Your “Smartphone” May Be Dumbing Down Your Conversations

/in , , , /by

“People who had conversations in the absence of mobile devices reported higher levels of empathetic concern.”
– Shalini Misra

American adults are consuming over 11 hours of digital media daily. Keep in mind we are only awake 16 to 17 hours a day.

It’s been steadily increasing over the years for American kids too. Today, on average, kids are spending over 7 hours immersed in “entertainment” screen time. And that’s outside of the screen time they may have at school working on computers doing homework or school-related activities.

It’s true that sometimes it’s nice to sit together at a coffee shop and absently chitchat about nothing while we scroll through our devices. Together, yet apart. But more often, we all want our conversations to be meaningful, connected, deep, expressive, honest, intentional, substantial, and empathetic. New research demonstrates that even the mere presence of a smartphone, in our hands or just sitting on the table between us, detracts from the quality of the conversation.

That’s right, even if we don’t actively look at it, the simple presence of a smartphone detracts from the quality of the conversation. Simply the anticipation of a text or alert distracts us from meaningful interaction.

In a recent study, researchers Shalini Misra and her colleagues asked 100 pairs of students to spend just 10 minutes talking about either a casual, light topic or alternately a deeper, more meaningful topic.

Meanwhile an observing researcher nearby noted the amount of non-verbal behavior and the amount of eye contact. After the conversation took place, the observer asked questions related to the quality of the conversation itself. Participants were asked to qualify their “feelings of interpersonal connectedness” and “empathic concern” they experienced during the conversation. Questions included “I felt I could really trust my conversation partner” and “To what extent did your conversation partner make an effort to understand your thoughts and feelings?”

The results were clear: “If either participant placed a mobile communication device on the table, or held it in their hand, during the course of the 10-minute conversation, the quality of the conversation was rated to be less fulfilling.”

“Mobile phones hold symbolic meaning in advanced technological societies. In their presence, people have the constant urge to seek out information, check for communication, and direct their thoughts to other people and worlds.”

While the use of devices and technology to allow people to communicate digitally increase, face-to-face interaction decreases.

Meet William Powers. A digital lifetime ago back in 2008, Bill Powers and his family decided to reclaim their lives from their devices. He, his wife and now 17-year-old son were increasingly spending their evenings and weekends facing away from each other and spending hours deeply entranced by their screens, instead of each other.

They are certainly no Luddites. Bill is a researcher and journalist, and his wife is a novelist, so they both spend long hours at their computers, researching and writing. They are also both keenly aware that the internet and their ability to connect digitally grants them the freedom to work at home, and make a living because of the information and connectedness they enjoy from the internet.

But they were also spending less and less time simply talking with one another, and instead texting and emailing each other from across the house. They were spending less and less time taking walks, enjoying the outdoors, and spending meaningful time with one another.

For the past 7 years, their family practices something they call “selected disconnection.” Each weekend they have an Internet Sabbath. Starting late Friday evening until Sunday evening, they turn off the WiFi in their house, and their smartphones, and their computers, and they disconnect digitally.

When they first started the experiment, Bill said, “It almost had an existential feeling of, ‘I don’t know who I am with the Internet gone.’ But after a few months it hardened into a habit and we all began to realize we were gaining a lot from it.”

Ok, so maybe the thought of totally disconnecting for two days is terrifying or unrealistic. Start with just an hour, or two. Then if you think it’s a meaningful exercise for you or your family, turn it into a whole evening. Worst case scenario is you all learn something. And that’s a good thing.

____________________________________________________

Shawn Hunter is the author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes. It’s about how to lead joyfully in life, and also to lead cultures in your company to drive great results.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

Go ahead and ask. You can be more assertive than you think.

/in , , , , /by

Recently our daughter Annie and I were at the store picking out a card to for her to send to a friend. In the card display was a big section dedicated to Taylor Swift. We examined each card – Taylor Swift looking dreamy, sassy, alluring, or even defiant. Taylor can certainly strike a pose. I asked Annie to pick one.

“I can’t decide,” she said. Then, “Wait, what about that one!”

It was the display poster, the marquee advertising the Taylor Swift section of the greeting cards. “Well, that’s not for sale sweetie. It’s just the banner. You know, the poster for all the Taylor Swift cards.”

Annie says, “Yeah. Can we get it?”

There was also a little sign saying the Taylor Swift card collection was being replaced in a few days. I shrugged, “Let’s ask.” I took the poster from the wall and Annie carried it to the checkout counter.

“I can’t find a price on this,” the clerk said.

I replied, “Yeah, well, it’s..ah…the display poster. But the sign says you are getting rid of the cards in a couple days. Can we have it?” The clerk frowned. “I need to talk to the manager.”

We waited and the manager arrived, looked at the poster, and said. “I’m sorry but we don’t own those banners. The card company does. We can’t give them away.” I turned and saw Annie’s face wrinkle in confusion. “But why not?” she asked.

For a second no one moved. Then the manager said, “Tell you what. If you give us your phone number, we’ll ask the card company and call you if they say you can have it.” I was pretty skeptical, but Annie’s face lit up and she carefully wrote down our phone number for the manager as I said it out loud.

We drove home and I forgot all about it. But Annie didn’t forget. Sure enough about ten days later, the drug store manager called and asked if we still wanted the poster. Within the hour, that Taylor Swift poster was hanging in our daughter’s bedroom.

When in doubt, ask.

People seen by others as getting assertiveness right, often mistakenly think they’ve gotten it wrong.

In a study by doctoral students at Columbia Business School, 57% of those who believed that they were appropriately assertive in their requests and negotiations, were actually seen by the other party as under-assertive, and under-demanding. In other words, more than half didn’t ask for enough.

On the other hand, those who believe that have been overly-assertive and overly-demanding in their requests and negotiations often fall victim to a belief that they have “crossed a line” and gone too far in their requests. The result is that they backpedal, try to smooth things over, and acquiesce to a lesser deal. In the end, both parties often accept a worse deal.

That’s a bummer, because in the study often those who were assertive and demanding were actually interpreted by the other party as being fair and appropriate.

According to the research, you should go for it and ask for a little more. And not back off or feel badly about what you ask for.

____________________________________________________

Shawn Hunter is the Founder of Mindscaling and author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes. It’s about how to lead joyfully in life, and also to lead cultures in your company to drive great results.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

Who is Doing What? The Secret of Great Teams.

/in , , , , /by

skydivers

The crew of the USS Vincennes was particularly edgy that morning. Early in the morning hours, one of the Vincennes helicopters had been deployed to investigate some boats trafficking in their area of the Persian Gulf. The helicopter pilot reported receiving small arms fire from the boats. Captain Rogers retaliated by firing upon the small vessels, which heightened the tension in the darkened “Combat Information Center,” a small war room inside the USS Vincennes lit up with control panels and computer screens. Much of war these days is done staring at computer screens.

On the morning of July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes was stationed in Iranian waters and captained by William Rogers. The Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser had been hastily deployed from San Diego, CA only a month earlier and rushed to the Persian Gulf to increase security. It had also been outfitted with the new state-of-the art Aegis surveillance system. More on that later.

Meanwhile, at 10:17am Iran Flight 655, a civilian Airbus carrying 290 passengers and crew, took off from Bandar Abbas Airport to fly a short 25 minute flight across the Strait of Hormuz and land in Dubai. Many of the civilians on board were making a sacred journey to Mecca.

Shortly thereafter, tacticians on board the Vincennes started tracking flight 655 as it approached their location. At that moment, the sophisticated Aegis surveillance system provided a critical piece of misinformation. Even though the airliner was accurately broadcasting an identifier as Mode III, or civilian, the system falsely identified the Airbus as instead Mode II, a military combat F-14, a plane more than two-thirds smaller.

The second error was human. A tactician monitoring the plane’s approach toward them incorrectly stated that the plane was descending toward the Vincennes, possibly as an act of aggression, when in fact the plane was ascending to a cruising altitude of 14,000 feet. Strangely, the fancy system was not designed to provide information on changes in altitude, so to compute altitude changes of aircraft being monitored operators had to “compare data taken at different times and make the calculation in their heads, on scratch pads, or on a calculator — and all this during combat.”

Captain Rogers radioed the nearby friendly frigate USS Sides Captain Robert Hattan, and asked him to confirm what they identified as an approaching F-14. Captain Hattan disagreed. All operators and monitoring systems on board the USS Sides correctly identified the airplane as a commercial jet ascending, not descending, in a standard commercial flightpath.

Captain Rogers listened to the conflicting identification coming from the USS Sides, and decided that the superior technology and monitoring system of the Aegis outclassed the information from the USS Sides. The fancy Aegis technology gave Rogers a superior sense of confidence, and the willingness to disregard Captain’s Hattan’s warning.

At 10:24am that morning Captain William Rogers ordered two missiles to be deployed. One hit the airliner which killed all 290 passengers on board. The USS Sides and crew were later awarded a Meritorious Commendation for “outstanding service, heroic deeds, or valorous actions,” in part, for their efforts to dissuade the attack.

“Cooperation increases when the roles of individual team members are sharply defined yet the team is given latitude on how to achieve the task.”
– Tammy Erickson, Harvard Business School

There are many mitigating human factors, technology factors, and situational factors. There were lengthy congressional hearings and investigations. But let me point out just one decision-making factor that contributed to this disaster. Team performance and team decision-making can often be flawed, particularly under pressure situations, when there is lack of role clarity. Had the two crews built redundancies or decision-making processes to question or confirm the information from different angles, the disaster might have been avoided.

It’s hip to talk about flattening companies, destroying hierarchies, and that large-scale holacracy experiment going on over at Zappos. But here’s the thing: whatever the team situation, or project you’re trying to solve, role clarity is critical. You don’t necessarily need a “boss” but you do need a decision-making process, and you need understood roles of expertise on each team.

It’s true on soccer teams, and it’s true on high-performing expert teams like media crews or Emergency Response Teams. And certainly true of those ad-hoc innovation teams that come together in your company to be the “Voice of the Customer” or whatever you may call it.

I had an interview with Tammy Erickson of Harvard, and regarding teams she said role clarity was often the most overlooked characteristic in building high-performing teams. Often the team, or the boss, makes the assumption that if they put super talented people together, they will change the world.

They will, but only if they know who is doing what.

____________________________________________________

outthink_book_coverShawn Hunter is the Founder of Mindscaling and author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes. It’s about how to lead joyfully in life, and also to lead cultures in your company to drive great results.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

Does Your Company Have a Mental Dress Code?

/in , , , , /by

conformity

Bafflegab
noun, North American, informal
Meaning: incomprehensible or pretentious language, especially bureaucratic jargon.
“the smooth chairman had elevated bafflegab to an art form”

If we took a time machine back to the 1990s and visited American corporate culture, in addition to wide ties and blocky cell phones, we would also see the Apple Newton in action, and fax machines widely in use. There was the Netscape IPO of 1995, Japan was the king of semiconductors, and the NASDAQ tipped over 1000.

We would also find people talking differently. They didn’t use the word “business model” widely. That term wouldn’t make it’s way out of MBA classes for a few more years, and people were still largely thought of as resources to be applied against goals, objectives and strategies. According to Harvard business historian Nancy Koehn, people weren’t talking about “energy” or “passion” or “purpose” in the way we do today.

Language certainly matters a great deal. The words we use when interacting with one another say a great deal about what we believe and value. But I’ll argue that repetition and overuse of insider language can balloon into an enormous crutch. It’s the reason business bingo exists.

In the 1980s, Pacific Bell publicly abandoned a failed $40 million “leadership development” effort based on the work of former aspiring-mystic-turned-management-consultant Charles Krone. The training program attempted to get everyone in the organization to adopt new, and often fantastical, language to gain efficiency and speed.

During this expensive and failed experiment of confusion and lost productivity, “task cycle” was an invented term to describe a system of managing a problem. Even the word “interaction” had it’s own impenetrable 39-word definition that employees had to understand.

Pushing people to speak and interact all the same way is the equivalent of enforcing a mental dress code.

There are plenty of annoying popular business phrases out there. “Let’s not try to boil the ocean” means let’s not waste time on something that will take forever. Rowing to Australia would take a long time too, but we don’t say that. Incidentally, the expression “boil the ocean” supposedly came from the humorist Will Rogers when asked how we should deal with German U-Boats during WWI. His answer was to simply boil the ocean, and added that the details of how to do that are up to someone else.

“Out of pocket” sounds silly. It means unavailable. The original intent was to explain a reimbursable expense, as in the cost came out of my pocket. Lord knows how this became reinterpreted to mean I will be unavailable. I searched and searched and found no satisfactory answer.

“Over the wall” needs to be canned too. It means to send something, like a document or a proposal, to a client or a vendor. But metaphorically it’s alienating. The expression suggests we’re dealing with someone foreign, even hostile. Why does it need to be a wall?

“Low-hanging fruit” came out of 1980s restructuring at General Electric. Peter Drucker had been hired by Jack Welch in the early 1980s to help get GE out of a down-cycle (damn, I did it myself!), and they worked together to try to remove corporate jargon from the conversation. Ironically, along the way they created more new terms in an attempt to destroy the old language. In addition to “low-hanging fruit,” that exercise also brought us the terms “rattlers” (meaning obvious problems) and pythons (meaning bloated bureaucracy).

“Burning platform” conjures images of Gandalf and the dragon Bairog fighting over a crumbling bridge above a cauldron of fire. Stop it. Try using the word “urgent” instead.

It goes on and on. Let’s keep this one: “ducks in a row.” I like that one. It’s cute. It comes from the days of pre-automated bowling alleys when humans had to place the bowling pins upright.

Whatever the common bafflegap in your organization, I encourage you to simply your language. If the expression needs explanation to anyone outside your company, you should probably slow down on use of it.

____________________________________________________

outthink_book_coverShawn Hunter is the Founder of Mindscaling and author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes. It’s about how to lead joyfully in life, and also to lead cultures in your company to drive great results.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

Three Simple Secrets of High-Performing Pro Teams

/in , , , /by

great_teams

Next time you’re standing at the gate waiting to get on a flight, watch when the crew shows up. Watch how they interact with each other. Do they laugh? Do they ask questions they don’t know the answer to? Does it sound like they are listening well to one another? Or do they ask questions out loud – to no one in particular – and answer themselves?

They are all pros, and they work at the same airline, but there’s a very good chance they have never met each other. Yet, it turns out that how these professionals interact in the first few minutes will tell you a lot about how effective as a team they are going to be up in the sky shortly.

Mary Waller, a researcher at York University in Toronto, has been studying something she and her colleagues call “swift-starting expert teams.” Swift-starting teams of experts are everywhere – TV news crews, Emergency response teams, event organizers.

These are teams comprised of highly-specialized professionals who assemble for a specific job or task, and often have little or no prior interaction with each other.

Specifically members of swift-forming experts teams:

  • Are competent and familiar with complex work environments
  • Work quickly under situations of time pressure
  • Have a stable role on the team but ad hoc team membership
  • Have complex, interdependent tasks that rely on interactions with teammates

“The first 15 minutes of interaction predicted the entire flight performance.”
– Mary Waller

It turns out that how they interact with one another during just the first 15-20 minutes is highly predictive of how they will perform as a team for the entire duration of the job. The reason is that interaction patterns established early in these relationships usually persist throughout the operation.

Waller and her colleagues tracked each piece of dialogue uttered and identified the patterns in which they develop. For example, “Input the coordinates” is a command. “We have good weather today” is an observation. “Maybe we should ask tower control” is a suggestion and “What should our heading be?” is an inquiry. They categorized communication to include disagreement, humor, anger, small-talk, etc.

Secret #1: Simple and Consistent

What they discovered is that patterns of interaction often emerge quickly and persist throughout the relationship. And the highest-performing teams established patterns that were simple, consistent, reciprocal and balanced with one another. The lowest-performing teams had greater variety of conversational patterns, more unique communication patterns, and members who showed a lack of reliance on other team members.

Secret #2: Short and Targeted

While big locker room pep-talks or command-center speeches look good on television, they aren’t terribly effective in driving team excellence. The most effective teams kept their communication short, precise and targeted to a specific task or job sequence.

Secret #3: Balanced

In the study, the researchers measured what they called “reciprocity.” That is, to what extent the team members relied on each other and balanced the participation of communication. For example, if a team member showed “mono-actor” behavior of asking and answering their own questions, it demonstrated they showed less reliance, and less reciprocity on other team members.

Here’s an interesting twist in the study. The researchers hypothesized that any “mono-acting” behavior (when someone asks and answers their own questions) would be on that part of the pilot currently in control. They thought that the person with command of the airplane would be the one offering the least reciprocity.

Nope, it was the PNF (pilot not flying), who lacked control of the plane who exhibited the greatest amount of mono-acting behavior – in other words, was the least team player.

The truth is we are all pros. Our jobs are likely specialized and specific to our own unique talents. And that trend is continuing. Increasingly, organizations are hiring specialists, and job tenure is shortening – meaning we are all working more and more in swift-starting expert teams.

Keep it simple, targeted, and balanced, and your team will soar.

____________________________________________________

outthink_book_coverShawn Hunter is the author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes. It’s about how to lead joyfully in life, and also to lead cultures in your company to drive great results.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

Performance Goals are not Learning Goals

/in , , , , , , /by

learning_goals

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
– Stephen King

A performance goal is when you want to perform well. You want to shine. You want to be brilliant. You want to people to applaud. You want to be amazing. You want the medal around your neck and the beaming joyful praise from those around you. A performance goal is tied to your ego.

A learning goal is an aspiration to learn something new or improve at a particular skill or task. Learning something new requires experimentation or hard work or studying something at length, or collaborating with others in new ways. Learning goals are hard.

Sometimes a learning goal involves staring intently at someone else who is more skilled in order to visualize, and then develop, a particular skill yourself. And sometimes a learning goal involves spectacular failure while attempting something new.

But these are two different goals.

Carol Dweck led a fascinating study in which she and her colleagues worked with 128 5th graders and gave them a series of tests – mostly puzzles – and then praised them in two different ways with eight little words.

Round 1: For the first round of puzzles, the kids were given a test that everyone did very well on. The researchers knew they would do well.

With half of the group they said, “You must be smart at these problems.”
With the other half of the group they said, “You must have worked hard at these problems.”

The first word set praises intelligence, and innate talent or skill. This is similar to how many parents and coaches get trapped into talking about our kids. This is sometimes how we speak to kids in performance situations. We tell them how smart they are, or how naturally gifted they are. We tell them they play soccer like Messi, or paint like Picasso.

The second word set praises effort, determination, preparation, grit. It’s a message that reinforces hard work. It’s a message that says You rocked it because you preserved through adversity. After delivering two different kinds of praise, the researchers were interested in:

  1. how would the kids view their own abilities?
  2. what kinds of challenges would they choose for themselves?

Round 2: Then they gave the kids another round of puzzles. But this time the kids were offered a choice. They could try harder problems or easier ones. You guessed right, the kids praised for hard work chose to attempt the harder problems. After all, they were just told they did well because they worked hard. Why not go for the harder problems.

The kids praised for their natural talent, and innate brilliance, selected the easier problems. Why? Because when you praise for innate talent, you create a form of status. If someone believes they have special talent and they are expected to perform well, then the thought of failing becomes scary. So to protect ourselves as a “gifted and talented” individual we will choose easier tasks to ensure we have high performance. After all, no one wants to be revealed as an imposter.

Round 3: Time for tough love. In the next part of the study all of the kids were given harder problems. And all of the kids performed poorly. Yes, the kids praised for hard work spent more time on the test, and did a little bit better. But next came the interesting twist. After the test, and the scores were given out, the researchers invited the kids to share the results with their classmates. After all, it was just an experiment. It didn’t really count as part of their school work. Who cares, right?

When the researchers asked the kids to share their results, the kids praised for talent lied just a little bit about their scores. They told their friends they did better than they actually did. Presumably this was to maintain their social status as “talented.” However, when the other kids praised for effort were asked to tell their peers how they did on this set of questions, only 10% of them exaggerated their performance. They felt no loss of self-esteem from doing poorly on difficult problems.

Round 4: Here’s where it gets really interesting. In the next phase of the study, both sets of kids were given problems comparable to the original set of problems. In terms of difficulty, this set of problems was just as challenging as the first. Remember the first set of problems was easy. Everyone did well.

The group praised for their genius and innate talent had just had an ego setback in the earlier round. They did 20% worse than they did the first time around. They were told they were smart, then they performed poorly, and now attacking the same level of difficulty with decreased confidence they did 20% worse.

The second group did 30% better the second time they took the same difficulty test. The difference was just 8 words.

Performance Goals vs. Learning Goals

Finally, Carol Dweck and her colleagues looked at the choices the kids made after receiving the two different kinds of praise. I’ll skip right to the punchline:

  • 69% of children praised for intelligence preferred performance goals
  • 88% of children praised for hard work preferred learning goals

That’s right. When we praise for intelligence we reinforce a predisposition to protect a “gifted and talented” status by choosing tasks which we are more likely to perform well at. And when we praise for hard work, perseverance, tenacity, and pluck, we reinforce the notion that learning is a good thing – that choosing difficult tasks for the sake of continuous improvement is something to be sought-after.

Next time you see excellence, praise the effort, the grit, the patience and hard work it must have taken to get there. You’ll not only be rewarding excellence, but also reinforcing the idea that continuous growth and learning is a good thing. Because it is a good thing.

____________________________________________________

outthink_book_coverShawn Hunter is the author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes. It’s about how to lead joyfully in life, and also to lead cultures in your company to drive great results.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

Every Action You Make is a Statement

/in , , , , /by

516809953_a65c9b2c40_o

Every decision is a statement. Some are statements to the masses. Some are statements to the few. But all are statements to and about yourself.
– Hap Klopp, founder of The North Face

I’ve been learning a lot from Hap Klopp lately. I met, and interviewed Hap, the founder and former CEO of The North Face a few months ago in San Francisco. Since then I’ve re-read his book Conquering the North Face, and his unpublished book Almost. It’s unpublished because it has some insider disclosures that a certain big technology company and their lawyers are objecting to…. well, I’ll save that for when the book gets released.

The latest lesson I’ve been reflecting on is that from the perspective of everyone on the team, the boss’ actions are extremely visible, and hyper-analyzed. Like our 99.9% genetic cousins, lowland Gorillas look at their pack leaders every 15-20 seconds for social cues of how to behave – when it’s time to move on and forage, when it’s time to be alert and focused, and when it’s time to chill out.

Early in his work career, Hap was hired to help turnaround a ski shop. There were many things wrong – the inventory, the books, the customer service, even the simple layout of the shop to make equipment more visible and accessible. The most critical thing that needed correcting was the accounting and the vendor sourcing practices. But that wouldn’t be the most visible contribution he could make, so instead he focused his energy on working with the warehouse employees to clean, re-organize, and re-structure their entire warehouse.

What he could have done instead is focus on fixing the accounting and calling vendors to speed up their delivery. But no one would see those actions.

Hap standing up on a ladder reorganizing the warehouse with the team didn’t make the biggest dent in the bottom line immediately, but it did send a very clear and obvious message about work ethics, collaboration, and leading by example.

Later, when The North Face was rapidly taking off, they would often move into bigger office spaces every 6-12 months. They developed a custom that every time they took over a new space, they had a painting party. Hap would join these painting work days not only to demonstrate his willingness to work side by side with everyone in the company, but also to get to know people.

Every leader that I’ve encountered who is described by their peers and colleagues as “exceptional” or “remarkable” or “excellent,” lives their work life (and often personal life as well) in a highly visible manner. Not locked in the boardroom, or hiding in their office, but front and center, readily available and open to ideas.

This is another reason leaders need to reward transparency. Once everyone understands honest expression of opinion is simply part of the process, more people are likely to voice their ideas.

____________________________________________________

outthink_book_coverShawn Hunter is the author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes. It’s about how to lead joyfully in life, and also to lead cultures in your company to drive great results.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

A Culture of Constant Flattery Conceals the Truth

/in , , , /by

Flattery is like chewing gum. Enjoy it but don’t swallow it.
– Hank Ketchum

It’s almost a cliché but it happens all the time. Your colleague walks in, says something smarmy and ingratiating, and then asks you to do something.

We know from research, people react positively to those who consistently deliver positive news. Flattery, even false flattery, is consistently effective in gaining favor with superiors in the organization. And as researchers demonstrated, consistent false flattery has the added effect of creating an intolerance for bad news.

As managers come to expect only good news, bad news becomes increasingly unwelcome. It creates a cyclical effect in which eventually only good news is tolerated, bad news get swept under the rug, and the real conversations about how people feel about work happen only in the parking lot or over a beer after work.

Flattery can be valuable. In fact, it can motivate people to action. An interesting study from years ago reveals that flattery is most effective when the request is larger and more difficult. In the study, when people were ingratiated with excessive praise and compliments they were more likely to complete harder and longer tasks than an easier one.

But be careful. Consistent false flattery can lead to complacency. If leaders don’t explicitly create an expectation that ideas be tempered with honesty around potential pitfalls, then honest fears won’t be shared, and potential invisible cracks won’t be revealed until they become disastrous chasms.

Consistent good news, even flattery, provides people with a dopamine hit, translating to a positive feeling about the person who provided the flattery. What’s more, even false flattery has been shown to have the same effect. If someone I know says I look thinner, healthier, or younger, despite the truth that I’m really not (and we both know it), I will still have a more positive reaction to their compliment, and think more positively of them.

Compliments are wonderful. Above all, the best compliments are sincere, specific, and come with no strings attached.

Start one small act at a time. Try our course Small Acts of Leadership to build action into your life every single day.

    ____________________________________________________

Our company Mindscaling, is busy building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Buy a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Yes, We Can Ditch the Drama

/in , , , , , /by

drama

“I am not a victim of emotional conflicts. I am human.”
– Marilyn Monroe

Few things are as disruptive as repetitive and negative emotional cycles. To find new results, we need to also find new ways of interacting with each other.

According to psychologist Stephen Karpman, there are three distinct roles, or personas, that we can adopt in any given situation. In their most extreme forms these three personas are presented in what he called the Drama Triangle:

  • The Persecutor: The persecutor is a bully who puts people down, blames others, and is driven by anger and resentment. The Persecutor points fingers at others and describes why they are inadequate, or stupid, or ruining everything. The persecutor is bossy and demanding. The Persecutor blames other people, circumstances and events as the cause of the problem.
  • The Victim: The victim is helpless, oppressed, hopeless, ashamed, and powerless. The victim feels constantly misunderstood. As a result, the victim will often refuse to make decisions and remain paralyzed in their helplessness.
  • The Rescuer: The rescuer is the savior, the hero. The rescuer is addicted to saving others, jumping in, and demonstrating how remarkably capable they are. In fact, the rescuer can even feel guilty and anxious if they don’t step in heroically to save another. The rescuer believes that others are lacking, or inadequate, and require the rescuer to save the day.

The interesting thing about these different personas and positions on the Drama Triangle is that once we adopt a particular stance, we often push our partner into an opposing stance. For example, a Victim position from someone may elicit a Rescuer reaction in another. Or a Persecutor may turn someone else into a Victim.

When we adopt one of these particular positions, we not only push our partners into opposing positions, but we also limit our own potential and capabilities. The trick is to first recognize that we are indeed becoming one-dimensional and limiting in our interactions with others, and then shift our conversation to be supportive and constructive.

For example, the Persecutor is a bully – constantly berating others and assigning blame. To move from a bullying position to a constructively challenging position, the Persecutor can shift their orientation and behavior:

From To
You need to stop making excuses. I am willing to listen to your story for ten minutes.
You will deliver the product on Monday. How can I help meet a Monday deadline?
You are a liar. I ask you to keep your word, or we will no longer have an agreement

Similarly, the Victim is paralyzed by their own fear and inadequacy. To bolster self-confidence and move toward a thriving and fulfilling dialogue, the Victim can shift their behavior and internal dialogue:

From To
Nobody cares or listens to my ideas. I will contribute 1  idea at each meeting.
No one will help my project. I will commit to asking for help.
I am alone and unlucky. I will journal things I am grateful for.

And finally, the heroic Rescuer is also trapped with the belief that only they can save the day, and only they are capable of righting the wrongs, and correcting the inept. This heroic savior is also trapped in a “poor me” pattern of always having to step in and fix the problem.

To move away from being addicted to saving others, the Rescuer needs to move to being a coach to others, instead of solving every problem himself or herself. Here is how the Rescuer can reframe their mindset:

From To
You always need my help. I’ll fix it. I care about you and you can do this.
Tell me all your problems. I’ll listen without making your problem my own.
Don’t worry about it. I got this. Let me show you how to do this yourself.

And the truth is that at any given moment throughout our days, we can find ourselves drifting toward one of these three different mindsets. That’s ok. That’s normal. What’s important is that we identify that disposition, and learn to move out of these destructive personas to more supportive and collaborative ones.

Yes, we can ditch the drama. It’s just a mind shift away.
____________________________________________________

outthink_book_coverShawn Hunter is the author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes. It’s about how to lead joyfully in life, and also to lead cultures in your company to drive great results.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

Assume Best Intentions

/in , , , , , , /by

A young woman is waiting in a busy airport. She has some time to kill so she buys a little bag of cookies and sits down with her book to read. Pretty soon a young man comes and sits beside her and starts reading a magazine. They keep to themselves and after a couple minutes he reaches into the bag between them and takes a cookie.

She can’t believe it. But she’s too astonished to say anything. So she takes a cookie and keeps reading her book. Time goes by and she keeps reading and eating her cookies. But every couple minutes this strange guy keep reaching in the bag and taking a cookie until there’s only one left. Then he takes the last cookie, breaks it in two and offers her half. She can’t believe his guy! She stands up, and without a word to him, walks away and boards her flight.

Sitting in her seat on the plane she takes a deep breath to calm down. Then she reaches into her purse to get her book and finds the bag of cookies she bought earlier.

The moral of course is to be careful with our assumptions. Or better, always assume the best intentions of others.

Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different.
– Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of Pepsi

To sharpen your ability to assume the best intentions of others, try these few things each day:

  • Practice mindful listening: Waiting to talk isn’t listening. You’ve had these conversations. You say something and instead of acknowledgement or affirmation you get back a completely different agenda because the other person was simply waiting for their turn to talk. Listen, then reiterate back in your own words. It will deepen the conversation, and the relationship. The other person is likely to say, “Yes, exactly!”
  • Focus on behaviors, not people: Instead of describing a person as (abrasive, fun, mean, weird, interesting…), describe their behavior. People are complex, and the days are filled with stresses and joys. To yourself and to others, describe the behavior of others, instead of belittling them with stereotypes. Moods change.
  • Honor differences and disagreements: We often having meaningless small talk conversations because they are easy. We all show up in the world with our own history, predispositions, and beliefs. And we know if we express those ideas we might create conflict and disagreement. It’s OK. There’s a difference between disagreeing and offending. When we set our defaults to listen and understand, we are more likely to honor and learn from the differences between us.

Sounds simple enough, but there is often a big gap between what we know to be the best thing to do, and actually doing it. Remember to assume the best in others. It can make a world of difference.

Change starts one small act at a time. Try our course Small Acts of Leadership to build action into your life every single day.

    ____________________________________________________

Our company Mindscaling, is busy building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Buy a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.