Why We Learn Faster When We Love It

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I have never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it … I have written because it fulfilled me.”
– Stephen King

Practice doesn’t make perfect. There is no perfect. Great practice will hone the good habits, and get rid of the bad habits. Poor practice is practicing your mistakes over and over until they’re ingrained.

By now, most of us have read, or heard of, the 10,000-hour rule, in which 10,000 hours is the magic practice barrier after which we get to be experts and gurus. Unfortunately that has been a misrepresentation of the work of K. Anders Ericsson, and his colleagues from Florida State University from the 1990s. Ericsson never claimed 10,000 hours was the magic expert barrier.

However, research does support the idea of reinforcing “time on task.” In sports, most believe today the best coaching and training involves increasing the amount of “touches on the ball” instead of an older style of coaching in which players stand around watching a demonstration and then take individual turns doing one activity. A poor practice looks like kids standing in lines. A good practice has everyone involved.

We learn by watching, but we learn faster by doing.

Very recent research examined 88 different studies on the effects of practice over time and concluded that practice does count, but much less than previously argued by Malcolm Gladwell and others. Practice certainly matters, but other factors were equally important such as the age in which the activity was introduced, and how much the participant enjoyed the activity. In one example, children reported thirty times higher reading comprehension when they also reported enjoying the reading.

A successful person continues to look for work after he has found a job.

That may come as no surprise, but keep that in mind when making project and task assignments in your professional work. Yes, if you make task invitations that are a stretch but that people might enjoy, that’s an invitation for excellence. But when you offer project and task invitations for activities people detest, you are far more likely to get mediocre results. And research seems to suggest that no amount of arguing for pluck, grit and perseverance, will improve results when the task presented is against their skill set.

In an interview with Scott Turicchi, CFO of J2, a 500M dollar technology company, he said he very intentionally moves team players to different positions within his organization so they have the benefit of seeing different sides of projects and understand the greater picture of any particular project or deal in the works.

As Scott described, there’s an even more important reason to working in different roles, other than job experience and perspective. The most valuable reason is to find what you love, to find the intersection of what you are good at, and what you love to do. Scott said that the kinds of people he likes to hire are those who have passion for their work.

And how are you going to find your passion if you don’t try something new?

Your beliefs don’t make you a decent person, your actions do.
– Maya Angelou

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Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful elearning courses based on the work of thought-leaders and authors. He is also the author of Out•Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes.

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

Resiliency: How to Rise to Your Potential

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“Some of my greatest pleasures have come from finding ways to overcome obstacles.”
– John Wooden

Considered one of the greatest speed skaters of all time, Dan Jansen was favored to win the gold medal in both the 500M and 1000M races at the 1988 Olympics. Just a week before the Olympics, Dan was on top of the skating world when he won the World Sprint Championships. He was fit and prepared.

As the Olympic race day grew closer, Dan’s sister Jane was getting sicker and sicker battling leukemia. In the early morning hours, the same day of the 500M race, Dan’s sister died in a hospital surrounded by loved ones. Dan was shocked and stunned as he deliberated whether to race. Believing his sister would want him to compete, he went to the track to warm up.

He later said in those moments while warming up he didn’t even feel like it was himself inside his skin. He felt he had forgotten how to skate. In the 500M race, Dan lost an edge and went down just after the first turn. A couple of days later in the 1000M, he again lost his feel for the ice, slipped and went down.

Four years later, in 1992 in Albertville, France, Dan was again on the ice ready to compete in the 500M and 1000M races. Just two weeks before the Olympics he had set a world record. He said he was super confident he would win, and at the starting line he felt completely calm, without anxiety or nerves. Of his Olympic opportunities up until then, this was Dan’s time to shine. He knew there was no other competitor who could beat him that day. In the 500M race, Dan took 4th place. In the 1000M race, Dan came in 26th.

Later, he couldn’t explain it. He didn’t fall. It was as if he was skating as someone else. He wasn’t nearly as fast as his recent times would predict him to be.

In 1994, the winter Olympics were held in Lillehammer, Norway. At his physical and training peak, this would likely be Dan’s last shot at an Olympic medal. Over the two years since the last Olympics, Dan had posted the five fastest times in history, and was the only speed skater ever to break 36 seconds in the 500M race.

In the 500M race Dan lost an edge on the final turn and slipped badly – not falling outright, but effectively losing the race. Now in his fourth Olympics without a medal, he was stunned and baffled, but not despondent. He later said he was confused, but he didn’t despair. In his failure, he was disappointed, but motivated. Instead of resignation, he felt inspired to succeed.

Dan said when the gun went off for the final race of his Olympic career, he felt “incredible.” He said that time slowed down, his efforts felt easy and instinctive. He felt as if he was in slow motion, with plenty of time to be hyper-aware of his surroundings. Glancing up at the split times on the clock during the race, he saw that he was skating faster than he had ever before, in fact faster than anyone had ever skated. And he still had more in the tank. He won that race, and set a world record doing it.

He said the first thought that went through his mind at that moment was, “I finally skated to my potential at the Olympics.” He had no idea yet if it was worth a medal or not. And he didn’t care. On his victory lap, he carried his daughter Jane, named after his sister.

That final race was the culmination of years of preparation, resolve and resiliency. Remember never to be defined by a moment. Each event, and each day, is but another opportunity to fall forward.

“Players with fight never lose a game, they just run out of time”
– John Wooden

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Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, and 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

Saying “I Don’t Know” is a Strength

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“A culture of asking questions – the really big ones and the seemingly small, incremental ones – is critical for innovation.”
– Karl-Ludwig Kley, CEO of Merck

The great physicist Richard Feynman once described how you can spot a real expert versus a phony. Look for three little words, “I don’t know.” The phony will have all the answers, while the expert will be willing to admit what they don’t know. Real experts are relentlessly curious, even assertively curious – that is, they will demand explanations for things that many others simply accept as rules.

Creativity consistently ranks among the most sought-after and valued characteristics of workers today. Executives know that the next killer app, product, service or innovation is going to come from relentlessly curious and creative people. The most desirable professionals today are happy, collaborative, and have hustle, but above all are relentlessly curious and creative.

In a recent study from September, 2015, Merck surveyed over 2600 people on both the value of creativity in the workplace, and the ways in which their company encouraged (or stymied) creative practices.

While a staggering 90% agree that the best ideas come out of persistent and curious behavior, including constantly questioning company practices, less than 25% of those working today describe themselves as curious people. We are more likely to call ourselves “organized” or “diligent” or even “friendly,” than to call ourselves “creative”. If anything, it’s swinging the other way. Over 80% of us say the pressure to be more “productive” is increasing in intensity.

As work pressure builds to be more productive, our work environments increasingly stifle imagination.

Here’s an interesting fact about people who describe themselves as curious and creative. These people are also assertive. Curious people are decision-makers. They are influencers. In interviews, they often say they have direct influence over the outcome of decisions and change. If you think of the people in your company and community who consistently drive change, I bet you will be thinking of inquisitive people – people willing to ask the hard questions.

That may seem counterintuitive. After all, if we are busy questioning the world around us, aren’t we in a listening and receptive mode, and not in a decisive action-taking mode? But these two behaviors of deeply questioning, and then taking action, are reinforcing levels of creative engagement. This is because highly creative people also tend to also be fearlessly persistent. They often describe themselves as “adventurous” and “risk-taking.”

Another characteristic of highly curious and creative people is that they are generally less affected by peer pressure. They tend to follow their values, even when it may run counter to what the group is doing.

Stay assertive, curious, and follow your values.

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Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, and 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

Four Actions That Will Truly Motivate You

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What drives you at work? Is it the quarterly bonus? Is it simple praise and recognition from your colleagues and boss?

Maybe it’s a sense that your colleagues have your back, that you’ll get the support and resources you need in your work. Wait, maybe it’s a clear sense of direction and goals, that your team knows where the heck it’s going. Or maybe it’s a sense that day by day, you are making measurable progress in work that is meaningful to you.

I asked that multiple choice question last week to a room full of executives at a leadership retreat. No one budged. They knew it was a trick question. It’s a trick question because organizations have to get all of these factors right. Without fair pay, there is a deep sense of inequity and loyalty erosion. Without clear goals, people feel adrift and without purposeful direction. Without praise, people feel neglected.

But one factor outweighs the rest. Harvard researcher Teresa Amabile and her colleague Steven Kramer analyzed 12,000 diary entries from 238 employees in 7 companies to come to the qualified conclusion that the most valuable work motivator is a sense that we are making progress in work that is meaningful to us. When you signed up to run that marathon, you definitely had a clear goal in mind, but it was the daily grind of making incremental progress that kept you going. That quarterly bonus is nice, but it’s not going to make you stay.

When Amabile and her colleagues conducted that research about five years ago, only 5% of leaders surveyed understood that meaningful progress is our most powerful motivator. I interviewed Ms. Amabile when her book came out, and she said her goal is to tip that figure over 50%.

It’s important to point out that while praise, incentives, equitable pay, interpersonal support, and clear goals are all important, they are also all extrinsic motivators. These motivators come from the outside, from someone else. A sense of satisfaction in making progress in meaningful work is an intrinsic motivator, it’s a sense of joy and satisfaction that comes from within.

“Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.”
– Jim Collins

Creating a sense of meaningful progress is something that’s within our control. It doesn’t require external validation or reward. Here are a few ways to stoke your sense of meaningful progress:

Express creativity: Go ahead, add a flourish. Put your signature on it. Make it your own. When you dig a little deeper and put your own creative accent on a project or situation, you will take personal pride and ownership of it. It becomes meaningful to you personally.

Revitalize dormant relationships: Nothing is so marvelous as gaining new insights from old friends to fuel your efforts. When you take time to proactively reach out to those people in your work and life whom you haven’t connected with in a while, it revitalizes both of you. Because while you probably have a rich history you can catch up on, you can also share your ideas and projects over the past year and accelerate each other’s work.

Assume leadership: Take responsibility. Step up. Assuming leadership can be terrifying. You may feel scrutinized, uncertain, and out of your element. And that’s a good thing. Pushing yourself to the edges of your capacity in leading meetings, projects, and interactions will help you grow as a leader. Just remember that people are cheering for you. It may feel like you are being evaluated and dissected, but the truth is most people in the world assume best intentions, are grateful you stepped in to lead, and are cheering for the success of you and the whole project.

Be of service: Remember, the other motivators must come from the outside, from someone else. Your most powerful motivator comes from within, so the real question to constantly be asking is not what can I gain, but what can I contribute. Not what can I get, but what can I give. Not how is this person hurting or even helping my goals, but rather how can I help this person achieve their goals.

Above all, avoid comparisons. If you wish to be smarter than anyone else, then you never will be, because someone will always have more degrees, accolades and a higher Mensa score than you. And if the goal is to be rich, you will forever feel poor. And if the goal is fame you need only look to the Kardashians to agree there is no amount of personal disclosure to keep up with them.

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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

You Almost Choked. Don’t Choke, Learn.

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A few years ago I was the invited keynote for a private conference in Toronto. It was one of my first big events. I knew the event director and was deeply grateful for the invitation. I prepared diligently. The ballroom was packed to the walls. I had published my first book and was just starting my work seriously to share ideas on stage. I was knowledgable, rehearsed, confident, and relaxed. On stage just before me was a professional comedian. She was disarming and fun. She even sang. She was killing it. The crowd was totally enjoying her opening.

I was sitting near the stage next to the technician who was handling the audio-visual stuff. The comedian started to introduce me. She was warm, vibrant. She made a few jokes about me being American. Everyone laughed. She was just finishing my introduction, when the techie guy next to me said, “Uhh, hang on, your remote and the slides aren’t working. Mmm, just go. Go and I’ll fix it in a minute.”

Good lord. The room was clapping for me. I gulped. My opening set piece was an in-depth story choreographed with a cascade of photographs and rich imagery. I designed the first few minutes to immerse the audience in a tale that would be a metaphor for my key points. But now I had no visuals.

I smiled. I walked the length of the stage to burn a few seconds, and said some ridiculous nothing comment about the wonderful comedian. I had no idea what I just said. My head was clamoring. I could feel my field of vision start to close. I glanced at the technician, who clearly did not have his shit together yet. Or maybe that was me.

I took a deep breath, smiled, found some friendly eyes in the audience, and launched into my story anyway. It was probably only a few seconds of dead air but it felt like an eternity. It worked. As I built the story, I warmed into it. I opened up, revisiting and punctuating each step of the journey. I started to own it. People leaned in. I had just jumped off a cliff and somehow found the rip cord.

I once had an interview with the magnificent speaker, writer, and marketing guru Seth Godin, who said if he ever gets that rising panic feeling, he takes it as a reminder that he’s in exactly the right place. He knows he is in a high-opportunity moment for learning and growth. What he means is that when your palms get sweaty, when your heart rate jumps, when your hair stands on end and you get nauseous, these are all symptoms of panic. And also the conditions for challenge, opportunity, and growth if you choose to see it that way.

Breathe
It’s true. The first thing to do to lower your heart rate, calm your nerves, and open your mind again, is to breathe. Breathing is the body’s built-in stress reliever. It’s ground zero to rebuild your calm. Simply breathing deeply can do everything from resetting your heart rate to changing the chemical composition of your blood. In the practice of yoga, focused breathing is called pranayama, which literally means “control of the life force.”

Rehearse Excellence
greatestcatchDid you see this last year? Odell Beckham, Jr. made, what many argue, the greatest wide receiver catch of all time. It looks like a magic trick out of Cirque du Soleil. But here’s the thing: he worked on that exact type of catch over and over and over in practice. He didn’t just summon that move on the spot, unrehearsed. He spent many, many hours preparing for that exact moment.

Competence Creates Confidence
Want to summon confidence? Power posing certainly helps. Amy Cuddy, the TED goddess of Wonder Woman posing has dedicated the last few years of her life to spreading the gospel of striking a power pose. And it does work. When you stand like Superman, you get a shot of dopamine and oxytocin, which spreads a warm cocktail of confidence throughout your brain. But it’s a stop-gap. It’s the duck-tape of confidence. Go ahead and use it, but real, sustainable confidence is found through developing competence. Tough love, but nothing substitutes for hard work, perseverance and dedicated practice.

And when in doubt, get pronoid. Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. Pronoia is the belief that the world, and everyone around you, is conspiring for your success.

[Originally published here for Huffington Post.]

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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

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

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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.

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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

What’s Your OQ? (Originality Quotient)

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There are many echoes in the world, but few true voices.

We are all standing on the shoulders of giants, borrowing brilliance, hopefully adding value along the way, and constantly making a positive difference. The difference between real originality and blatant rip-off is the extent to which we make it our own, the extent to which we take the basic building blocks and circumstances presented, and create new value, new innovation.

However, it’s not enough to be original simply for the sake of being original. High originality without impact is just weird. Like this hamburger scented candle. This motorcycle lawn mower might be somewhere lost in the middle between cool, and actually usable. It might get some teenagers to mow the lawn, but maybe only once or twice before the novelty wears off.

On the other hand, low originality without adding any value is a straight up swindle, or worse, fraud. Katie Perry released the copycat hit “Roar” three months after Sara Bareilles released “Brave.” You can hear them both overlayed together here. Ms. Bareilles is being very kind and generous to Ms. Perry in the press about it. Sara Bareilles is saying copycat work is a good thing because it raises everyone up. Maybe, but it’s still not innovation. There’s a reason why The Monkees never became The Beatles.

Wooden-duckOr for a business example, in the 1930s a Danish woodworker was making wooden toy ducks and calling them LEGOs. That’s right, toy ducks was the main product line of LEGO. Meanwhile in the UK, Kiddicraft released their “Self-Locking Bricks” in 1940. Then, almost ten years later, in 1949 LEGO released their now-famous “Building Blocks” known the world over. And I would argue LEGO in fact did add value by offering the market reach and visibility that Kiddicraft couldn’t. The Self-Locking Bricks might have been lost forever. Or not. We’ll never know for sure.

Here’s one way to think about it: Consider the intersection between Familiarity and Impact. On the chart below, low Familiarity and low Impact = the hamburger-scented candle.  High Impact and high Familiarity = a refrigerator, for example.

The pinnacle of life-changing, mind-blowing, and transformational originality is the intersection of low Familiarity and high Impact. The original iPhone, when released in 2007, meets that criteria. My favorite here is the alarm-clock-rug that only deactivates when you get out of bed and step on it. Genius.

Sometimes mind-blowing and transformational precedes the mundane. We went to the moon before we put little wheels on our luggage. Who knew? At the moment I’m inclined to believe self-driving cars might be the next game-changing social development. What do you think?

OQ

[I credit this entire idea to my friend and colleague Louis Biggie, who first suggested the idea of Originality Quotient to me several months ago. Bravo.]

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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

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“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.

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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

Are you (or your boss) being poisoned by power?

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Deborah Gruenfeld is a professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford. For years, she and her colleagues have been studying the effects of power – particularly the effect of power disparities in the workplace.

In one small, but powerful, example of her work, they brought together students in groups of three. Of the three students, one was chosen randomly to be the boss, the decider. The other two were asked to create competing solutions to various issues on campus – issues such as making the campus more environmentally friendly, or improving transportation and cafeteria services. The task itself was a distraction. What the researchers were most interested in was the role of power newly bestowed to one of the students.

During the session in which the “boss” is asked to evaluate the quality of the proposals from each of the two other students, the researchers bring in a plate of five cookies. After they each take a cookie, there’s two left. Every culture is aware of the social taboo against taking the last cookie so the cookie that the researchers are watching is the fourth cookie.

Consistently, the newly appointed “boss” was much more likely to take the fourth cookie, and to exhibit “disinhibited eating.” In other words, chewing with their mouth open and leaving more crumbs.

It’s an amusing story, but goes right to the point of what Gruenfeld calls the Power Poisoning Effect. That is, often those newly placed into power tend to:
• Give greater value to their own ideas and initiatives
• Give lesser value to the ideas and initiatives of those around them
• Think that the rules don’t apply to them
• Have greater difficulty controlling their own impulses

High-power individuals talk more, interrupt more, are more likely to speak out of turn, and are more directive of others’ verbal contributions than are low-power individuals.
– Deborah Gruenfeld

Does this remind you of any politicians or executives in the news headlines?

In a similar study about the intoxicating effects of unchecked wealth, professor Paul Piff and his graduate students discovered that people who drove fancy, expensive cars were far more unlikely to yeild to pedestrians at a crosswalk.

Paul and his students monitored hundreds of vehicles over many days, and recorded whether or not they yielded to pedestrians in a crosswalk. Fifty percent of those vehicles classified in the most expensive category (BMWs, Mercedes, Porsche, etc.) failed to yield, while meanwhile none of the vehicles classified in the most inexpensive category broke the law at the crosswalk.

This is not to say that universally only rich people are prone to break small laws, but rather Paul concluded in his research that we all have competing motivations throughout our days. In fact, it’s not wealth alone that prompts individuals to believe they are above the law, but rather the power disparity between themselves and those around them.

Power disparities in the workplace have been directly correlated with workplace bullying, pay inequities, and even sexual harassment.

Small psychological interventions, small changes to people’s values, small nudges in certain directions, can restore levels of egalitarianism and empathy.
– Paul Piff, Professor UC Berkeley

Paul suggests that little, but consistent, prompts, and positive social cues, can make a big difference.

He and his colleagues have discovered that small interventions such as showing a short video depicting childhood poverty reminds us of the existence of social inequity in the world and restores empathetic behavior.

  • Join my Email updates for regular updates on leadership and life

____________________________________________________

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 awesome results.

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

The Secret is to be Valuable not Successful

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helping-others-succeed

On July 17, 1981 in a Hyatt Regency in Kansas City MO, two skywalks weighing over 70 tons collapsed on a party below, killing 114, injuring 216, and trapping many others for up to seven hours while rescuers tried to reach them under the rubble.

The skywalk collapsed because there was a flaw in how the walkways were hung from the structural frame of the building. However, the project engineer had formally written in his reports that the design had been checked for structural integrity. In truth, engineering contractors failed to follow the formal design-review process. In other words, they built without conscientiously reviewing the plans.

It gets worse. Seven weeks before scheduled completion, a worker noticed the top walkway was deformed and reported it to the architect’s on-site representative. The report was ignored. It probably would have been expensive and time-consuming to review. Within the following months two more observations, and reports, were made that the walkway was structurally deformed. Both reports were discounted and ignored.

This is what happens when somewhere in the line of communication, people fail to act. Maybe because they can’t be bothered, because they don’t care, or perhaps because in the cacophony of information and noise in our work, they simply fail to see disaster waiting.

Everyone has a boss. Everyone. You report to the Regional VP, who reports to the North American VP, who reports to the COO, who reports to the CEO, who reports to the Chairman of the Board, who reports to his wife.

Being a successful leader is more about the behavior of your followers. So the real question is: how do we build successful followers? How do we build successful followers who are confident and assertive in speaking the truth?

Strive not to be successful in the eyes of those around you, but valuable to those around you.

When I was a teenager I worked at a greenhouse, and had a boss who gave vague instructions like, “Go water the plants.” That’s pretty non-specific in a nursery which covers five acres. So I would disappear and go water plants for several hours never knowing how much water to give, or which plants required more or less water. In addition to the lack of direction, I found the whole thing pretty boring. I lasted about six weeks before I quit. I never questioned what I was doing or why.

When Suggestions Become Orders
Failure to speak truth to power can carry immense consequences. In an interview with Sue Mahony, President of Eli Lilly Oncology, she described one of the blindspots that leaders develop as they climb into higher and higher echelons of the company is that often people become increasingly unlikely to provide honest feedback to senior leaders. What happens instead is that suggestions become orders.

Lead With Questions
Sue described how she is very careful about making suggestions in meetings, and instead leads with questions. She composes questions that rely on the strength of the team members and allow their expertise to shine. Questions such as, “What would happen if we made this decision?” “What are the technical considerations if we build this?”

Have Listening Tours
Sue is responsible for almost two thousand people. Mis-information and poor behavior can cascade easily without her knowing it. Often, she seeks out individuals on her team to have “listening sessions.” In these meetings, her only goal is to find what people around her honestly think, care about and prioritize. Then she thanks them.

Get Closer to the Impact of the Work
Sue did admit that in the field of cancer drug research it is pretty easy to get team members excited and driven in their work. After all, their goal is to alleviate, or even cure, some forms of cancer. But Sue also admitted that in their day to day work, it’s also easy to build petty squabbles and get exhausted in the mundane.

Which is why Sue works to regularly remind people of why they are there. Real life people currently suffering, and recovering, from different forms of cancer specific to their work, are brought in to tell their story. And their story is not always about the nature of the disease itself, but also about the human side. When the researchers on Sue’s team hear about the human impact, it unites their sense of purpose and focus.

  • Join my Email updates for regular updates on leadership and life

____________________________________________________

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 awesome results.

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