Do you want to be more fascinating?

Posted May 5, 2013 by Nate Gibson
Categories: Initiate Change, Relentlessly Pursue Excellence
Tags: , , , ,

Cover of "Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to P...

Start by visiting Sally Hogshead’s website,  or HowToFascinate.com, or read her book Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation.  I started with her book, which I liked so much that I went to her websites, and took the Fascination Advantage Test and received the Fascination Advantage Report.  The Report was as good if not better than most of the personal assessments that I have encountered over the years and I highly recommend it.

In her book, Sally identifies seven fascination triggers (a fascination trigger is a trait or aspect that sparks fascination in others):

  • Lust – fascinates through passions of sight, sound, taste, touch and scent.  Sally relates a quote by Maya Angelou “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
  • Mystique – sparks curiosity.  For example, the Bermuda triangle or murderers like Jeffery Dahmer.
  • Alarm – evokes action with the threat of adverse consequences.  Fedex inspires action when it absolute has to be there.  Sally advises that people are driven to action not by the crisis most likely to happen but the one most feared.
  • Prestige — fascinates us with symbols of rank and respect.
  • Power – (need I say more? Is anyone not fascinated with power?)
  • Vice – temptation by forbidden fruit:  the fruit in the Garden of Eden or Pandora’s box
  • Trust – comforting with certainty and reliability

Sally notes that the power of branding is to change something that is boring into something fascinating — anything, by itself, is not fascinating unless it taps into one of the triggers.  Customers may not buy for the utility of an item but for the fascination trigger – what they associate with the item.  She also identifies the characteristics of a fascinating message: (see Sally’s blog THE 6 GOLD HALLMARKS: How to measure if you are fascinating.  A fascinating message or brand:

  1. Provokes strong and immediate emotional reaction
  2. Creates advocates
  3. Becomes “cultural shorthand” for a specific set of actions
  4. Insights conversations
  5. Forces competitors to realign
  6. Triggers social revolutions

She helps readers evaluate their existing message and asks “What core values is your brand so committed to that it would be willing to go out of business before sacrificing them?”  She helps develop a fascinating brand message by asking questions that seek to uncover how a brand is fascinating.  She advises readers to go through the seven triggers and consider the possibility of how it can be incorporated into the branding message.  Finally, she provides guidance on executing the brand message.

I liked her book, which led me to her websites where she has refined the fascination triggers.  Lust evolved into Passion and Vice evolved into Rebellion.  It is easy to see whey Passion and Rebellion are more appropriate for branding than Lust and Vice, although the underlying concepts remain similar – Lust fascinates through passions and Vice tempts through not “doing what you are supposed to.”  See also Sally’s video, “What Happened to LUST and VICE?”

I was particularly impressed by the way Sally takes the triggers and shows how they add value and how co-workers fascinate:

7 ways to add value

How your coworkers Fascinate

I took the Fascination Advantage Test and received the report.  Initially, I was skeptical, but after a more careful review, I was really impressed.  The report provides a Primary Trigger, Secondary Trigger and Dormant Trigger.  The report says that I am a Trendsetter, and my Primary Trigger is Rebellion, my Secondary Trigger is Prestige, and my Dormant Trigger is Mystique.  I don’t consider myself a Trendsetter (if anything I’m more of a “the second mouse gets the cheese” person), nor do I view myself as particularly rebellious or prestigious.  But then I read the descriptions of these categories.

My Primary Trigger, Rebellion, describes someone who “Embraces opportunities for change and exploration”; “Values innovation and cutting-edge thinking”; and “Inspires brainstorming and inventive problem solving”.  The ways in which this person adds value are to “quickly solve problems with fresh solutions”; and “generate ideas that surprise people with a new perspective”.  Finally, when at work, it says “You are curious, unconventional, and seek new options.”  I may be more “rebellious” than I thought since the description seems to fit.

The descriptions of someone with Prestige as a Secondary Trigger include:  “Focuses on adding value through better execution”; “Conscientious of the smallest details” and “Expects highest quality deliverables from self and others.”  Someone whose Secondary Trigger is Prestige adds value in the following ways:  “You influence people through your high expectations of yourself and others” and “You constantly envision ways to improve and upgrade.”  When at work, “you naturally seek the next level of accomplishment.”  So Sally may be onto something after all;  both Rebellion and Prestige provided accurate descriptions.

Finally, the Report identifies a Dormant Trigger– Mystique.  Someone with Mystique as Dormant Trigger is “an expressive communicator, easily sharing ideas and options.  Candid and forthright, … know[s] how to speak [one's] mind.”  In addition, this person is someone who does not “hide emotions or opinions.  Some may even refer to you as an open book.  Can be enthusiastic, even dramatic, at times…People can always know where they stand with you.  Because you have difficulty hiding how you feel, others can pick up on your attitude and mood.”  Also an accurate description.

By now, I’m on board and have become a true believer of the test and report.  While I may not be comfortable with the titles (I still don’t think I’m a trendsetter, or all that rebellious or conscious of prestige), I am impressed with and, may I say, even fascinated by Sally’s work, the accuracy of the descriptions of behavior and tendencies, and in particular, the guidance on how to add value.  I highly recommend her book, the test and report.  For me, I am considering the next step – purchasing “Win the Moment — A step-by-step method to immediately communicate your highest value.”

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Power and Influence by John Kotter

Posted April 14, 2013 by Nate Gibson
Categories: Initiate Change
Tags: , , ,

John Kotter Power and InfluenceHad I read Power and Influence:  Beyond Formal Authority by John Kotter, published in 1985, sooner, perhaps I might have avoided some of the pitfalls and frustrations that I have encountered in my career.  Kotter offers many helpful observations and theories.  There are three, in particular, on which I want to focus:  the importance of lateral relationships, the power gap that may exist between a manager’s formal authority and the power subordinates have, and Kotter’s advice for building a power base.  Kotter offers many other insights in his book including the rising effect of diversity and interdependence in organizations and how to let go gracefully late in one’s career – the chapter that I confess I skipped because I don’t consider myself late in my career and I haven’t yet decided if I want to let go gracefully.  For today, I am focusing on three key concepts.

The Importance of Lateral Relationships

Lateral relationships are relationships with people in an organization who are neither people who report to you nor people to whom you report.  Kotter points out that many initiatives require information or cooperation from others over whom one has no formal authority.  Projects have a large number of dependencies on other departments and success depends on understanding the dependencies and having good relationships with people in lateral positions.  People in other departments have different sources of stress, different priorities and different agendas.  Getting others to share information, cooperate, and not derail an initiative requires one to have a good relationship with those people and to communicate effectively with them.  Kotter writes:

Over the years, I have encountered literally hundreds of examples of capable people underestimating, to their detriment and the detriment of their organizations, how much others they depended on in lateral relationships would resist cooperating with them on something or how able they would be to resist. And in the process, I’ve seen new product development efforts, quality-of-work-life programs, new MIS systems, structural reorganizations, merger and acquisition efforts, and much more, simply fail. At the same time, I have also seen similar efforts successfully implemented, despite a lot of initial resistance from powerful interest groups, simply because the people leading the efforts correctly anticipated where the biggest problems are likely to be. Likely resistance from powerful individuals or groups does not have to kill innovative new products or programs. But it must be correctly anticipated in advance.

Bingo.  The struggles of so many initiatives is explained by “capable people underestimating” how much others would resist cooperating.  Kotter succinctly describes the importance of developing, maintaining and communicating with people in lateral positions.  Many people have written about the importance of networking – but Kotter adds a specific reason why networking within an organization (building lateral relationships) is critical to the success of many initiatives.

The Power Gap

Kotter observes the common situation in which a manager is put in charge of part of an organization and has formal authority – the ability to hire, fire, and reward employees – and yet the manager has less power over his/her subordinates than they, as a group,  have over him/her.   He describes this situation as a power gap – the gap between the power the manager has and the power his/her subordinates have.  Kotter says the amount of power subordinates have as a group is routinely ignored.  He notes that subordinate power frequently comes from the following:

  • skills that are difficult to replace quickly or easily
  • important information or knowledge
  • good personal relationships with others in the organization
  • the role of the subordinate – the more important the subordinate’s role to the manager’s agenda, the greater the effect of his performance on the evaluation of the manager

For these reasons and others, subordinates, as a group, can have power with respect to the manager and the subordinates’ power is often overlooked.  To counteract the subordinates’ power, Kotter advises:

 One must bring to the job relevant personal skills and abilities, good working relationships, information, and other tangible resources, and a strong track record to supplement the power sources the come automatically with the job. And during the first few months in a new assignment, it is necessary to develop even more countervailing power over the many job-related dependencies, often by developing additional relationships in obtaining additional relevant information.

 The days in which a manager says “jump” and the employees say “how high?” on the way up and “when can I come down” are long gone.  Successful managers overcome the power gap by building a power base.

Building a Power Base

Throughout the book, Kotter tells stories and provides advice on how to build a power base.  Some of the best advice is to:

  1. Build strong upward and lateral relationships.  Much has been written about “managing up” and Kotter offers advice on this as well – including learning your boss’s goals, pressures, strengths, weaknesses, and working style; behaving honestly and dependably; and using your manager’s time selectively.  And he recommends building strong lateral relationships because of the importance of lateral relationships in the success of many initiatives.
  2. Develop detailed knowledge.  Become an expert.  Learn about products or services, the markets, the technologies and the people in the organization and in the industry.
  3. Build a track record and reputation.  Nurture and guard your reputation.
  4. Develop new analytic or interpersonal skills.
  5. Develop strong relationships with employees, especially those in key jobs.  Kotter remarks that effective managers have strong relationships with employees based on the employees’ (a) a sense of obligation to or dependence on the manager; (b) perception of the manager’s expertise; or (c) identification with the manager or with the goals the manager supports.

John Kotter’s Power and Influence is a good book despite being written 25 years ago.  Its lessons and an advice are still applicable and as I said, I wish I had read it sooner.

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How Do You Gain Power?

Posted March 30, 2013 by Nate Gibson
Categories: Continuously Improve as a Leader and a Manager, Initiate Change
Tags: , ,

Cover of "Power: Why Some People Have It ...

How do you gain power?  You start by reading Jeffrey Pfeffer’s book on how to gain power entitled:   Power:  Why Some People Have  It – And Others Don’t.  He writes “[y]our task is to know how to prevail in the political battles you will face. My job in this book is to tell you how.”  Pfeffer does a great job telling the reader how to gain power.  The following are just some of the many insights and recommendations from his book.

In support of why one should seek power, Pfeffer reports one study of various managers (1) some of whom were primary motivated by being right; (2) some of whom were motivated by the need for achievement; and (3) some of whom were primarily interested in gaining power.  Those interested in gaining power were the most effective not only in gaining power but also accomplishing their jobs.

He distinguishes his book from other leadership books – he notes that many leadership books review how leaders are after they have acquired power which may be very different from what they did to attain their position.  Part of this is due to the fact that people in powerful positions are able to tell the story the way they want to — and they may not tell the parts about acquiring power.

There is little correlation between job performance and power.  Strong performance does not guarantee power and poor performance does not prevent power.  More important than performance are the relationships that exist between power and (1) people who are noticed, (2) people who influence the criteria that measure their performance, and (3) people who manage up – people who manage people who do have power.  Pfeffer says that the notion that “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down” is poor career advice. He recommends that you be memorable.  In addition, he recommends highlighting those dimensions of your job that you do well to influence the evaluation of your performance. Finally he strongly recommends managing up including remembering what matters to your boss and making those with more power feel better about themselves.  Keep your boss happy and remember that that flattery is effective.   Flattery’s effectiveness should not be underestimated it should not be underutilized. He reports an unpublished study that “sought to see if there was some point beyond which flattery became ineffective.…[the researcher expected that flattery would become] increasingly effective up to some point but beyond that becoming ineffective as the flatterer became seen as insincere and a “suck up”…. There might be a point at which flattery became ineffective but [the researcher] couldn’t find it in her data.”

Personal Qualities that Build Power

Pfeffer identifies 7 personal qualities of people who accumulate power.

  1. Ambition — the desire to achieve power
  2. Energy — energy is contagious; energy enables hard work and energy shows commitment
  3. Focus — focus enables specialization in mastery in an industry or company, a set of skills, and critical activities
  4. Self-knowledge and structured reflection — enable skills to be improved
  5. Confidence — people associate constant behavior with power
  6. Empathy with others-the ability to read others thoughts and feelings
  7. Capacity to tolerate conflict — the ability to engage in conflict

Advice on Power — the following are my favorite nuggets.

*  Pfeffer offers advice on where to start, how to identify what departments have power, and how to weigh the trade-off between being in a powerful department with more competition and being in a department with less power but perhaps being able to build a stronger base.

*  Stand out and ask for things. He notes that asking works but people find it uncomfortable to ask for help. He reports studies that show people underestimate the willingness of others to help when asked. “One reason why asking works is that we are flattered to be asked for advice or help-few things are more self affirming and ego-enhancing and have others, partly talented others, seek our aid.”

*  Likability is overrated.  While likability can create power, power almost certainly creates likability. As Machiavelli advised it is better to be feared than loved.

*  Controlling resources creates power.  Positions with greater budgets and greater staffs have greater power.  Power comes from resources that you can control.  If you don’t have resources, then create something out of  nothing.  Resources are “anything people need or want–money, a job, information, social support and friendship, help in doing their job.  There are always opportunities to provide these things to others whose support you want.  Helping people out in almost any fashion engages the norm of reciprocity–the powerful, almost universal behavioral principle that favors must be repaid. But people do not precisely calculate how much rather they have received from another and therefore what they own return. Instead, helping others generates a more generalized obligation to return the favor, and as a consequence, doing even small things can produce a comparatively large payoff.”  (See also “Secrets from the Science of Persuasion” which also reports the power of reciprocity)

* “sometimes building a relationship so that others will help you requires nothing more than being polite and listening.”  Attend funerals, go to lunch with people, or take on seemingly unimportant tasks may demonstrate initiative and competence and increase one’s reputation.  He gives examples of people who accumulated power by each of these paths.

*  Network.  Pfeffer strongly recommends networking — building an effective social network including both internal and external contacts.

*  Act and speak with power.  For example, displays of anger are more often associated with power than displays of a sadness or remorse.

*  Build your reputation.  Build a reputation because with respect to power, perception is reality.  He proposes having others (including paid agent such as public relations people and executive recruiters) say positive things about your abilities.  One study noted that even when people know the agent is being paid, they still rate the person more highly than when the person made similar statements about themselves.  “What theses studies show is that even though people understand the financially intertwined interests of people hired to act on your behalf, and even though they know that agents are intermediaries are under your control, they will still rate you more highly and offer more help than if you acted on your own.” (See also “Secrets from the Science of Persuasion” which also reports that paid advocates are effective)

*  Resilience.  Resilience is important to those seeking power because everyone experiences setbacks.  Acquiring power requires persistence to overcome adversity.  Not giving up is a a precursor to success.  (See also “Grit:  Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals“

*  Some negative information is helpful as long as it is not too overwhelming. It increases power because supporters support you notwithstanding your flaws.

*  Take the initiative, especially if you see a power struggle coming.  If you wait, then others will seize the opportunity.

There is a lot more good advice and information in  Power:  Why Some People Have  It – And Others Don’t.  Pfeffer also discusses the price of power, why people lose power, and power dynamics in organizations.  He concludes his book with a chapter called “It’s Easier Than You Think.”  And by reading his book, it becomes even easier.

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How do you persuade and influence others more effectively?

Posted February 24, 2013 by Nate Gibson
Categories: Difficult Conversations, Grit and Resilience, Initiate Change
Tags: , ,

To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink tells you how.  Wow!  What a great book.  Daniel Pink does an excellent job showing how everyone sells whether they are in sales or not and he provides research-based advice on how to do it better.  He starts off by sharing his observation that he was spending much (if not most) of his time his time pitching, persuading, or influencing others which led him to the conclusion that he spends most of his time “selling”.  While this concept is not new– Brian Tracy said everyone really is in sales 12 years ago–Dan takes the concept to a new level and describes a novel way of viewing sales.  This book contains great information and I only touch on the most fascinating.

At first, Dan describes how everyone is engaged in “non-sales selling”-where people are persuading, convincing, and trying to influence others to part with resources.  He argues that with the rise of the Internet, information is readily available to everyone.  As a consequence, the disparity in the knowledge of salespeople and customers that was characteristic of sales in the past, no longer exists and that buyers and sellers now have access to similar information.  For example, instead of a car salesperson having more information about a car, with the internet, a potential buyer has the opportunity to know as much, if not more, than the salesperson.  As a result, the nature of sales has evolved.

In the second part of his book, he proposes a new ABC’s of selling—instead of “Always Be Closing”, he proposes Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity. The third part of the book outlines what abilities matter to most including making a pitch, improvising, and serving.

Attunement

Attunement refers to being in tune with the person you are trying to influence.  To do this, Dan provides the following advice:

  1. Increase your power by reducing it. The ability to influence people depends on understanding another person’s perspective.  Research shows that having power decreases one’s ability to attune to someone else’s point of view.  Yet the ability to persuade people increases by being able to take their perspective.  Conclusion?  Start with the assumption that you have less power to help you see the other person’s perspective.  This will increase effectiveness.
  2. Use your head as much as your heart. The ability to take someone else’s perspective (cognitive) is more powerful than the ability to be empathic (emotional).  Negotiators who tried to imagine what the other side was thinking fared better than negotiators who tried to imaging what the other side was feeling.
  3. Chamaeleo chamaeleon Español: CamaleónMimic strategically — be a chameleon.  Mimicking someone else’s speech patterns, facial expressions, behaviors, and responses has been shown to improve the outcomes. For example one study found that waitresses repeated diners’ orders word-for-word earned 70% more tips than those who paraphrased orders.  Related to mimicry is touching.  When restaurant servers touch patrons lightly on the arm or shoulder, diners leave bigger tips.  However for both mimicry and touching, when people know they’re being manipulated, it can have the opposite effect, turning people against you.

Buoyancy

Buoyancy is the ability to keep your outlook afloat amid an ocean of rejection.  Buoyancy can best be achieved by the following:

  1. Interrogative self-talk.
    Be like Bob the builder and ask the question, can we fix it?  Positive self-talk is generally more effective than negative self-talk, but interrogative self-talk is even more effective.  Interrogative self-talk elicits answers.  By asking yourself if you can do something, you engage more deeply.  In addition interrogative self-talk may tap into your intrinsic motivation which is more powerful than extrinsic motivation (see Daniel Pink’s book Drive ).
  2. Positivity ratios.  Amusement, appreciation and other positive emotions broaden thinking, expand awareness of options and heighten intuition and creativity.  (see Shawn Achor’s The Happiness Advantage)  Positive emotions are contagious, making negotiations less adversarial.  In addition, research that shows when positive emotions outnumber negative emotions by 3 to 1, people flourish.  But once the ratio hit about 11 to 1, positive emotions began doing more harm than good.
  3. Explanatory style.  Explanatory style affects resilience.  Resilience is greater when rejections are explained as temporary, specific, and external (rather than personal).  Resilience is less when negative outcomes are explained as permanent, pervasive, and personal.  (see Building Resilience)

Clarity

Clarity refers to defining the right problem to solve.  Dan makes a distinction between problem solving and problem finding. For example, if you’re looking for a new vacuum cleaner, there are many resources to help you solve this problem. However, the real problem may be a carpet that collects dirt to easily or not having a welcome mat for people to wipe their feet or maybe you shouldn’t buy a vacuum cleaner at all but need a cleaning service. Dan argues that today the best salespeople must be good at asking questions to clarify the problem instead of simply answering questions.  For more clarity, Dan suggests the following:

  1. Find the right frame.  Dan relays the story of a beggar with a sign “I am blind” with few contributions.  By changing the sign to “It is springtime and I am blind”, donations increased dramatically.  Clarity depends on contrast and framing the issue.
  2. Fewer options increase action.  Research shows that having more options (for example, 401k plan choices, or flavors of jam) decreases participation or purchases.
  3. A little negative information helps.  People who receive a small dose of negative information were more likely to make a purchase than those who received exclusively positive information. “The core logic is that when individuals encounter weak negative information after already having received positive information, the weak negative information ironically highlights or increases to salience of the positive information.”
  4. Ask non-conventional questions.  If your daughter is not studying, ask her two questions:  “on a scale of 1 to 10, with one meaning not the least bit ready in 10 meaning totally ready how ready are you to study”  and then “why didn’t you pick a lower number?”  Instead of defending her answer, this question allows her to clarify her personal, positive, and intrinsic motives for studying, which increases the chance that she actually will.

Pitch

Pitch is “the ability to distill one’s point to its persuasive essence.”  Dan explains and provides variety of examples of six pitches.

  • The one word pitch. What technology company do you think of when you hear the word “search”? What credit card company do you think of when you hear the word “priceless”?
  • The question pitch: In 1980 Ronald Reagan asked “are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
  • The rhyming pitch:  Johnnie Cochran’s “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”.  Research shows that rhyming pitches are more effective.
  • The subject line pitch.  Email recipients acted on email more depending on 2 factors:  utility and curiosity.  Curiosity was more effective under less stressful conditions while utility was more effective when recipients had less time.  Research indicates that the email subject line should either be obviously useful or mysteriously intriguing — four tips to improve your golf swing this afternoon.
  • The Twitter pitch.  140 characters so it can be re-Tweeted.
  • The Pixar pitch.  Once upon a time…Every day….One day….And because of that…And because of that….And because of that….Until finally….

Dan also discusses the reasons why these pitches are effective.

Improvise

When your pitch doesn’t work, you need to try something different and that requires you to improvise.  Dan offers guidance in this area as well.

  1. Hear offers.  Listen to others without listening for anything in particular.  By listening with an open mind and looking for offers – “I can’t today” might be an offer to do something some other time – opportunities will present themselves and guide the discussion.
  2. Say “Yes and…”  At least as early as 1999, Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heene proposed the “And Stance” in their book Difficult Conversations.  Instead of the infamous “but” (“I really like you but we need to go our separate ways”), they recommend using “and” (“I really like you and we need to go our separate ways”).  Dan Pink argues for this approach also.
  3. Make your partner (or counterpart) look good.  Ask questions instead of debating.  Use a conversation to learn about the other person (for more about the learning stance, see Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heene).

Serve

Effectively influencing other people can improve their lives and improve the world.  To do this, Dan recommends making it personal and making it purposeful.

  • Make it personal.  Dan reports is fascinating study of radiologists who were given CT scans to assess.  In some cases, they were also given a photograph of the person to whom the scam along.  Three months later there were given the same scans but without the photograph of the person.  When they were given a photograph of the person, they reported significantly more incidental findings (abnormalities on a scan that weren’t being looked for) then when they weren’t given the photograph.  By making the task personal – attaching a real person to the scans – they did a better job.
  • Make it purposeful.  Dan provides two great example of how making something purposeful improved results.  In a hand-washing experiment in a hospital, more staff washed and used hand-hygiene products when the sign next to the dispenser said “Hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases” than when the sign only warned of personal consequences or no consequences at all.  In a different study, call center staff that read stories from the beneficiaries of a scholarship fund-raising staff (as opposed to staff who read stories about other call center staff learning skills from their work) were significantly more effective in the number of pledges and the amount of donations.  These results are consistent with Lisa Earle McLeod’s findings that top sales people focus on the positive impact the product or service has on the customer and not simply on their commission.

I highly recommend To Sell is Human – it offers great advice for everyone who wants to be more effective persuading or influencing others.

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How much do external events affect happiness?

Posted January 26, 2013 by Nate Gibson
Categories: Continuously Improve as a Leader and a Manager
Tags: , , ,

How much do external events affect happiness?  Not all that much according to  Dan Gilbert in his amazing TedTalk – The surprising science of happiness.    Dan shows that events have less of an effect on our happiness than we expect.  Dan starts by reporting that with evolution, human being have developed an experience simulator — they have the ability to simulate an experience without actually having to have the experience.  Dan uses the example of liver and onions ice cream — we don’t have to create liver and onion ice cream and taste it to know we won’t like it.

He then shows how poorly the simulator works.  We expect to be happier if we win the lottery and less happy if we become paralyzed.  However, the data shows that people who win the lottery are just as happy as people who become paralyzed.  In fact, research shows that people overestimate the impact of events on their happiness – both the duration and intensity of any impact is far less that people expect.  Basically, if it happened more than three months ago it has no effect on your happiness. (See also “Proof That You Can Get Over Anything“)   I suppose this explains why I am still upset about the Patriots’ loss to the Ravens, but I can see how I might be able to get over it in about 3 months.

Dan then offers the suggestion that happiness can be synthesized – that people have the ability to change their view of the world – unconsciously – so that they feel better about the world.  He supports this idea with anecdotes and with research.

Anecdotally, he shows examples of people who have had bad things happen to them – being disgraced and losing their power and prestige, losing their jobs, being mistakenly imprisoned for 37 years – who then say they are better off, they would not have changed anything and that they are happier than they otherwise would have been.

Dan then provides the results of research experiments in which subjects are asked to rank Monet prints in the order of what they like from most to least.  They are then offered a print of their third or fourth most favorite print and most people chose their third favorite.  Sometime later, they are asked to rank the prints again and they rank the one they were given higher and the one that they did not choose lower than previously.  These results are repeated in experiments over and over.  In addition, they did this experiment with amnesia patients.  These patients, who could not remember the experimenters or the even the print that they had been given, ranked the one they had been given higher than they had previously and the one that had not chosen lower than they had before.  They changed their reactions – how much they liked each of the prints – after having been given a print even though they didn’t remember which print they had been given.

In my daughter’s preschool, they had a saying:  ”You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”  Surprisingly, Dan’s research suggests that not only do you not get upset, you come to like what you got.

Dan takes this a step further in another experiment which showed that when people had an opportunity to change their minds – they could change their initial decision – they were less happy with the choice they made.  People who were stuck with their initial decision liked their choice MORE than people who had an opportunity to change their minds.  Basically, people were happier with what they got if they did not have an opportunity to second guess themselves.  Moreover, prior to the experiment, when people were given an opportunity to choose – would they like the opportunity to change their minds – most people chose to have the opportunity to change their minds (which perversely resulted in them being less happy with their decision than people who elected not to have an opportunity to change their minds).

Dan concludes his TedTalk with the following advice:  “Our longings and our worries are both to some degree overblown because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity [happiness] we are constantly chasing when we choose experience.”  Basically, he is saying that external events have less of an effect on happiness because we have the ability to be happy with what we get.

Dan’s talk is fascinating and I have added his book, Stumbling on Happiness, to my list of books to read.  The best takeaway from his TedTalk is to be less anxious about what might happen because no matter what happens, we still have the ability to be happy.

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Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do To Right Them by Holly Weeks

Posted January 20, 2013 by Nate Gibson
Categories: Difficult Conversations, Initiate Change
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Cover of "Failure to Communicate: How Con...

Failure to Communicate:  How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do To Right Them by Holly Weeks.   Holly Weeks writes an excellent book on having difficult conversations with others.  In particular, she focuses on hard talks when the two parties may not be well-meaning and where there might not be an opportunity to clear up a misunderstanding.  She identifies hard talks as ones in which the participants may have a combat mentality, conversations that might be emotionally loaded, and talks where it may be hard to read what is happening.  I have previously discussed Sarah Green’s terrific presentation Difficult Conversations:  Nine Common Mistakes in which she highlights the main points of Holly’s book and so in this post I just want to touch on some of the particularly powerful contributions Holly makes.

Parkour Traceurs

In a difficult conversation, Holly recommends acting like a parkour traceur.   It can be difficult to keep one’s balance and not be carried away by one’s emotions during the course of a difficult conversation.   A parkour traceur moves through the landscape maintaining his skill and balance while moving through a landscape full of surprises using leaps, vaults, rolls and landings to overcome obstacles.

By viewing conversations as a landscape with obstacles that need to be dodged or overcome, one moves out of an emotionally charged space into one where one sees the conversation as a set of tactical challenges.  Instead of being caught in a “fight or flight” mode, one plans, strategizes and engages the thinking and planning part of the brain instead of being emotionally hijacked during the conversation.

 Thwarting ploys

Holly identifies actions that a counterpart takes in a difficult conversation as a thwarting ploy.  Holly’s identification of thwarting ploys is one of the best insights in her book.  For example, one thwarting ploy is when someone makes a derogatory remark and then explains it as “just kidding.”  Simply by putting a name to these actions is a huge step towards being able to address them.  By identifying and naming these tactics, one de-personalizes them, turns them into obstacles to overcome, and by doing so helps one move toward a resolution.  Instead of describing these situations as someone just being a jerk or being insensitive, it is a thwarting play that requires a leap, vault or roll to move on.

Maintain Balance — Respect Yourself and Respect Your Counterpart

For me, the best advice in Holly’s book was her recommendation to maintain balance – to respect yourself and respect your counterpart.  The response to difficult conversations can often be one of two extremes – aggressiveness or capitulation.  Neither is particularly useful at moving the conversation forward.  You need to respect yourself and not let someone else walk over you and you should respect your counterpart and not walk over them either.  Not only does Holly suggest that you maintain balance, she provides examples of difficult conversations and what people could say to help maintain the balance.  While each situation is different, the following are some of Holly’s suggestions on what to say in the middle of difficult conversations.  For me, these are the best take-aways from the book.

  1. I was thinking that _____________ and I realize that I didn’t know how you saw it.
  2. I can hear your points better at lower volume.
  3. Your take is different from mine.
  4. I can see how you took what I said the way you did.  That wasn’t what I meant.  Let me try again.
  5. I’m not the enemy.  I’m on your side
  6. I’ve been blindsided by what’s said.  I need some time to pull my thoughts together.
  7. I know you want to be ______________ but my mind works better when _______________
  8. You don’t agree with me on this but here’s where I come out when I weigh the pros and cons.
  9. With customers you are the best, but internally you are not and that gives me a problem.  That gives both of us a problem.
  10. I don’t want to push back, but agreeing doesn’t seem right either.
  11. I feel that there’s a perception that we don’t work as hard or that were not as diligent…
  12. I want you to know how important it is with me professionally to ________________. I want this to be constructive and fair to both of us.
  13. This gives me a problem because I want to talk about issues that I don’t think you have heard before.
  14. I think it will be hard for you to hear.
  15. We want to try a new approach but it has to be a joint approach.
  16. If it doesn’t work for your on your side and our side then it won’t work for the ……… either.
  17. I don’t know if you’re challenging me or just pushing back on the issue.
  18. I’ve worked in ___________ for a long time and I’ve never heard anything like this.  Your opinion is very different from mine.  This is important to me.  But I had such a negative reaction to what you just said that I want to collect my thoughts and get back to you.

I highly recommend Holly’s book.

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Does Practice or Talent Predict Top Performance?

Posted January 8, 2013 by Nate Gibson
Categories: Continuously Improve as a Leader and a Manager, Initiate Change, Relentlessly Pursue Excellence
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Cover of "Talent Is Overrated: What Reall...

Does practice or talent predict top performance?  The answer is practice according to Geoff Colvin and his book Talent Is Overrated — What Really Separates World-class Performers from Everybody Else.   Geoff has written a great book that shows that great performance can be best explained by deliberate practice and not by talent (natural gifts).  Geoff does an outstanding job reporting how various research studies support this explanation for top performance.  Top performance cannot be explained by experience, inborn abilities, or general abilities like IQ or memory.  In fact, several studies showed that experience was negatively correlated with medical knowledge for doctors and ability to detect corporate fraud by auditors.

Geoff  reports one study in which researchers sought to find the source of talent in a music school in part because of a commonly held belief that singing, composing and playing instruments requires a special gift or talent.  The researchers looked at a number of factors including age, gender, instrument and socioeconomic class.  None of these correlated with top performance.  What they found was that one factor — and only one factor — predicted performance — the amount of time that the students practiced.  The best determiner of a student’s “talent” was how much he or she practiced.

According to Geoff, talent is a natural ability to do something better than most people can do it.  You are born with it or not.  If not, you can’t acquire it.   In contrast, deliberate practice is “actively designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally; … and it isn’t much fun.”   (see also Secret Ingredient of Success which underscores the importance of continuous, honest feedback).   Geoff explains that deliberate practice is valuable because it enable top performers to ”understand the significance of indicators that average performers don’t even notice… look further ahead…know more from seeing less…”  Geoff explains in greater detail how deliberate practice leads to these abilities.

Throughout the book, Geoff provides examples of how deliberate practice led to top performance including stories about

So I’m a believer.  I am definitely a “Talent is Overrated” convert.  I think that if there is such a thing as a natural talent, it might be the ability to commit to deliberate practice even though it is hard work.   I also believe that most forms of practice will yield positive results and that deliberate practice will yield the best results.  And that is one of the reasons that I write this blog….(see “10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer” )

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