Equity’s not an option but laughter makes it happen more, Inuit elders told me when I facilitated leaders on Baffin Island, near Greenland.
Unsure why your workplace acts as if all humans were not its highest currency? Wonder why we wage wars at work that kill opportunities and maim innocent people? Question why bumps and bruises strike down daily when you least expect?
Stress increases from discrimination, and lack of healthy humor at work increases cortisol, a dangerous hormone that can be at odds with brainpower. No surprise that cortisol can decrease brainpower, since this mental toxin literally shrinks a brain itself, and can shave years off life. Have you seen it happen?
Few deny that inequity and diminished brainpower define toxic workplaces, yet Inuit leaders laugh as a serotonin tactic to lower unfair barriers. Their humor appears opposite to what you typically hear about workplace challenges.
Equity proliferates where workers share secrets that prosper all
No question, multiple intelligences transform talents into tools, but Inuit hunters emphasized different intelligences as they circled the frozen bay outside my front window daily. Dogs raced sleds toward floe edges, where narwhal, seals, caribou, polar bear became food, clothing and even tools from young hunters to cherished elders. Notice the brainpower exchange for equity?
In turn, seniors taught youth to navigate rugged tundra far north of tree lines. They told endless stories about sounds near the lip of icebergs that can help hunters distinguish roars of ice cracking off glaciers. Golden lessons shared in ways that prevented hunters from tumbling to their death in dangerous Arctic seas.
Inuit humor transforms hardship into hope at work
High Arctic communities also laugh together often. Elders allow youth to use them literally as wheelbarrows for community races on Friday evenings. Comedy carries over into challenges work, where Inuit’s proclivity to laugh, often left me laughing too.
I remember one amazing skidoo race to the Igloolik Airport. Because of blizzards I narrowly caught my plane to a remote community near Greenland until Cecilia, head of Government Social Services, roared up to my home on the only vehicle anybody could find – a skidoo. Happy for transport to my flight, we hopped on, piled four bags around and under us, and packed snow around the biggest bag against a bank of snow, for Cecilia to retrieve later. What a ride! Laughing all the way, Celia zoomed through Igloolik’s snow-packed, uneven ditches, out of town to the airport, as if headed down Aspen Mountain in a top ski race.
Snowmobile heaving from side to side, we skidded into gullies over bumps and teetered on the edge of snow banks while I held blowing bags, and held my breath. Not dressed for a skidoo in sub zero temperatures, I was unprepared for the rugged terrain, bags flying in the wind, my frozen face, and Cecilia’s expression of sheer conquest over Arctic elements.
At the tiny airport, I barely thawed from under ice that coated my eyeballs, when Cecilia burst in – red-faced and still laughing. Hurling my large bag in front of me, she said. “Hope you don’t have breakables, Ellen. Bag flew off the skidoo three times.”
“No problem.” I shot back, “Could have been me flying off your skidoo.” We all laughed!
Inuit leaders show how fair play reduces unfair hurdles, through openly shared talents, and laughter. Have you seen it?
]]>BLOKES and BABES for Workplace Well-being:
A customer crowd of 40 was predicted, then revised to 200. It all raised the specter of swarms jammed into the little Greedy Spoon Diner.
Determined to open the first day of his massive new pizza oven celebration, Sam Serotonin, spotted the mob, hired an additional crew of ten intelligent looking college freshmen from fast growing lines outside, and hoped for the best.
“All you can eat,” Sam promised the excited masses. “We just added the best pizza in town to the menu.”
The Greedy Spoon jumped at an opportunity to buy an oven that filled half its floor space, because recession prices at one-third off seemed too good to pass up, so Sam grabbed the deal.
As the line mushroomed into 150 or more, Sam handed balloons to teens, welcome stickers to the kids, and 10-percent-off coupons to well-wishing adults.
Bring on the Blokes and Babes
“It’s easy as pie to run this pizza oven,” Sam told new hires as they tied on aprons and coiled thick black elastics around flopping gobs of unruly hair.
“Watch me fire ‘er up!” he teased, “Almost runs herself.” Good thing too, because the 10 newbies looked enthusiastic enough to drive the thing off to a race, once released into the Greedy Spoon mayhem.
By the time Sam made his way back to the door, the horde had swelled again to double its size, and moods swayed from rowdy to raucous. Jake, one of the 10 regulars was threatening to quit if he didn’t get a “decent raise for this mess.” He complained that he wouldn’t even have come in on his day off, had he been told about the confusion.
“We usually open up to 2 or 3 stragglers on a lucky morning,” he whispered to Sam.
“Hey, we’ll make sure you’re compensated,” Sam patted his back, which appeared to work at least for the moment.
The other nine regulars looked as if civil war had hit, which struck Sam as funny, alongside new hires who stood brave as General Custer, as if to cry, “Bring on the Natives, we’re ready.”
Natives must have heard primal calls to come out too, because no sooner did Sam seat 150 plus, another 200 or so pressed against the glass doors waiting to get to the pizza pandemonium.
With amazing calm, Sam moved between welcoming throngs outside, to helping the freshman-converted-waiters slow it down and concentrate on serving one patron at a time. No easy task, considering the full week of shadowing new hires did alongside well established waiters at Greedy Spoon. Today’s target suddenly became more to survive the rabble, than to ensure they captured Sam’s “customer first” motto for the diner.
Confusion ruled from every angle, with Sam the only calm body to be found, and people’s prediction that his optimism too would likely be trampled by the fast gathering herd.
Pizza Explosion
“Help – the pizzas just caught fire,” one newbie yelled, and Mark dropped everything he was carrying trying to get past running children to help. Before many patrons saw smoke, the fire was doused, and along with it, every pizza in the stove ruined.
“Sean, please dash over to the Health or Happiness shop and grab 25 more chairs, Sam said. “Tell ‘em we’ll send pizza over for lunch.” Who was he kidding?
Running out the door, Sean bumped into another newbie and slopped a wave of Chicken Gumbo Soup on the floor. Within seconds a racing regular went down in the greasy sludge like he’d just missed landing a triple loop in US open skating competitions. Somehow a pathway opened between crowded tables and Jake’s flying arms and legs splayed as he came to a sharp stop against the church choir director’s table.
Increasingly people who’d started out with “Bravo,” and shouted, “Congratulations,” initially, now showed simmering impatience. A few were downright furious, like the mayor who was told his pizza blew up when the oven overheated, so a chicken dinner might be a better idea. “Did you just say the pizza exploded?” the mayor grumbled loud enough for Sam to hear the horror story. A newbie cranked up the oven to rush new pizza orders after the fire destroyed the originals.
Sam couldn’t blame his customers for the pizza bedlam, but neither could he enrage his waiters because they were all he had to feed fast growing multitudes.
Just before the raised flames led to a explosion, half raw pizzas were served from the damp oven, and soon after plates were coming back in protest faster than they were going out to patrons. And that’s not all.
Recycled Dinner?
Sam happened to be passing one table as he made his way with apologies and pleas for patience, where a distinguished looking businessman looked into the sea of faces half dazed – with his knife and fork in the air as if frozen in a time warp. Sam cocked his head to wait for an explanation, and was sorry he did so.
“I ate a potato off that plate,” the man said in shock.
Seemed that Herbie, another newbie served the man somebody else’s chicken dinner, and after he’d bitten into one of the oven roasted potatoes, the chicken platter was quickly snatched from in front of him with Chantel’s passing apology. Chantel quickly handed the retrieved platter to a waiting woman who threatened to sue the diner for false advertising, and pointed to a sign overhead that read: “FOOD IN TEN MINUTES OR MONEY BACK. Apologies were handed to the man who’d been served too fast, and the waiting woman, yet nobody took time to address the half eaten potato which left the business man sitting stunned and in a mime position with his utensils poised to spear any passing plate.
A waiter promised the man he’d get the next order regardless of who it belonged to, and everybody steered clear of the woman who munched on a partially completed dinner, as if she’d landed into a winner’s circle. Balloons began to pop when kids grew bored waiting in the now heated diner. Welcome stickers lined the entrance, where people packed into space enough for a third of the crowd that came. And Sam caught people writing notes on the coupon for 10% off the next meal, but couldn’t tell if they were reminding themselves to give Greedy Spoon another chance, or writing evidence of the pizza fiasco to hand their lawyers.
The newspaper just called to see if you want to run the ad again tomorrow, an anxious looking waitress asked Sam.
“Sure, hey – let’s go for it,” Sam shot back. “We’ll come up with a better plan to organize for a larger crowd, tonight after closing.”
“Think we can pull it off?” she smiled back, and gave her favorite boss a high five.
Looking at Brain Facts: Serotonin Impacts the Workplace:
Sam Serotonin is a bit like watching a miracle drug at work, when situations blow up, he tends to create calm. At times called a molecule of happiness, serotonin is far more than that in any workplace. When even one person engages its power, others benefit from its punch.
Sam’s mental chemicals often add focus and higher problem solving skills to transform any ordinary day. How so?
- On the golf course, Sam gets finer hits to the green.
- In relationships, he scores more allies.
- When sleeping, Sam enters better rest.
- In leadership, Sam attracts more support.
- At work, he offers innovation solutions.
Interestingly, recent research shows serotonin as more of a choice than once thought. It’s also true that Sam comes with mixed levels, and that workplace events over any day can raise or lower his natural serotonin supplies.
Lesser known, however, is the fact that serotonin and other natural drugs are more a fuel choice. Calm is far less dependent on daily events that go well, and stress does not overtake Sam, simply because the chips are down. That’s not surprising if you observe Sam’s daily laughter or the way he cares. Because of higher serotonin levels he’s able to give or lead well, in spite of tough times. Sam learns to access serotonin in good and bad times.
Here are a few power punch enablers that serotonin offers Sam:
- He possess naturally about 5 to 10 mg of the chemical as a human.
- Serotonin is 90% within Sam’s intestines.
- The hormone’s additional 10% surges through Sam’s blood and brain.
- Serotonin’s neurotransmitter roles regulate Sam’s: sleep; memory; appetite; learning; cardiovascular functions; moods; muscle contraction; temperature.
- Sam increases serotonin through foods such as milk, plums, pineapples, turkey, and bananas, as they add amino acid called tryptophan for manufacturing natural serotonin.
- Neurons in the brain release Sam’s serotonin, and the levels of release impact many of his workplace behaviors.
- Low serotonin levels can cause Sam anxiety, fear, self-pity, insomnia, stress, and depression.
- Certain drugs, such as Prozac, and even LSD will mimic serotonin in Sam’s brain.
Brainpower will increase when Sam raises his serotonin levels in natural ways, and without drugs – simply by choosing to do so. Can you see why serotonin is deemed his brain’s miracle drug.
There’s more good news yet for Sam. Each time he chooses to raise his serotonin levels, he literally rewires his brain’s plasticity to cultivate more brain benefits on a regular basis. Sound like a winning deal for Sam? If so, how will you raise your own and fellow worker’s serotonin today?
Few people would refuse tangible offerings for higher brainpower, yet far fewer see themselves as Sam does – building brainpower through serotonin taps given to others. How so?
Check out Sam’s common serotonin brain builders below and then add one or two to your circle in the coming week. Do stop back to tell us brainpower benefits you noticed.
1. To Sam, the golfer, a serotonin tap may be a small bag of nuts with a few yogurt covered peanuts tossed in, and given to fellow golfers on the 1st tee. Ask at the 9th hole – how your serotonin tap impacted scores for the game. Nuts turbo charge Sam’s golfing brainpower.
2. To cranky leaders, Sam’s serotonin tap may be simply a smile and a few encouraging words. Each time he emulates good tone tools, he helps others to rewire mentally for more of the same. Sam moves tone into action by modeling its strengths and in that way sets the mental stage for newly inspired insights from multiple intelligences.
3. To Sam’s aging neighbors, Sam’s serotonin tap may be a challenge to remove barriers and add opportunities for newly discovered adult brain cell regeneration. Many people yearn for Sam’s kind of youth because they still believe common myths that adult brains cannot grow new cells or regenerate old ones. Sam’s new neuro discoveries challenge seniors to age voraciously rather than retire graciously.
4. To Sam’s unemployed friend, a serotonin tap may be a survey to highlight hidden or unused intelligences. Inquiring minds spark more working memory which is less available to those who settle for old or revert to ruts that shape old socks.
5. To Sam’s burned out peers, a serotonin tap might be suggestions about how sleep choices are vital. Or it could be a few tips about how to renew with the brain in mind.
Sam finds far more serotonin taps in brainpowered workplaces, while far more cortisol shots tend to exacerbate his problems and leave him struggling in toxic seas of cynics. Luckily, through newly discovered neuro tactics, Sam and the rest of us can improve brainpower and add hope to circles we frequent. You?
Prompts for discussing serotonin as it comes to work with Blokes and Babes in your workplace:
- Discuss what serotonin looks like in Sam’s brain, in yours and in others at your workplace.
- Compare workplace serotonin benefits with additional brain facts expressed in MITA Manifesto 11- 20.
- Create a doable and innovative collaborative action plan to increase serotonin and add to brainpower in your workplace.
MITA Brain Manifesto for Renewal
Manifesto 7
Manifesto 8
Manifesto 9
- Ongoing renewal tends to come from curious minds that question broken systems with solutions in mind
Manifesto 10
Brainpower increases through multiple intelligences use and can be tracked through growth surveys.
]]>BLOKES and BABES for Workplace Well-being:
Carol Cortisol had been part of Money Shysters Inc. since it opened in 1990, so staff grew accustomed to bad moods, put downs, and general irritations at work, in much the same way you cope with side effects from annoying colds in winter. Few staff paid attention to her outbursts anymore, much less reacted to Carol’s daily doses of criticism for pretty much everything they did.
Annual certification day always came with especially damaging earmarks, and today was no different. Carol wore the face of a dinner roll when she walked through the front door, so people stepped o
ut of her way, when she barked, “Let’s get going. This is a business not a hay seed factory.” It was one of her favorite sayings and nobody had a clue what she meant, but nobody dared ask.
Her polyester orange shirt clung to a rack of ribs much like the skeleton’s torso wired together in the foyer, as somebody’s idea of an early Halloween. Maybe it was mid-September, but Carol and Halloween fit together like lemons to juice.
Annual Certification Mayhem
It didn’t take much to crank Carol’s juices today either – especially when asked what time the Licensing Department would arrive for their annual certification analysis. Her knees gave out and she sat down using steel blue eyes to instill fear into staff, rather than her usual fast pointing fingers-in-the-face routine. Not much went right from the time Carol waltzed into work that day.
Mark arrived late and Shane ignored the telephone while he sipped coffee and caught yesterday’s news from The Wall Street Journal left by a client, who carried his complaints in personally because he couldn’t understand the foreign call center accents from India, where Carol had shipped all Money Shyster’s customer service problems to be resolved by strangers. In her best effort to create workplace calm, Carol hurled an earful of criticisms about Shane’s negligence, and then flashed a smile that could have passed for an ad at a toothpaste company. In much the same way, the old rattler held back yesterday’s complaining customer cornered until he dashed out the door mumbling something about going to her boss, she spewed contempt on Shane’s mistakes more with her glare today than her usual growls.
The call center based in India might have removed problems temporarily from Carol’s range, but her harebrained ideas for outsourcing complaints to India didn’t seem to be the best bullhorn for those abused by the Money Shyster firm in the long run. In fact daily piles of unanswered client complaints climbed up glass partitions between Carol’s office and the staff’s cubicles, faster than water rose in basement storage rooms when a flood wiped out the company’s complaint files a few years earlier.
Impress the Licensing Crew
She snapped her fingers as if to summon up order and sanity before the licensing crew arrived and when nobody came, she called the staff a bunch of slackers, threatened that bonuses this year wouldn’t buy them a jam sandwich, and suggested many of them should leave the company before they bring it down completely.
“Lovely top you have on,” Martha lied, as if looking for a promotion from secretary to mediator.
“Sale at the flea market?” Shane whispered.
“Yup. Fleas likely still in it.” Mark shot back.
Carol disappeared into the office she rarely left except to venture into halls a few times daily and grumble about their work. Whenever she passed people on frequent trips to the Restroom though, she publically protested about a nit-picking problem she’d noticed along the way. Desks were a mess one minute and workers were wasting time the next. Carol often complained that males felt threatened by her because she was smarter than them. These tirades found little response from guys like Mark and Shane, because they seemed so odd, nobody knew where to start with a quick comeback.
Until today, that is. Shane overheard Carol telling somebody on the phone that she wanted to impress Iggy, the nickname for the easy going middle aged guy who headed up the state certification board, and she’d plan to make a move on his empathy for her good work later that day. The rest of the conversation spoke of her own valiant efforts to bring the Money Shyster books up to snuff, in spite of her useless staff who came to work with a bag of rocks for brains.
This explained Carol’s brilliant idea to invite Iggy to stay on a bit at the end of the scheduled annual inspection, over a relaxed business gathering, with wine, conversation about how to improve the financial company, and hors-d’ouvres. She should have stuck to the wine and tactics for improvements though, because Carol’s hors-d’ouvres blew up, much like her moods exploded on a dark day.
Veal Heart Explosion
She’d prepared veal hearts from one of those create-this-if-you-dare cookbooks mainly because its full page color caption seemed to shout that any deal was possible soon after garnished plates hit a well set table. Since Carol’s cooking skills are fair-to-middlin’ – and the recipe seemed simple enough even to skeptics, the staff agreed this sure shoe-in beat the possibility of flunking board certification for the second year in a row. Hope vanished when they saw what happened….
Directions stated to simply sauté veal with mildly spiced red sauce for an extended time. Then Carol’s secretary stuffed the whole mess into heart shaped papers she’d cut out ahead. Finally, she folded paper edges together to lock in sauces before she dropped two dozen veal hearts into boiling oil after certification team arrived in the staff room. According to Carol, they were to puff up – look spectacular – and certification would become a done deal. Then it happened.
The part Carol’s upper-cut-cookbook left out was the critical reminder that paper hearts must be cut from porous cooking paper. The secretary told how she’d noticed Carol’s recipe mentioned cooking paper. Apparently, it just hadn’t added the vital requirement that tiny holes be poked through cooking paper to allow in air. That small omission became dynamite firepower once veal hearts placed into boiling oil to expand artistically – now needed air to puff up without blowing up. Staff began to see the picture far ahead of Iggy and the team, who’d been looking at financial problems in Money Shyster’s books for the entire day.
Due to one small oversight, Carol’s well shaped hearts cut from typing paper – grew into lethal workplace weapons far bigger than problems she sought to hide from Iggy with fine food and wine.
Iggy, Carol and the certification team arrived in perfect timing, since Carol emphasized the importance of a relaxing atmosphere. As a final step to the ultimate certification meeting, Carol’s secretary dropped all the hearts filled with veal and spiced sauce into a large pot of boiling oil. Rather than puffed up hearts from heated oil, however, the hor-d’ouvres resembled helium balloons like the kind you buy in cheap party stores. The group never got to party stages though because what happened next was anything but festive.
While Iggy, Carol and the staff sipped wine and munched on mixed nuts – Carol’s secretary hit the stove area to complete one last step and finalize Carol’s highly planned business survival enterprise. That’s when the veal hearts struck back against all that the staff was feeling about Carol Cortisol’s leadership and phony conversations about Money Shyster’s policies.
Minutes after the secretary dropped typing paper hearts into the pot - they began to explode and as each missile blasted from boiling oil, it was as if somebody had jam-packed ammunition into the barrel of a canon and lit the wick. Veal hearts, aimed toward white walls and ceiling tiles flew between Carol’s polite concerns to Iggy, and her fiery eyes darting around seeking staff to blame for each thunderous pop. In panic Carol assured Iggy and his team that all was well under control, as she awkwardly dashed toward the performing pot. If she’d calmed the licensing team at all, it was not for long.
Within minutes … bright red splotches shot from the canon-like pot – as flying hearts turned the entire kitchen into a perilous war zone.
Change the Menu – Run for Life
Carol offered to take Iggy out for dinner, which to staff sounded much like the beast asking for bribes to replace what should have been an effective workplace where customer’s complaints got attention and staff survived the market’s disasters. Iggy’s response came later in the week – but that night all you could see was a team of experts heading out the door as if somebody had pulled the fire alarm while yelling at the same time, “Run for your life.”
Things were pretty much back to normal for Carol and her staff the next day. Somebody suggested they cancel the staff meeting rather than tackle another batch of customer complaints, and people placed bets on incidents most likely to explode under Carol’s watch before they all punched out for the day.
Expect Brain Benefits from Humor
Looking at Brain Facts: Cortisol Impacts the Workplace
Long before Carol arrives at work she’s fed up and already well into anxiety. She fears taking any career risks herself, and lambastes others who seek adventure when her down moods crank up her intolerance.
It doesn’t take much for Carol’s brain to stir up chemical hormones, and crankiness is the least of her problems when it happens. Her brain that pushes against relationships, leaks out any courage she may have mustered, stomps on solutions, and axes well being for everybody around.
Carol’s cortisol is a potent chemical that surges whenever she slips into stress, and is now recognized as a drug that can literally shrink her brain. It leaves other damaging footprints behind too, that luckily can be avoided whenever Carol grows awareness of its trickery. Researchers could have warned Carol for some time, for instance, that cortisol shuts down learning, creates anxiety attacks and can cause depression. Less known, until recently, are tactics to counter Carol’s cortisol surges.
Other’s try to cope and a few remind others that Carol’s cortisol has useful purposes, and they are correct, yet it’s little consolation. While it’s a short term chemical which was useful to treat Carol’s allergies, or zap her with energy to survive a few shocking moments at work, Carol’s cortisol also lowers her sensitivity to pain.
It helped her survive grief, and pulled her whole group through a short term pressure project, but there are costs. Long-term cortisol surges often, and Carol tends to maintain harmful levels, which can result in highly toxic behaviors at work.
Dangers to Carol’s own health, keep others concerned since research shows cortisol to:
- Lower immune systems
2. Slow down thinking
3. Create blood sugar imbalances
4. Raise your blood pressure
5. Weaken muscle tissue
6. Decrease bone density
7. Increase fat to stomach areas.
Can you see why Carol reacts negatively when under the influence of harmful chemical surges?
To flee from and lower dangerous levels of cortisol, others try to get Carol to:
a. Relax, listen to music, take a walk, and run from stress.
b. Spend time with upbeat people, laugh, and steer away from cynics.
c. Manage time, create doable daily targets, and avoid overloads
d. Take up a sport, do stairs, park far from doors and avoid passivity.
e. Give away things, care, join Rotary, and run from financial anxiety.
f. Teach from your strengths, inspire excellence, yet flee perfectionism.
g. Propose winning solutions and avoid fixation on problems at work.
At times, Carol sees her problem, and thinks she has better alternatives than these, to sidestep cortisol’s confinement. Strange as it may seem, Carol’s key is to do the opposite of whatever creates cortisol. To do the opposite of a cortisol response, is to rewire her brain for more serotonin guided behaviors, for instance.
Luckily Carol’s brain also comes fine tuned for serotonin success, whenever she remembers to actually do healthier actions. For example, on a good day her brain can rewire dendrite brain cells for serotonin’s well-being and for growth of plasticity in areas that had once caused cortisol imbalances.
It’s hardly worth an effort to make these changes, Carol complains, because she can’t think about the rewards, when she’s so depressed. People who do so, tell Carol, they tend to replace her kind of cortisol crankiness for serotonin serenity. Her reaction, Carol seems to be jealous of peers who come to work with lower levels of cortisol drugs, or seem to generate fewer fluctuating cortisol surges. Carol comments at times about how calmly and rationally other people react at work – even when hairy spiders strut past her feet
Spiders aside, research shows that 22 stressors will creep in on each of us - even on an ordinary day, and everybody suffers double when these stressors hit Carol.
Prompts for discussing cortisol as it comes to work with Blokes and Babes in your workplace:
- Discuss what cortisol looks like in Carol’s brain, in yours and in others at your workplace.
- Compare workplace cortisol problems with additional brain facts expressed in MITA Manifesto 1- 10.
- Create a doable and innovative collaborative action plan to reduce cortisol and add to brainpower in your workplace.
MITA Brain Manifesto for Renewal
- QUESTION new opportunities to engage curiosity
Manifesto 1
Manifesto 2
Manifesto 3
Manifesto 4
Manifesto 5
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