“Your face is my map to your life.” ~ Harry Houdini, magician

We are all literally and unwittingly two-faced. To learn more about how you present yourself to the world and about your underlying, more “private” feelings, you just have to look yourself in the face.

Want to get out a mirror now, before you read further?

You constantly present two aspects of yourself, on the two sides of your face. Research on the different functions of the left and right sides of the brain helps to explain why this is so. The two vertical halves of the face are each affected by the nerves of the opposite side of the brain and show the world different parts of how you feel.

In fact, the two sides of your face, like the two sides of your body — the left and the right — are usually asymmetrical and unequal in proportion. Look at yourself in the mirror — full-face and full-length — to see the differences.

In short, your face is your shorthand to your body language.

Your expressions, in repose, are icons of your attitudes toward life.

The left side is the more “private” part of your personality, and your right is the more “public” side of your face. The left often looks less happy than the right.

Most people who have been analyzed projected their wish images on the left side of their face, and their right side related more to their true self-image and attitude toward the world.

Your face’s right side often appears more pleasant, sensitive, vulnerable, and/or open in expression. The left side is less expressive than the right and tends to reflect the hidden, severe, stern, and/or depressed aspects you usually intend to keep private from the world — and sometimes even from yourself.

The left side is more likely to register negative emotions, while the right side tends to reflect the more positive and optimistic but not necessarily phony part of your personality.

“When I smile I must also show the grimace behind it.” ~ Liv Ullman, actress and author

Because the right side of the brain has more control over the left side of the body — including the face — it stands to reason that the research on how the brain is organized, left and right, can give us insights into how we literally face the world and how we can better understand others.

The left brain — reflected more in the right side of the face — relates to logic, pragmatic thinking, practicality, and language.

The right part of the brain, in turn, relates more to intuition, imagination, and other more creative leaning.

The basic gut feelings, including your attitude toward yourself and your life, emanate from your right brain. You express them more in the left side of your face.

We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are.

Your more controlled or conscious responses — the social mask you put on for the world — may be processed more by the pragmatic left brain and appear more readily on the right side of the face.

Perhaps you’re getting lost in the “lefts” and “rights” of all this, but let’s continue with some experiments you can conduct to learn more about yourself and others for whom you have strong feelings (like or dislike) in your life.

How Do You See the World?

Ironically, the right brain is more actively involved in observing the world — which it does predominantly through your left eye.

And, when you face someone, your left eye is across from the other person’s right side. Therefore, you are more aware of their right side.

That means you are more aware of the side of the other person’s face that is more connected with their left or “logical” and less revealing side. You miss facing the part of their face that is most likely to show underlying “true” feelings.

“Public/Private Face” Exercise

Here is a rather intimate exercise to do with someone — and it doesn’t involve disrobing or even touching. Sit facing each other.  Now look at the left and the right sides of the other person’s face.

Does the right side show a more open, less tense presence?

Does the left look more reserved, serious?

The left side — that is, their left side — is the more private face, remember, and the right side is their more public face. In fact, their left side is likely to show their more basic disposition. As you face each other, discuss your observations, one side at a time.

“The face is the most memorable part of the body and the eyes are the most memorable part of the face.”?~ Werner Wolff, psychiatrist and hypnotist

“Driver’s License Photo Show” Exercise

Now try this experiment. Get out your driver’s license. Look at both sides of your face, covering one side at a time with a piece of paper. Look “inward” at yourself and see if you observe different aspects of yourself.

You may also want to look back at your family album and look at the progression of your face and your personality development over time — and that of others in your family. Look at the childhood albums of close friends and in-laws for other perspectives on them.

“Photo Finish” Exercise

To gain a still more revealing view of yourself, find two photographic negatives of “head and shoulders” close-up pictures of yourself. If you don’t have any handy, ask someone to take two pictures of you; offer to do the same for them and compare notes on this exercise. Cut both negatives of yourself vertically in half, down the center of your face. Flop over one side of each negative.

Take a glossy-coated side and a dull-coated side of the left side of your face from the two negatives and ask your camera shop to print it to create a “left-left” photo. Take another pair and also get a “right-right” print made. Thus, instead of the normal right-left photo of your actual face, the joined half negatives become left-left and right-right faces.

You will then see exaggerated versions of both aspects of yourself — and will probably be able to see each more clearly.

Years ago a candidate for California Superintendant of Schools repeatedly insinuated that his opponent was lying on her business tax returns and had an affair with a student intern. His charges were immediately disputed by her accountant, the student and several co-workers at her firm.

Not surprisingly, the attacks generated considerable interest in their first televised public debate that provided an unexpected akaido-style lesson for anyone who gets publically attacked.  The debate was moderated by three seasoned reporters who sat at a table in front of the studio audience, facing the candidates who stood on stage behind podiums about ten feet apart.

When the first reporter asked the candidates about their budget priorities, if elected, the critical candidate answered first, emphatically reiterating that he would be transparent and accountable, unlike his opponent, when spending public monies and then repeated his two charges against her, with the TV camera coming in for a close-up of him as he concluded, then swiftly swinging over for a tight reaction shot of his opponent.

Instead of looking upset, she had a mild smile on her face and began by praising him for placing a high priority on public accountability, but she didn’t stop there. She went on to laud him for one of the educational reforms he’d advocated, with which she agreed – all while walking over to stand within two feet of him, alternatively facing the reporters and her opponent.

He looked flummoxed. Because of their close proximity, the camera could easily cover both faces — and did. She went on to say she presumed, because he was so conscientious about transparency, that it was the press of his campaign schedule that had prevented him from reviewing the records she’d sent to him in response to “the issues” he’d raised about her. She then walked calmly back to her podium, with the camera following her, then swinging around to pan across the smiling audience.

When you throw mud you get dirty ~ Adlai Stephenson

As you might anticipate, this videoed interchange became the most viewed and discussed part of the debate.

Let’s delve into the anatomy of what happened and how you can turn false or simply heated attacks against you into opportunities to shine—especially in contrast to your attacker.

This phenomenon is akin to product positioning in advertising. In situations where your critic acts badly towards you, provide a side-by-side comparison. Start with your authentic praise of some aspect of their past actions, followed by your vividly specific characterization of your main differentiating benefit stands in sharp contrast to their behavior and attributes.

Warning: When under attack our first instinct is to flee or retaliate, leading to the possibility that oour behavior will also look unbecoming too.

Still many seasoned politicos say negative campaigning and ads, for example, are effective in attracting votes so they are forced to run them. Some are sleazy and real nasty.

Yet, some researchers disagree with this conventional wisdom, and their findings lend support to the notion of genuinely praising an action or admirable character trait of someone right after they have behaved badly towards you or someone else.

Here’s some recent reinforcement for you to praise the part in someone you genuinely admire — especially when you are tempted, in a heated situation, to “go negative.”

In discussing David Meyer’s book, Intuition: Its Powers and Perils, Gretchen Rubin writes in The Happiness Project, of this rule of human behavior, it “gave me another reason to stop being so critical.”  She adds, “In ‘spontaneous trait transference,’ people spontaneously and unintentionally associate what you say about the qualities of other people with the qualities of you yourself. So if I tell Jean that Pat is arrogant or stupid, unconsciously Jean will associate that quality with me. On the other hand, if I say that Pat is brilliant or hilarious, I’ll be linked to those qualities.”

“Ever wondered why people want to kill the messenger who brings bad news? Blame it on trait transference. Conversely, by specifically and vividly praising others’ actions that you admire, you’ll build your own reputation as well as theirs.

Here’s what also happens.

Whatever behavior you most remark upon in someone else is the trait that person is most likely to exhibit when around you.

We tend to act out the behavior that people have shown they expect to see in us, for good and for bad.

Compliment your husband on his planning that weekend trip (never mind that it is only the second time he has done so in years) and he is more likely to plan more.  If he does something that peeves you and you remain silent, rather than commenting, then those irritating behaviors are most likely to dissipate, rather than increase.

Talking or acting against a behavior is akin to underlining a sentence on the page.

You give the thought more energy and memorability. “Underlining” the actions of another with your reactions motivates that person to react to you.    That deepens the rut in the memory road for both of you.  It reinforces a behavioral script you meant to erase.

Such action evokes the Law of Unintended Consequences.  Amy Sutherland wrote about a variation of this effect in her New York Times article, “What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage. “ For weeks her article remained the most popular one the newspaper ran, then resulted in a book deal for her.  In conducting research for her book, Kicked Bitten and Scratched, she sat watching exotic animals trainers work with wild birds, dolphins – and Shamu.

A light bulb went on her mind.  Why not try the same successful animal training techniques on her husband?

Wrote Sutherland, “I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don’t. After all, you don’t get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.”

She began what trainers call “approximations,” “rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior.” (Parents and teachers have been taught to use it with kids, others to overcome phobias — and one person even suggests it for shaping behavior in church.)

Even more startling, perhaps, two studies conducted at the University of Wisconsin seven years ago found that when women spoke generally and positively about a trait that their husbands had not exhibited, at least recently (“Thank you for being so thought as I go through this stressful time at work”) the husbands began exhibiting caring behavior, often using the words she used in praising him.

“Honey, want to talk about your day and let go of some of that stress?”

Here’s the funny thing.

Even though most of us human beings long to be understood and loved for who we are we instinctively put up barriers.  We praise and give others what we like in ourselves and would like to be given. That’s the Golden Rule, after all.  Do unto others as you would have done unto you.  Yet the devil’s in the details – because other people are not you.

Consider, instead a Golden Golden Rule: Do unto others as they would have done unto them. Praise the parts of others they most like in themselves and support them in the ways that most matter to them.

Result?

They will go out of their way to compliment and support you. Rarely will they also follow the Golden Golden Rule back with you however.

That’s not instinctual.

Yet their well-intended positive energy towards you is more likely to bring out the happier, higher-performing side in both of you over time.

Simple put, people like people who like them.

And, as you build trust with that person, you can bring up the Golden Golden Rule and describe the traits (temperament and talents) you most like and value in yourself.

Ask for that person’s support in exhibiting those traits. Describe the kind of verbal and behavioral support that you find most helpful and gratifying.

Now that step represents a golden, golden oppportunity for you both to support and enjoy each other more over time.  I’m not promising that this will be a smooth path towards mutual understanding and appreciation.

Yet it seems to be easier and more authentic and rewarding than any other alternative I’ve found thus far.  This approach can reduce the misunderstandings that lead to resentment and reaction against others.

It enables you to bring out others’ best side so they can see and support yours. That’s no small achievement, even if it happens just some of the time.   Consider it one more step towards your Learned Optimism and to Stumbling on Happiness.

And, since opportunity is often inconvenient, why not try one of these approaches at your first opportunity — with the next person you encounter —  and tell us what happens?

Holidays are times of great loving and loneliness and we often don’t know who is experiencing which. For many it is a bit of both.

For us all this can be a prime time for kindness, sometimes by sharing what we have.

And kindness is often unspoken. “An eye can threaten like a loaded and leveled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. At another time, Emerson wrote, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

“You may be sorry that you spoke, sorry you stayed or went, sorry you won or lost, sorry so much was spent. But as you go through life, you’ll find—you’re never sorry that you were kind,” said Herbert Prochnow. There’s a French proverb on the wall of my study, “Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble.”

Authentic praise is an extension of kindness. Whatever we praise we encourage to flourish. Whatever we criticize or “simply” snub goes deeper and lasts longer.

Each moment we choose our emotional response. We choose where to put our attention, emotion, and intention. Emotions are energy. So, look to someone’s positive intent, especially when it appears she may have none.

Even though after his death his wife probably disagreed with how he displayed some of his “kindness” on the road, Charles Kuralt wrote, “The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.”

“Keep what is worth keeping. And with the breath of kindness blow the rest away,” suggests English novelist, Dinah Mulock Craik. Here’s to making more opportunities to play, laugh, celebrate, and act together in cultivating kindness as life’s genuine “keeper.”

Life contains few absolutes, and one of those few is that kindness usually cultivates connection, something we yearn for in a time-pressed, ear-to-the- cell-phone, relationship-diminished culture. After all, the heart can be our strongest muscle if we exercise it regularly. Yet being kind is not a guarantee of safety from hurt — nothing offers that fail-safe comfort.

“Kindness and intelligence don’t always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: there are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships,” wrote Barbara Grizzuti Harrison in an article for McCall’s magazine way back in 1975.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares,” wrote Henri Nouwen in Out of Solitude.

Years ago from my college classmate, Alasi Perdanan, I heard a Persian proverb, “With a sweet tongue of kindness, you can drag an elephant by a hair.”

“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate,” wrote Albert Schweitzer. “He who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love,” wrote the Greek religious leader, Saint Basil.

“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom,” wrote Theodore Isaac Rubin in “One to One.”

“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness and small obligations win and preserve the heart” said English chemist Humphrey Davy.

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop that makes it run over.

So in a series of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over,” once wrote the Scottish lawyer and biographer, James Boswell.

“We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck . . . But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness,” wrote columnist Ellen Goodman.

From an artist’s perspective, ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov once said, “The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.”

Willa Cather believed that “When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason has left them.”

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution, “Kahlil Gibran reminds us.

Ultimately, “kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not,” noted Dr. Samuel Johnson. Albeit unevenly, this holiday, I am attempting to practice giving what may be the most nourishing and priceless present and by now you can probably guess what that is.

Your thoughts on this?

After a priest moved to a new parish he approached his superior one afternoon to ask, “Would you mind if I smoked while praying?” and was, not surprisingly, turned down.

Yet how one makes a request has a huge impact on whether it will be  granted. For example, the priest might have said, “Would you mind if I pray while I am smoking?”

Setting the context with your initial comments is akin to dressing in the fashion that the people you are going to be around will approve or even admire, while still being true to yourself.

Why?

Because people like people who are like them.  Like all animals, we are most comfortable with those who act and look right – like us.  In fact, the more you look familiar to me, the earlier in the conversation I will literally hear your words, absorb their meaning and be more able to accept them, and you.

The more you look and act different than me, the more my peripheral vision narrows initially.  Further my skin temperature goes down and my heart beat goes up in anticipation of the face of the unfamiliar.

That is because the primitive triune part of our brains has not changed. We are forever hardwired to respond to new, unfamiliar situations with the “fight or flight” syndrome.  Our vital signs literally shut down when we are first around a person, setting or situation that is radically different, unfamiliar thus initially potentially dangerous, until we have decided how we feel about our situation.

You can pull people closer, and bring out their better side so they can see and appreciate yours. In fact, this is probably the most meaningful gift you can give someone else, other than the present of your warm presence.

Continuously praise others’ specific actions you admire, however small they may seem to you. People eventually warm up to your evident warmth. Authentically praise to inspire happier, high-performing behavior in others and yourself.

1. Praise  them directly. Whatever you praise you want to flourish. The more specific your words, the more memorable your message.  Describe the actual act in as much rich detail so you honor the person in acknowledging how vividly it affected you.

2. Even more powerfully, compliment the person to one or more people who are very important to them.  My client, the CFO of a Berlin-based maker of wireless portal equipment named Punjabi, has had a rugged and quite successful third year of operation where everyone has worked long hours.

Instead of handing out the ten top team awards in the traditional way, at a company event, the CEO took the time to find a significant group related to each of the winners.  For those winners the groups included a place of worship, a rugby club, a college alumnae organization and an antique car association.

With the permission of these organizations, the CEO arranged to give the award and an eight-minute speech, describing both the winner’s accomplishments at Punjabi and a specific incident where the winner exemplified the heroic character of a true team player.  Thus each (surprised) winner got to bask in the spotlight in front of valued people in her or his non-world world.

The CEO’s greater effort also put his company in a genuinely positive light in many new places.  Although it did not appear that any of the people who saw their friends receive the award were immediate, potential customers of Punjabi, they were sufficiently inspired to stir some positive word-of-mouth buzz about the awards ceremonies.

A month after these ceremonies a feature writer for the equivalent of the “lifestyle” section of the main Berlin paper heard the story through a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who was a rugby player with her husband.  Not one to be interested in business stories, she was nevertheless touched by the way the ceremonies had rippled out to surround the winners’ lives.

She tracked down the CEO and interviewed him, thus affording him another chance to speak glowingly about specific examples of his winners’ dedication and ingenuity.  As he praised each person, the glow of the values he admired reflected back on him and his company.  The reporter also interviewed the winners and several of the people at the organizations where the awards events occurred and then wrote a human interest story that appeared, with photos, in a Sunday edition.

The article generated several glowing letters to the editor by people who witnessed the ceremonies, the winners and others who were also moved by the story. Mr. John Sunui, vice president of sales for Singapore-based construction management company happened to read some of the letters in the paper while eating his breakfast in a hotel while in Berlin on business.

Sunui emailed the reporter to request a copy of the original article that the reporter emailed back the next day and he received when he returned to Singapore.

That December holiday in Singapore — and 14 other countries where Sunui’s company has offices, both the office director and one person in each office who has done an outstanding job at their work, as voted by their co-workers, will be happily surprised when they walk in the door at some place that is special to them to be greeted by a company representative who will give them a present and tell a story about another side of the winner that their friends in that organization may not know about.

How can you give a lasting and perhaps the most widely-known gift that ten people you admire can receive?   For each person think of the specific incident where that person has exemplified the quality that you most admire or cherish.  Re-play the situation in your mind so you can describe it in all its story-building, touching detail.

Practice saying the story, then notice how you now feel about the person. Begin with the specific details before you end with the general statement that summarizes your admiration.  That way, you make the story, and the person, more vividly memorable to others who read or hear it.

Next step: for each person envision what group to which they are affiliated (family, religious organization, hobby or other interest or professional group, etc.) would be most significant for that person if you were to praise them among the members. You have several ways to pass along your praise about the person you love or admire.

Call, email or write to someone in that person’s valued affinity group and share your story of praise.  Or you may, like the people in the story above, ask for permission to confer a gift on the person at a gathering of their group.  In advertising this method is called a “third party endorsement.”

For example, when customers praise a product in an advertisement they are providing a credible third party endorsement.  Because we are all instinctive voyeurs, naturally interested in the stories of each other’s lives we are more drawn to third party endorsements than to advertisements.  Further, when we hear a positive story about someone, told by another person we find it more credible and compelling than if the person was to “boast” about it in telling it himself.

Here are other ways to offer heartfelt, long-lasting third party endorsement gifts to those you hold dear:

• Donate money or another gift to a charity or cause in which that person is active, and ask that your story about them be included in any acknowledgement of the gift.

• Seek out places that person frequent and see if you might buy a needed piece of equipment or repair one in that person’s name.

In our Sausalito church, for example, you can pay for a hymnal and dedicate it with a related phrase, to someone you love. So every Sunday, someone at my church opens up a hymnal with this hand calligraphic message on the inside front, dedicated to my mother who loves piano music, “To Lestelle whose piano playing washes away the dust of everyday life.”

• On an object that person might uses frequently (coffee mug, bath towel, key holder) imprint or monogram a positive nickname or one phrase characterization of the “hero’s” action.

To my English rugby-playing friend, Richard, we’re giving a glass beer stein with these words etched on the bottom, “Great giver of bone-crushing hugs.”

• Make a large, colorful postcard on which you write a description of the positive incident involving your hero, then ask your colleagues who agree to join in signing it before sending it to that person’s home.  Give a gift to the person’s partner in work or personal life, as an acknowledgement of your admiration.

• Create a banner or poster, with a celebratory sentence and an enlarged and flattering image of the hero and hang it in a prominent place (wall or door of the person’s office, home or event). Find a place the person frequents (dry cleaner, golf club) and offer the business manager at that site your credit card number with a set dollar limit. Ask the manager to pay the next bill of your hero, fax you a copy of the bill, and hand the manager a gift card with your inscription on it to be given to the hero at their next visit.  You’ll create your own variation of this method, I’ll bet.

Two years ago I learned that Janice, a skilled meeting planner who had hired me to speak at her association several times over the years, and who was exceptionally gracious and generous with me, had contracted leukemia. I learned this from her assistant who called to confirm some details regarding my next presentation at their annual meeting.

On a long plane flight back from another speaking engagement, I looked out the window, thinking of Janice, and conjured up this idea for a third party endorsement of the Hawaiian-born meeting planner which would reflect one of her most passionate interests, gardening. I called the association’s executive director to share my idea and he immediately agreed.

Two months later, just after I was introduced to speak at that association’s convention’s opening breakfast, I moved to the center of the raised stage, signaling the 500 attendees to also rise from their seats as the board president caught the elbow of our surprised meeting planner, Jana, who at the bottom of the stage steps, still focused on making sure the room lighting would be alright for my speech.

He guided her up the steps as I stepped back to the side of the stage and the first person in the audience, roving mike in his hand told a vignette of how Jana had guided him at the beginning of his career.  As Jana reached the center of the stage, in front of the people she had served for 14 years, eight other people in various parts of the room lifted their mike and told their brief story about her.

Then a tenor saxaphone player stepped out from the side of the stage to serenade Janice with a fragment of her favorite Kenny G song as the screen on the stage was filled with purple words on an emerald green (her favorite colors) background, “Jana is a special flower” followed by a swift changing set of images of Janice in several situations.

As the song ended, on cue, all 500 people pulled from out of their pockets and purses the fragrant Hawaiian-grown white flowers, the gardenias, tuber roses and pikaki and held them aloft towards Jana.  The board president handed Jana a bouquet of the flowers and asked Jana to speak, which she did, briefly, through her tears.

Even several of the hotel waiters were standing still, crying by then.  My speech had, of course, been moved to the luncheon so people could drop by Jana’s table to say their warm greetings through the ensuing breakfast.

In a New Yorker cartoon, a bored-looking couple are sitting apart on a couch, facing a smiling therapist who says, “Any healthy relationship requires fundamental acting skills.” Clearly the Michelangelo Effect is not in play.

Couples who affirm and support each other’s best side also “sculpt” each other in beneficial ways. They become deeply committed and enjoy fresh experiences and learning – through and with their partner, according to researchers, Arthur Aron and Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr. In psychology, this is called self-expansion – growing through experiences with others. Not surprisingly, the dissolution of such relationships is especially devastating to one’s sense of self.

Reading this research, it dawned on me that the behaviors that build sustainable marriages could also help leaders model relationship-building that enables colleagues to optimize their talents for each other and their organization.

Leaders who encourage colleagues to support each other’s strongest talents and to introduce each other to new topics may also spur workers to self-organize around vital projects where they can use their disparate, best talents together. In so doing colleagues sculpt each other’s strengths as they succeed at projects they could not have accomplished alone.

Such experiences whet the appetite for further deeply engaged work together. Many of the happy couples turned their differences into sources of interest rather than conflict, enabling them to learn from each other. Leaders might evoke a similar effect by first inviting their colleagues to join in reading Marcus Buckingham’s classic book, Now Discover Your Strengths.

To understand the power of diverse people working together around sweet spots of shared interest, they might then read Morton Hanson’s Collaboration, Scott Page’s The Difference and Keith Sawyer’s Group Genius. After that the leader could champion discussions on how colleagues can dovetail their strengths on specific work projects.

As in a sustainable marriage, what’s key for relationship-building leaders to model are three traits: a strongly felt, shared mission; a mutual understanding and expressed support of each other’s strengths and a desire to learn, grow and create with others.

As a relationship-building leader, you can measure how well you are doing by adapting a few questions from the marriage researchers, Aron and Lewandowski:

• How much has working with this colleague resulted in your learning and doing new things?

• How much has knowing this colleague made you a better person?

From other marriage researchers, we can glean further insights into how leaders can grow their organization by enabling colleagues to do greater work together through passionately engaged and sustained relationships at work.

The renowned Gottmans believe that those in happy marriages exhibit certain behaviors with each other. While some researchers criticize the Gottmans for scant proof that marital happiness can be connected to these behaviors, they seem worth considering for building closer, productive engagement at work. I have adapted some of them, slightly for modeling relationship-strengthening leadership at work:

• Know each other. Discover and be mindful of their strongest likes and dislikes, greatest talents and passionate interests.

• Focus on each other’s best qualities and opinions of each other, and the rewarding times you have shared.

• Interact as frequently as needed to stay engaged in the shared work. Speak forthrightly about differences so you experience working disagreement and can trust that you know where you stand with each other.

• Allow your partner to influence you so you both can feel heard and can learn from each other.

• Solve your solvable problems. Don’t try for complete agreement on everything. Consider, does this difference between us affect our top goal or can we work around it?

• Understand your partner’s underlying conflict that is preventing resolution. Either find a way to address it directly or offer an alternative that can overcome it. If you two are disagreeing for more than ten minutes, by the way, you are probably not discussing the underlying problem. Not resolving it means it will probably grow.

• Create shared meaning. Find strong sweet spots of shared interests, values, past experiences, needs or traditions.

Since many of us spend the majority of our waking hours working, the leaders that show us how to accomplish greater things through stronger relationships will probably become increasingly sought-after.  Perhaps it is not too odd to look to the secrets of lovingly engaged couples for insights about how we can make our work more meaningful and satisfying together.

Something in yesterday’s “Modern Love“ column struck me as ringing true, not only for enduring marriages but for flourishing friendships, “Being single is all about the future, about the person you’re going to meet at Starbucks or after answering the next scientific compatibility questionnaire. Being married, after a certain point, is about the past, about a steadily growing history of moments that provide a confidence of comfort, an asset that compounds over time.”  

Perhaps friendships also compound with our attentive interest over time.

Holidays are poignant anyway. Why not use the emotions that arise to deepen your relationships?  Choose the role you want to play in other’s lives, rather than fall into the one you are expected to play.

Inevitably we will disappoint each other at times.  The key however to satisfying, enduring friendships or marriage is not obvious. In fact it is often baffling.

We are most likely to assume the secret to friendship is how often we are happy in the company of friends as compared to the moments they disappoint us.

Yet if we want to keep and cultivate that valued relationship  - and be happier in it – here’s some seldom-discussed habits to practice. Some go against the grain of our instinctive behavior and I confess I am not adept at them.  But they are well worth practicing and there’s no better time than this holiday. Inevitably as we gather or call each other or exchange emails, we are contemplating our family and friends and the roles we play in each other’s lives. 

To bring your friends closer and enjoy them more, consider altering your role in their lives.  In fact, create new scenes to create the storyline you want to live for the rest of your life.

Here’s three ways to bring out the best side of the main characters who most matter to you and increase your mutual appreciation of each other. 

1. Focus on their strongest talent and temperament

Praise friends when they are displaying their strengths. Give them slack when they aren’t, as Gretchen Rubin suggests in The Happiness Project.  In practicing genuine praise, in the moment, you’ll feel become less reactive and they’ll feel safer and accepted.  That attitude and action paves the road to reciprocal praise behavior and to greater closeness. 

2. Practice the Golden Golden Rule

Rather than doing unto others as you would have done unto you, step outside yourself. Instead do unto others as they would have done unto them.  Act and speak to support them in the ways they most need and value, not the ways that most matter to you.

One of the most precious ways is to show appreciation for the ways they are better than you. For example, David Sarasohn notes, “I am somewhat better with words than my wife is; she is infinitely better with people. In different ways, we translate each other to the rest of the world, and admire each other’s contrasting language skills. Being married to someone you respect for being somehow better than you keeps affection alive. That this impressive person chooses you year after year makes you more pleased with yourself, fueling the kind of mutual self-esteem that can get you through decades.”

3. Cultivate a Positive Attribution Bias

Notice how often you smile, praise, and give slack as compared to taking umbrage, making an abrupt, hurt or hostile face or sharply commenting back when you feel you have not been well-treated. (I find this terribly hard to do yet am working on it.)

Here’s why this is so powerful.

If happy couples who stay together have a high ratio of positive to negative interactions with each other it seems likely that behavior among friends would yield the same result.  In short, when a valued friend does something that jars you assume the best of intentions.  Here’s the payoff.  In a study people were asked, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you cannot be too careful in dealing with people?” Your answer reflects the strength of your relationships.

Couples are more likely to divorce when they:

• Are more likely to attribute the good things in their lives together to their partner’s selfish motivations. of their partner. “He’s cleaning the house just to butter me up for his fishing weekend with his buddies.”

• Blame their problems and daily hassles on their partners. “If she’d stop nagging me about reviewing our bills we’d have more fun on weekends.” 

Couples are happier and more likely to stay together when:

• Generously give credit to their partner for things that happen.

• See hidden virtues accompanying their partner’s foibles and faults.

Ironically this “assume the best” trusting behavior even affects countries, discovered Dacher Keltner, author of Born to Be Good. The lower the test level in the country the less likely it is doing well economically.

Looking for the good part in someone’s behavior is what Confucius believed was a way of making life meaningful for oneself and those in one’s life. He called this practicing “jen.”  As Keltner describes it, “A person of jen, wishing to establish his own character, also establishes the character of others. A person of jen brings the good things of others to completion and does not bring the bad things of others to completion. Jen is felt in that deeply satisfying moment when you bring out the goodness in others.”

3. Spend face time with each other.  Regularly.

Not just over this holiday. Nothing reveals values as much as how you spend your time. Stay in contact in other ways when you are not nearby. With familiarity one reduces the chance of Attribution Bias. When your friend hogs the dinner conversation, talking about his difficult boss you have enough experiences with him to know that he needs to vent, wants concrete advice and is a good sounding board for you when the situation is reversed.  In short, he has put emotional deposits in the bank of your friendship.  You don’t make the Attribution Bias of mistaking his volubility with self-centeredness.

“The more moments we share the more comfort grows,” wrote David Sarasohn.

Bottom Line:  We know we are each capable of great good and evil and many everyday acts in between.

Yet where will you put your attention this holiday? Consider the Indian story of the two wolves inside of you. One can focus on the selfishness in friends and family members or the good. Whatever you focus on you will see more of around you.  See greed and selfishness? That’s what you’ll expect. Look for moments of generosity and selflessness. That’s what you’ll reflect back – and increase the chances that you will experience more – with others. 

Such practice is not as easy as buying gifts yet it may be the most precious present we can give those we cherish and hope to bring closer – and enjoy ourselves. As Jonathan Haidt reminds us. “For most of us relationships are the surest route to happiness.”

Thank you all for the thoughtful, kind and generous comments, emails, calls and other ways of reaching out and friendship throughout this year. Here’s to our practicing our kindest roles with and for each other in what promises to be a volatile 2010 where friendship can make all the difference. Light your candle to glow on your friends. Together we’ll cast a brighter glow on the good and reinforce that behavior in each other.

“Wall Street swindler Bernie Madoff failed to protect his assets with a bankruptcy motion. His lawyer tried to get all charges dropped. He argued that Madoff is no longer a threat to society because there aren’t any rich people anymore,” writes Argus Hamilton in jest.

Here’s two more mock news items from Argus:

“Earth Day is a day when Democrats call for new sources of energy to replace fossil fuels, and Republicans make an extra effort to replace their divots.”

“Captured Somali pirate Abduwali Muse appeared in a Manhattan federal court where he was arraigned on charges of piracy. The 5-foot-2, 90-pound African teenager broke down crying in court. He doesn’t want to be adopted by Madonna.”

Feeling stressed or sad? Humor helps – if it’s the right kind. Did a situation turn tense? Humor can make it evaporate – if it’s the right kind. When feeling powerless  - or overpowering – the right kind of humor can even the field. Want to bring others closer? Try the kind of humor that leads to living well – with others. This might help….

Frank Visco wrote, tongue-in-cheek that, “One should never generalize” but I will. Everyone takes one of three approaches to humor:

1. Divide: Using it to defend,or deflect and thus divide.

2. Unite: Using it as a way to relieve tension, heal hurt feelings or otherwise bring people closer.

3. Ignore: Seeing it as silly, a waste of time or both. Humor should be deflected or ignored.

Each behavior affects others in different ways.

First the worst.

1. Divisive Humor is Insulting to Someone …. and Often Hilarious.

Even well-meaning, kidding humor from someone who knows you well can hurt. He knows where to strike. As in the Rules of Combat, “The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.” 

In your car, patience is a quality you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. In humor, if it’s funnier to say than the hear, then it’s divisive. 

There are exceptions. Some apparently divisive humor is often unifying because of the near universal opinion of the target. One method is to simply repeat the target’s words. Here are examples.

1. A music reviewer wrote, “Few people know that the CIA is planning to cripple Iran by playing the Bee Gee’s ESP album on special loudspeakers secretly parachuted into the country.”

2.”Please provide the date of your death.” ~ a quote from an IRS letter received by a reporter.

3.  Sometimes the institution sets itself up for a double shot of humor. Here’s a Correction Notice in a British newspaper: “We apologize for the error in last week’s paper in which we stated that Mr. Arnold Dogbody was a defective in the police force. We meant, of course, that Mr. Dogbody is a detective in the police farce.”

4. In his testimony before Congress as to his role in Iran-Contra, then Colonel Oliver North, said, “I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version.”

5.  Some apparently divisive humor merely reflects the understandable emotion of the moment.  Thus it becomes unifying. “Men, I want you just thinking of one word all season. One word and one word only: Super Bowl.” said football coach Bill Peterson.

6.  “It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.”~ George H. Bush

7. Happiness, for some, is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

To help a group recover from someone’s use of divisive humor, try unifying humor: “People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”

In the next post I’ll describe how unifying humor cracks tension, improves health, brings us closer, makes us more popular, more hopeful – and more money, yet not necessarily thinner, unfortunately.

The source of inspiration for today’s post is the passing of an actress who used unifying humor to side with the underdog. Her wise-cracking warmth enabled her to speak up on the sometimes controversial issues in which she believed. A mark of using humor well is when it brings out the better side in others. You did that so well and so often, Beatrice Arthur. 

… to decide whether you like or trust the person, say researchers. Snap judgments happen  without conscious thought. Yet another part of the study has scarier implications for forging relationships. When participants were given more time to describe their reactions they were:

   •  Slightly more negative than those given less time.

   •  More certain that they were right in their quick judgment.

And from a study on Facebook called YouJustGetMe, in viewing photos, people are

 “generally seen by others as they see themselves.”

How to Cultivate Friendship and Attract Support

From these findings, for a first meeting to flourish, in person or online, into a positive relationship, two people must feel positive about each other upfront and over time during that first “meeting”.  Only then can you enjoy the Positively Mutually-Reinforcing Effect.  That’s when we prove each other right – that we are trustworthy and likeable – for each other. 

Since no human interactions are neutral, the alternative is the Negatively Mutually-Reinforcing Effect.  That’s when one or both us don’t like or trust each other at first.  Consequently we become self-protective and spiral down in the mutually-reinforcing behaviors that prove ourselves right.

 People Like People Who Like Them

How to start out on the right foot in person?  From other research here’s a counter-intuitive discovery. Most of us, when meeting someone we think is important to us, attempt to appear likeable, important and trustworthy. Our behavior is often self-referencing.  Yet the best way for others to like you is for them to like the way they are when around you. 

If they don’t like the way they act and feel when around you, they project onto you the qualities they most dislike  – even if you haven’t demonstrated you have those traits.  They are inclined to sabotage you  – even if such behavior also damages them. 

Alternatively, if they like the way they are when around you, they see in you the qualities they most admire.  Yep.  Even if you’ve not (yet) demonstrated that you have those wonderful qualities. Plus they’ll go out of their way to speak well of you and help you, even to their own detriment.

So, for an easier, more joyful life  - with others – make it a habit when you first meet someone to search for the quality in that person you most like and admire. Focus your attention on that trait, not something that bothers you. Your positive feeling will be reflected in your face, body language and tone. Speak to that positive view. In so doing, you are most likely to instigate a pleasant interaction at the least and, at the most, a healthy give-and-take friendship. Then explore more ways to deepen that connection.