn't what they needed and it backfired, right? Sometimes we see it so clearly at home, but this matters just as much at work. And they say that your mental health at work is just as tied to your leader as it is to your spouse, that mental health is equally tied.

I, yeah, that's not per se surprising because I know that for so many people, their happiness in a job largely has to do with their relationship with their boss, basically. Are they feeling respected, heard, recognized, appreciated? It just goes so far.

Yeah. They call it the vertical couple. And it's so key. And some of the data around that, They say 66% of people overall and 76% of millennials say they will leave their job if they don't feel valued by their leader. And tying that back to platinum, I might have the best of intentions and show you value the way that I feel valued. And if it's not the same as you, this data shows you're just going to leave. 76% will leave because best of intentions, it's not the way you need to feel it. So we need to start asking these questions.

Yeah, now related to keeping employees, well, keeping them and keeping them happy, tell me about the psychological safety and how that plays a role.

Yeah, so psychological safety is really key. There's big studies done. Project Aristotle was a big study by Google to find out what makes the highest performing teams. And they studied teams around the world. I think it was like 200 teams and almost 200 factors. And the expectation it's going to be their superstars, right? And that didn't even make the top 5. The number 1 factor, hands down, for a high-performing team is psychological safety. And that, the way that I look at psychological safety kind of mixed with their definition, is really the ability to say, "I don't know. I messed up. I don't agree," or "I have another idea." And the key piece is without fear of shame or judgment. And that's what you need. And I look at it— some people, you know, Greg, some people look at psychological safety as another thing we have to be careful about, like another tiptoe, right? Another thing that feels fragile. And I don't look at it that way. I look at it as like two sides of a coin. When you have this vibe that you create of psychological safety, you're actually encouraging courage. And when you encourage courage, it gives people the room to innovate, to take those risks, to create new things, and your results skyrocket because you're creating this energy where people can be courageous.

Yeah, and I could see, yeah, that resonates because I could imagine someone has an idea that they'd like to share, but their inner monologue is thinking, "Ah, this is nuts." And then one day someone on their team says something that is basically as quote unquote "nuts" as their own idea, and it's okay and it's well received and they may feel emboldened courage is to say, hey, let me put my idea out. And then someone else will bring an idea that would be seen as even less traditional. And then suddenly you've got all these ideas flying and no one's judging. And you might have an awesome thing come out of this or not. No harm done, right?

Yeah. And on the flip side, too, a lot of people cover their mistakes, right? They're nervous. Like, I messed this up. Shoot. I need to figure this out on the back end. I need to figure out how to cover it up. And they don't want to share it. Because they feel like they'll be shamed or judged. So in those moments, to be able to share that so everybody learns, you can get all these ideas on how to fix something faster, better, and then it won't be repeated. So it goes on both sides, right? Innovating on this side and making sure that we kind of clean things up in a really efficient, effective way.

Yeah. And this kind of dovetails with something you talked about, the authentic connection culture, right? Tell me a little more about that.

So I think what's interesting during the pandemic, I think a lot what happened is we exposed what I call culture theater, right? So the idea of layering all these perks, which was a big draw, right? Like, we've got kombucha on tap and Taco Tuesdays and foosball tables and all of these layers. Then you didn't have to put in the work to really build the true connected culture. And then as soon as everybody was sent home, that was just gone, right? There were none of these culture theater perks, and everybody was really expecting exposed. Companies were just exposed for who are we really, what is our culture, how deep does it go. And so interestingly, all of these leaders started reaching out of like, I don't know what to do now when we don't have all of these perks. How do I actually create a culture? And so interestingly, there are a lot of leaders that started raising their hand to realize the importance. Like, people aren't staying. They don't want to be here anymore because unless we get that depth of a true, authentic, connected culture, What people learned from the Great Resignation is, if I'm not happy, I could just go.

Right. And the executives learned that unlike many things that can be solved with money, that foosball table or whatever, you can't just throw money at it and have the magic appear. It's really based on trust and interpersonal connections.

Mm-hmm. That's why people end up staying.

Yeah. Let's go back to emotional contagion. I think that's really interesting. And if you think about the idea Maybe it wasn't identified as such. However, the dynamic certainly— let me put it this way. People yawn. "Oh, yawn too." Laugh tracks on TV, right? So there's, you know, fear in a movie, the crowd gasps. Like, so we're very tribal in taking our cues from one another. I don't know. Tell me a little more about the dynamic and how you as a team leader might be able to harness that.

Oh, I think it's so important because you're right, it just ebbs and flows and we can all picture it, right? When you picture somebody walking in the room who's stressed out and overwhelmed and say you're in a great mood and you're just talking with your team and the boss walks in and they're stressed and they're grumpy and they're short, everybody feels it. Everybody just take it on. You can viscerally remember those situations. And same thing with somebody positive. And as the leader, the power of your disposition is just as strong as the power of your position. And keeping that in mind is so key. And I think a really important way to really instill why this matters so much is the outcomes, right? Because all of us, everybody listening here cares about outcomes. They care about the numbers and results too. And these soft skills produce hard results. All of them do. And so one of the main things to think about is big studies by Harvard Business Review show when you have a positive outlook, productivity goes up 31%. Sales go up 37%, profits 50%, and the negative impact of stress goes down 23%. Or you're 40% more likely to get promoted. These numbers go on and on and on and on. And this is by a positive outlook. And as a leader, if you spread your positive outlook 2 layers down, all of these results— it's the fastest, easiest way to create bottom-line results for your company. And you can completely control that.

Yeah, so here's a question. Some people seem to naturally possess this gift. Which is fairly rare, I would say, but there are these special people who just exude positivity and you spend time with them and they leave and you have this afterglow where you're just feeling good and you're like, wow, they really lifted me. And conversely, there are others who have the, you know, dark cloud over their head. You hang out with them even for a short amount of time and then they leave and you're just feeling kind of like, ah, dragged down, just negative. For most people, they're somewhere in between. Obviously, you believe they can learn and change, and certainly they can. But how— what's like the bell curve distribution, if you will, or people who can do it and others who might be more obstinate, or I don't know, like, can you break that down a little?

I don't know, like, the numbers behind how people are, but generally they say you're kind of naturally one of three ways. Your default negative, like, look for what's wrong or what's missing. Your default neutral, like, see what it is, just reality. Or your default positive, like, you scan for what's good or what's right. And we all kind of have a default state. So the people who default positive, this is much easier, right? The people who default, you know, neutral, it's work, but it's not that hard. The people who default negative, it's a little more challenging, right, to get into that mindset and train your brain. Everybody's trainable. There's actually studies that show in 21 days, 2 minutes a day, you can actually bump up an entire level. And this is studies on like 80-year-old men and children. So, and the whole gamut in between. That 21 days, 2 minutes a day of actually practicing gratitude in very specific ways, you can bump up from default negative to default neutral or neutral to positive.

You can teach an old dog new tricks.

You can. You can.

We're running out of time. So I just want to make sure that all of your main points have been represented. Tell me, is there anything else we haven't touched on that you think is important for listeners to acknowledge?

Yeah, I think a couple things. Specifically in finance, what we found is there's the greatest challenge that leaders are facing right now is engagement, employee engagement. And the way that they looked at it is so hard to motivate and inspire a group of people who are overwhelmed, potentially burned out, and adding in cross-generation and possibly through a screen, right? There's all this complexity. And when you have a group of people who are not feeling engaged or motivated and inspired, it's really hard to lead. That was the number one challenge that came up. Up for finance leaders. The second one is leader burnout, their own burnout, and how overwhelming it is today to be a leader in the complex environment that we're in that we've never been in before. There are so many new factors that are complex and complicated and challenging that leaders are trying to navigate while having a team that's burned out or overwhelmed or disengaged, and they're trying to meet their numbers. So leaders have never been in such a difficult position before. So these are the two factors that are showing up across the board that I found in leaders in finance. And really using these tools to reengage your employees, not only will that help their engagement, which helps their performance, right, and their commitment and turnover rates and all that stuff, but it also will help reduce your burnout because then you have an engaged team to take some of that pressure off of you because you're not alone anymore. So I think those two things really go together. So I think those are important things to add.

Those are great points. And I'll add that I'm not sure about this, but based on what I recall reading, I think that the general levels of societal unhappiness are pretty darn high. That's like the macro backdrop.

Oh yeah, we're actually technically in a time called the Great Gloom. So after the Great Resignation came the Great Gloom, and we're in the lowest happiness index in history for employees in some industries. It's 10 times lower than April of 2020, which is when all the, you know, crazy happened and everybody had so much fear. We're even 10 times lower than that in some industries.

Yeah. And it's interesting because when you talk about burnout with leaders, we, like anyone in the news publishing business, has access to software which will tell you how many people are reading stories, how long they read for, all of that. And although it's not a focal point of our coverage, stories about burnout seem to resonate. You can tell because those numbers don't lie, right? People can say they do this or that, but there's definitely, I think, a feeling of being overwhelmed and so much to juggle. Like you said, we're in this ambiguous period where there's somewhat some hybrid. There's this, there's that, there are time zones, there's travel, there's keeping up with compliance, there's new technology. Constant client expectations rising more and more. It's an awful lot to juggle. And geopolitically, of course, so much happening. So very interesting. About employment engagement, anything else that you can recommend?

To recommend, yeah. The big thing I always focus on with leaders is it begins with you. It always begins with you. And you need to feel empowered, right? You're not a victim to this. We have an opportunity. We have a huge opportunity as leaders to stand stand out, and bring people along. And there are all these strategies, right, that we're talking about today or in my book that are proven to work in companies to increase engagement. We've gone up 58% on average by just using these strategies to bring people in, to make them feel seen, to feel heard, to feel significant and a purpose and connected to something, because people don't feel that right now. And when 4 generations and all these crazy things and through a screen, it's really hard. So using these strategies and knowing it begins with you,. And I fully believe better leaders lead to a better world, right? And it's not just the employees that'll change. They'll show up differently to their spouses and their kids, and they show up differently to different people. And I think the world needs a lot of that, and leaders are in the position to create that spark for so many people. So instead of feeling doom and gloom about the great gloom, right, seeing it as like there's such an opportunity for leaders right now to change the game, to create these small shifts on a daily basis that really yield great results for not just how people feel, but even results for your company. So there's so much room in here.

Well, that's great. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure.

It's a pleasure of mine.

Thank you. Thank you. My guest has been Jackie Ensinger. For more podcasts and the latest wealth management news, visit barons.com/advisor. For The Way Forward, I'm Greg Bartalus.

This podcast was brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.