Drop Anchors Carefully

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A few years ago at a Sioux Falls, ID supermarket, the owners experimented with marketing labels next to cans of soup. Some days the label said “10% off regular price, limit 10 per customer,” and on other days it said “10% off regular price, no limit per customer.” Shoppers purchased twice as many on the days with limitations. The sense of scarcity set an anchoring effect, and the number 10 set a mental anchor of the amount of cans they should buy. So, those presented with the limited availability felt a mental urge to buy more.

Similarly, if I ask you, “Is the oldest dog in the world older or younger than 60 years?” and then I ask you, “How old is the oldest dog?”, your answer will be higher than if I just ask you “How old is the oldest dog in the world?” You know instinctively that a 60 year old dog is completely nuts, but it will still have a psychological priming effect and sway your guess upwards. Significantly upwards it turns out. Your dog-age guess will be over a decade above your guess without the suggestion of a 60-year old dog.

Mental anchors are everywhere, and quite effectively used in negotiations. The above example is from Daniel Kahnemann’s new book Thinking Fast and Slow. In his chapter on the anchoring effect, he also points out that we are much more susceptible to psychological anchors during times of stress and anxiety. If we are in a stressful state and someone suggests a point of direction, or an idea to consider, we are much more likely to accept and build on that idea, instead of patiently and thoughtfully questioning it. In another Kahnemann-type example, if you are nervous and I ask even a ridiculous question like, “Is your arm getting numb?” You are far more likely to believe your arm might actually be getting numb instead of reject such a nutty suggestion.

Consider this next time you speak your mind: In times of stress with mounting deadlines, you can more easily make your case but you do so at the expense of allowing the thoughtful contribution of the team. And then sacrifice the voice of the community who might have a more powerful collective idea than you. Create a space to allow considered contribution. You will almost always create a stronger result.

[Cool cartoon from Andertoons – check them out]

Hit a Wall? Your Mindset Matters

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“Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.”
– Thor Heyerdahl, innovator, adventurer, and border-smasher

I have a friend who installed the same invisible dog fence I did, but he admitted he didn’t bother with the training and simply installed the underground wire and shackled his dog with the electrical buzz collar which would shock the dog whenever he got near the line. His thinking was the dog would just learn the boundaries himself and viola! – a dog self-trained to stay in the yard. I asked him what happened, and he described that as his young boisterous dog started to run and play as usual he would get shocked and, since he didn’t associate the pain with any clear boundary, he eventually sat in the middle of the yard shaking in fear, paralyzed to move. From that point on all the dog wanted to do was stay in the house.

There are many dimensions to this story – not least the owner’s choice and behavior – but what I want to address is the dog’s perspective. The dog, not understanding why the random shocks, arrived at a state psychologists call “learned helplessness.” It’s the point at which they (we) are capable of believing that nothing we do matters, and regardless of our action, we’re going to be punished or bad things will befall us. A sense of control, and a sense that our behavior matters, is one of the most important predictors of happiness, and in turn workplace productivity, collaboration and creativity.

In a 2002 study from the Families and Work Institute, researchers concluded the following six criteria for creating an effective workplace:
• Providing job autonomy;
• Creating learning opportunities and challenges on the job—where employees can grow,
learn, and advance;
• Developing environments where supervisors support employees in being successful on
the job;
• Developing environments where coworkers support each other for job success;
• Involving employees in management decision-making; and
• Creating flexible workplaces

All of the above offer workers more, not less control and autonomy over their team, their task, their technique.

Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, in a series of studies, has found that people fall into two gross categories – those who believe their intelligence and aptitude is fixed, and those who believe their intelligence and capabilities are malleable and can change over time with effort. When people are in a learning, instead of a fixed mindset, they continually keep getting better because they try harder and constantly put themselves in positions where they might fail. And keep getting better because, or despite of, the challenges they self-impose.

In the invisible fence example, think of the ways in which you bump up against boundaries and how you react to them. Do you run back to the middle quaking, or spend time probing to understand that invisible boundary and then concoct ways to circumvent, or leap beyond it? Or maybe tunnel under? And if you are the boundary-creator, ask yourself why? It could be a legitimate boundary – we do it to our kids all the time for health, or safety, or learning, etc… But in my experience, when you give trust, you get trust, and sometimes exceptional performance.

Turn Anxiety into Positive Action

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In the always-on bottle rocket economy, in which creative contributors spend their extended waking hours in simultaneous and schizophrenic bouts of digital grazing, conference calls, work tasks, social media…it’s no surprise anxieties and hypertension have overtaken the workforce.

I had an interview the other day with Chip Conley, Founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre (and killer TED speaker) and learned a cool emotional equation trick he is debuting in his new book. It’s common to feel overwhelmed with looming deadlines, and dueling projects. Here are a few tricks you can try to take control.

Understand You Have More Control Than You Think
We tend to fixate on what we can’t control or have little influence over. Try this from Chip Conley. It’s about turning negative stress in to positive challenge. Think of a project, task, or effort you are involved in and write down all of the things you have control and power over.

Now write down the things you think you have little or no control or power over. In Chip’s experience trying this out on hundreds and hundreds of leaders, they come to realize the number of elements they do have control and power over is surprisingly higher than they realized. And by clearly identifying and sharing pieces they think they have no control over, they realize quickly the people resources and available insights are more immediate and readily accessible than previously thought.

Understand Where You Spend Your Time
One tip from Martin Seligman. Weigh what your goals are against how you spend your time. Write down three to five things you really want to accomplish. Then keep track of how you actually spend your time. You can try reflecting on the past week or looking through your calendar from the last month, but in his experience, a better measure is to actually measure. Post a white board in your office or kitchen – or places you frequent – and jot down the time you spend on activities. It might surprise you the difference between time invested and stated goals.

Take Action
Now do something. That’s right, just get in motion. I heard a cool adage recently, “the amount of time it takes you to accomplish anything is equal to the amount of time you have to do it.” In other words, if you have two weeks to do the presentation, it will take two weeks. If you have two hours, it takes two hours. So my final advice in taking control is to self-impose deadlines and act. In my experience, the big project I’ve been putting off takes very little actual time. Or as my new friend Alexander Kjerulf likes to say, we are always choosing, since inaction is also a choice. So choose to act.

Using Humor for Discovery

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I’m in Virginia this weekend visiting my mom, Bev Hunter, with my eldest son Charlie, and was reminded of the relationship between the Ha-ha of humor and the Ah-ha of discovery. Bev has been using humor as a therapeutic device for combating an illness (you can read in her blog), and I’ve been reminded of the power of using humor in finding new insights and ideas. As a gift she gave me a deck of creative thinking cards developed by Roger von Oech – each with their own little bit of creative provocation. I keep this deck in my bag everywhere I go and pull it out and try the next card in spare moments when reaching for new ideas.

Roger von Oech is a firm believer in using fun ideas to stimulate creativity. His company Creative Think was started in 1977. He is the author of A Whack on the Side of the Head, and this Creative Whack Pack I keep handy. Oech believes in the power of ‘creative stimulants’ and ‘mental fresheners’. They stimulate the thinking process, and open the mind to creative ideas.

I’m in Roger’s camp, who says that humor can drive creativity and the process by which new and different ideas are produced. And, there is a practical angle to it. It has to work in the given situation, or adapted in a manner that can work in the particular situation. Oech recommends that organizations have an ‘innovation requirement’ in the performance plan of employees. This way, employees would also focus on looking for innovative solutions. Asking questions that stimulate their thinking, or putting them in situations which require them to think laterally, or giving them open-ended problems to solve would get their creative juices flowing. It is important for people to approach a problem from many and different points of view.

Having a sense of humor helps. It has been found that there is a close relationship between the ‘Ha-ha of humor and the A-Ha! of discovery,’ to quote Oech.

Employees with wide-ranging interests in fields other than their field of work, or area of specialization, or have absorbing hobbies are always more creative than those who only specialize in their field of work. How does one use peripheral vision? Here again, Oech has a suggestion: ‘Look for the second right answer.’ Most problems have many solutions. The deal is that you have to look for them – have to free the mind enough to see them. It is only then that all possibilities can be found.

Do it Like Zorro – Control Your Circle

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Wall Street today was a street of vanished hopes, of curiously silent apprehension and of a sort of paralyzed hypnosis yesterday. Little groups gathered here and there to discuss the fall in prices in hushed and awed tones.
– New York Times, Oct 30, 1929

You might expect that at that moment in 1929, and again in 2008, sleep-deprived, anxious bankers worked tirelessly to arrest the stock market free-fall. And yet, more often, sleep-deprived anxious bankers sat in paralyzed hypnosis as the crisis unfolded before them. Not because they were unable to do anything about it, but instead were drawn into a state of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is that point at which we feel we are utterly unable to make a difference no matter what we do. We have to start by controlling/influencing what we know we can – which often means the lowest denominator.

Here is a lesson from Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage. Consider the story of Zorro in which early on we find our hapless hero, Alejandro Murrieta who is drinking and raging quietly against Captain Harrison Love who has killed his brother, and feeling totally helpless to take his vengeance. Zorro introduces him to the Master’s Wheel and advises, “This is called a training circle, a master’s wheel. This circle will be your world, your whole life. Until I tell you otherwise, there is nothing outside of it.” He teaches Alejandro to first control only what comes within his circle and by the end of the story the new Zorro is swinging from chandeliers and handling twenty men in battle.

In 2011, remember to focus first on what you can control. Your circle will widen.

The Pie of Life

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There’s an old saying that goes, “How you spend your day is how you spend your life.” And researchers have shown (try Dan Gilbert) that we, predictably, are poor predictors of what will make us happy. The world is full of miserable lottery winners and yet we still think if only we have the house, the car, the spouse, the job, the vacation – whatever – we’ll be soo happy. And yet consistently many of these dreams fail to deliver joy upon arrival – or at least sustainable joy.

Turns out we aren’t very good at remembering how happy we were either. We fairly consistently recollect memories as joyful, when in fact the majority of the actual time spent was of a more mundane variety.   We have the experiencing self in real time that has opinions and emotions, and we have a remembering self that recollects events and provides us with advice about the quality of that experience and how to make future choices.

So to figure out how happy we really are on a moment to moment basis, researchers Alan Krueger and Daniel Kahnman conducted a study in which they asked 4,000 participants to categorize their days into 15 minute increments and value them based on how they felt at those moments. The slide here represents those findings. Ouch – we really only spend less than 30% of our day engaged in activities we characterize as either enjoyable or meaningful? And yikes – almost a third of our day is spent wandering through the “conveyer belt” of life, which to the average of those 4,000 interviewed meant work or school.

Todd Kashdan, author of Curious?, suggests it doesn’t have to be this way. The world over, people say they want happiness, health, and wealth – in that order. Todd is making a strong argument for the power of curiosity to be the sustaining key to happiness, joy and lifelong fulfillment. He reminds us that not only can we learn new things, open our minds, build more positive mood states, and generally find novelty in the world, but that it takes work. We have to apply ourselves to the game of learning curiousity, and the results can be profound – not only greater happiness, but closer and more fulfilling relationships, and even healthier bodies.

Try this for just five minutes.  When engaging in an activity you regularly do (walking to the mailbox, washing dishes, whatever) look for something new in the experience.  Slow down and be present for something you have never noticed before.  For example, Todd has a great story of a guy he interviewed whose job was to spot irregular potato chips on a moving conveyor belt and remove them to ensure product consistency.  I mean, that’s GOT to be up there with tollbooth operator on the boredom factor.  The guy said he loves his job.  Loves it.  He plays a game in which he tries to spot famous faces in the potato chips (Hey, there’s Ernest Borgnine!). OK, maybe not your idea of fun but it was for him. Find something new in each experience. Sometimes it’s only a slight turn of the head.

The Both/And Equation

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The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they surpass him or her in knowledge and ability – Fred A. Manske, Jr.

We have an upcoming interview with Tom Griffin, Chief Teaching Officer of U.S. Cellular, and in preparation I was reading some of his articles and work. One of the key tenets of leadership philosophy at U.S. Cellular is the belief that developing people is as important as business results. It’s the both/and relationship between both accomplishing the target objectives and developing the skills and capabilities of those who work in the company. They recognize that only by increasing their own people capabilities can they continue to develop innovation and advantage. Because of course, as the market continues to shift and change so rapidly, new solutions will always be needed. If the company becomes satisfied with accomplishing business objectives alone, without developing new ideas and skills simultaneously, you’ll quickly find yourself at a loss to compete.

That, plus remember what studies have shown people want most from their companies and leaders:

  1. Senior management’s sincere interest in employee well-being
  2. Opportunity an employee has to improve skills and capabilities
  3. Organization’s reputation for social responsibility

Creating opportunity for people to develop skills isn’t just providing increased competitive advantage for the company.   It’s also valuing and respecting everyone’s innate interest in personal and professional growth.  It’s a positive loop – develop people and they will naturally apply those skills and ideas to develop your business too.

EchoLeaders: How Our Intention is Echoed Back to Us

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I had a conversation the other day with David Penglase, a fantastic speaker, writer and entrepreneur based in Sydney. He introduced the phrase Intentionomics to describe how our intent drives all results in life interactions. Our customers, colleagues, (certainly our children) and pretty much everyone we interact with have keen detectors of our intent. If, as a salesperson, your primary intent in prospect interaction is to maximize a contract value instead of honestly solving a client puzzle, they’ll recognize it. Even if that recognition isn’t immediate, your later actions by either conscientiously adding superlative value, or not, will come back in spades. This is the karma effect, the what-goes-around effect.

The travel policy at NetApp is Do the Right Thing. Officially it’s “We are a frugal company. But don’t show up dog-tired to save a few bucks. Use your common sense.” And by providing the latitude for employees to exercise their own discretion, they also self-select for continued employment there. Because, of course, they are working within a social contract, not a policy one. I had an interview with John Grant, CEO of Data#3 who believes strongly in offering people the autonomy and freedom to take strategic risks for the sake of furthering innovative design and results, all within their signature process they call PDO2. Or consider Disney, at which cast members have the authority and discretion to solve any customer dilemma on the spot as they choose – they can comp a penthouse suite if they choose. Later their peers and colleagues provide the social feedback mechanisms to allow cast members to understand the extent of reasonable customer remedies, but there are no punitive measures.

These are the characteristics of the EchoLeader, who value initiative over compliance, while expecting people behave with an aligned moral compass. EchoLeaders emphasize what they can give to the world and bring forth a point of view, a perspective and intent of construction – a will to build stronger communities of collaboration around a resolved vision. An EchoLeader has the ability to galvanize teams and create results because their purpose is beyond personal success. The purpose becomes pursuit of significance for the vision we serve.

Have another read of The Giving Tree – you’ll be reminded of gratitude and the power of giving.

Smile and the world smiles with you

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We know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity. – Margaret Wheatley

Didn’t your mother tell you to give a firm handshake, smile and look them in the eye when you meet someone? Gotta make a good impression right? That smile was supposed to convey your own confidence and likability. Turns out that smile didn’t just help people to like you, it also made them happy – made them smile. The inverse is true – as Shawn Achor describes, just watch in a crowded airport as one person approaches a boarding gate nervous, anxious, and expressing the human indicators of tapping toes, and checking their watch. Within minutes more than half the people around them will exhibit the same symptoms of nervous anxiety. Try this experiment with caution – only if you want to intentionally create negative tension! The mirror neurons in our brain are so powerful that it’s nearly impossible to not smile when smiled at, feel emotional anxiety when you see someone crying, and of course yawn when you see someone yawn – even when you’re not either tired or bored.

Our mirror neurons are so powerful as not only emotional and performance emulators that we can improve our batting swing, our dancing, our piano technique – all by simply observing someone else performing these skills with a high degree of excellence.

Just this morning at our Perspectives conference in Orlando, Shawn Achor gave a riveting (and pretty funny!) talk about positive psychology and the power of mirror neurons in our daily lives and interactions. At any given interaction in life we have the opportunity to choose to share joy, and little did we know the immense impact of that interaction. In a live, real time experiment, Shawn demonstrated that not only is happiness contagious – you knew that of course – but that we are nearly powerless to deny emotions presented before us. He asked us to pair up, then person #1 smiles at person #2 who attempts to remain expressionless. Impossible, or nearly so. Thus is the power of empathy and connection to one another.

Sort of ups the ante on showing up as a leader, doesn’t it? The old proverbs about model the way, or smile and the world smiles with you, take on new meaning because now we understand that whatever emotion or intention we are conveying, consciously or not, people are nearly powerless not to follow. Dear friends, use your new found powers for only good.

Follow the Right Idea Threads

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“I can’t recall a period of time that was as volatile, complex, ambiguous and tumultuous. As one successful executive puts it, ‘if you’re not confused, you don’t know what’s going on’.” – Warren Bennis

Yesterday we had the honor or producing an event with Ram Charan, surely one of, if not the, most sought-after executive and management consultants in the world. His presentation was indeed thought-provoking and inspiring, but I’ll just pick one of his insights to share here: follow the right idea threads. We got into a conversation during our interview that has become almost cliché about the rapidity of change, the compounding nature of change, the complexity and chaos of rapidly changing technologies and information, etc etc… In our interview I asked him how is it possible to keep up with it all – which is what many people try to do. He agreed that of course this was impossible and said, “The key is to focus on what matters.”

Well yes, but that doesn’t exactly tell me what matters, so I asked him how do you know what matters. He went on to explain it’s all about context and what matters to you, in your work, in your organization, the problems you are trying to solve – and your best approach must be to follow the idea threads that matter. What he meant is that while of course we can’t possibly digest the encyclopedia of our particular domain expertise, what we must do is follow the conversations where the center of gravity is. By attending a conference relevant to your field of expertise and interest, the keynote will drop a reference to a seminal study, and then you’ll go back to your hotel room and look up that study and follow that thread. These threads don’t always end in eureka!, but by staying close enough to the thinkers and ideas that matter, you can follow the right idea threads.

I have a personal example. I recently reached out to Arie Lewin, at Duke Fuqua School of Business, to request an interview with him around his seminal ideas of creating super-adaptive firms by globally sourcing ideas. During an advance call with Dr. Lewin to discuss content he referenced the work of Vivek Wadhwa. In my ignorance I had to ask him to spell it twice, but it sent me on a journey to read Vivek’s studies and listen to several podcasts and interviews he has given recently on moving labor markets and talent. Now convinced that Vivek’s work represents not only excellence that matters in the world, but also important to my discovery process on moving talent pools, I have a new idea thread to follow. It works like that – follow the right people and ideas and they will lead you to the next.

Enjoy the journey and find the right idea threads.