Mike Lehr's Blog

I read two articles related to the impact positive feelings can have on performance. One concerns positive feelings from comments (Harvard Business Review) and the other from superstitions (Psychological Science). Both reference research from Dr. Lysann Damisch of the University of Cologne.

They reminded me of the commentary from the Top Gun DVD (Widescreen Special Collector’s Edition). A Top Gun instructor who was a technical advisor for the movie emphasized the importance of pilots’ confidence; they need to feel invincible. Thus, the crisis of confidence that Tom Cruise’s character, Maverick, had after his partner’s death is very real and dangerous.

Paradoxically, the modern workplace seems more concerned with telling employees what they are doing wrong rather than right. How successful can we be then in nurturing positive feelings to enhance the performance of employees? How much better would employees do if we took the same care as a Top Gun instructor? The research suggests, “They would certainly do much better.”

Part of the problem is psychological. We often see managers who regularly point out employee errors as being much tougher than those who regularly point out their successes. We tend to associate toughness with criticism and gentleness with compliments. Consequently, it’s extremely difficult for managers to convey strength when they’re complimentary. Moreover, complimentary actions can trigger sensitive emotions encouraging managers to feel “soft.” This can be a fearsome personal event for managers in companies that even have a small amount of machismo in their culture.

However, what studies like this demonstrate, and there will be more in the future, is that the emotional state of our employees is far more important than their mental state. Nurturing this will take extremely disciplined and emotionally secure managers to overcome their own feelings of being a “softy,” not a trait that has normally been in managerial talent.

As a result of my post, Dealing with Bosses Who Manage by Email, a reader’s email wanted to know what to do about co-workers who copy their bosses on emails to you. There are two perspectives to keep in mind:

1. For some reason your co-worker believes it’s important to copy the boss
2. Under no circumstances should you assume you know the reason

In general, a co-worker will copy the boss for one or both of the following general reasons:

1. He wants to.
2. He feels compelled to.

For instance, he might want his boss to know that he sent the email, or his boss might have told him to copy him regularly. Even if his boss didn’t say anything to him, the co-worker might be interpreting something about the company’s culture that encourages him to do this.

Again, the general approach if a co-worker is doing something you dislike is to ask him why he’s doing it. There might be a solution. For instance, if he needs to document his requests, he can file them rather than copy bosses. Even if there isn’t a solution, the reason could help you learn something about your boss, the company and your co-worker. However, it’s important to ask in a non-accusatory manner. That’s why you don’t want to presume you know the reason. It could upset you and make asking challenging.

Regardless of whether there is a solution, ask your co-worker if he would stop realizing of course that he might not comply. Still, it’s important that he knows you are aware of what he’s doing. On the other hand, he might comply simply because you asked. This is why it’s important to develop good relationships with all your co-workers, so you can leverage them when you need.

A person who direct messaged me on Twitter suggested I address cooperation and competition on the business-to-business level (B2B). Which is more profitable?

Generally, cooperation will tend to be a better business relationship than competition on just about any level, business or individual. We are social creatures, so we join groups to cooperate with others for mutual benefit. People will tend toward cooperation.

However, in reality, sometimes people cannot cooperate as they would like. Rules, policies and regulations sometimes make it wrong, illegal or expensive. For instance, governments do not allow businesses to cooperate in fixing prices and setting markets.

Where’s the proof that B2B cooperation is profitable? Look at the free market. The mere fact that governments have to pass laws preventing cooperation among businesses indicates that businesses can find it extremely profitable. If cooperation weren’t profitable, would we have to pass laws to prevent it? Furthermore, just look at the legal forms of cooperation in the forms of trade associations and lobbies. Would such cooperation occur if it weren’t profitable?

When businesses engage in competition, it’s like war: uncertain and expensive. Cooperation provides certainty and cost-containment. However, governments don’t allow this because it’s bad for consumers. This is similar to the Roman Emperor who forced two gladiators into mortal combat so he can entertain the crowd. What would happen if the two cooperated and did not fight? That’s why the Emperor had to say both would die if they didn’t.

The whole point of this analogy is to demonstrate that sometimes it’s very difficult to see the profitability of cooperation because many times we establish rules, rewards and penalties to ensure competition rather than cooperation. It becomes even more difficult when we benefit from the competition of others. The difference is often our perspective.

My Beauty as Power posts have generated emails regarding teaching what beauty is. Unfortunately, even though beauty is extremely subjective, we’re often taught it in a “one size fits all” perspective. Consequently, we often confuse beauty with popularity. Tossing that aside for the moment, it’s difficult to learn about beauty without learning appreciation.

For example, most people find maggots extremely ugly and gross. However, Maggot Therapy involves injecting maggots into body parts to remove gangrene so they can heal. By doing so, patients avoid amputation. This happens because maggots only eat dead organic material and are extremely thorough about it. Now, to people on the verge of losing limbs to gangrene, they learn to appreciate the beauty of maggots’ work very quickly.

Something similar happens to men when women nurse them back to health. Many movies play upon this theme such as Witness and Hang ‘Em High.  In medical facilities, it’s not unusual to have seriously injured male patients become attached to their nurses. They learn to appreciate the dedication and healing power of women whom they would not have considered otherwise.

As a more humorous example, there is Tom Sawyer’s fence painting. Tom’s given the undesirable task of painting a fence; however, by exhorting the virtues of fence painting to his friends, his friends come to appreciate the “privilege” of doing it for him by paying him.

As other examples, antiques, family heirlooms and memorabilia become more beautiful to us when we appreciate the story, memories and people behind them. Thus, appreciation is a process by which we learn to value something. Since we value beauty, it’s hard to learn about beauty without learning how to appreciate things . . . and people. Teach people appreciation, and you will teach them beauty.

Related links:

• Beauty as Power
• Beauty as Power (Part II): Attraction vs. Beauty

I’m frequently asked about the difference between emotional intelligence (EI) and intuition. Essentially, EI is a head thing, intuition a heart thing. EI is being “intelligent” about emotions; it’s not about feeling. If you look at EI’s definition of empathy according to Daniel Goleman, this distinction becomes clear:

Ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people

In my work with intuition, I define empathy as a feeling (or collection of feelings):

Ability to feel what the other person is feeling

Just because we understand someone’s emotions, it doesn’t mean we feel what he feels. If a truly totally empathic person existed, she would not be able to kill anyone because she would die too from intense pain and sorrow. The closest real example is a mother losing her child; that bond is so empathic, that mothers never really recover from this. A part of them dies with their child. EI understands this but wouldn’t necessarily feel it.

This head/heart difference between EI and intuition shows up in two other areas besides empathy: the unconscious and problem solving.

EI is about intelligence; therefore, it’s concerned with conscious activity (the head). On the other hand, since intuition is about the acquisition of knowledge and the making of decisions through emotions, unconscious activity plays a vital role because emotions emanate from there.

As for problem solving, EI doesn’t play if you’re alone in the woods. It requires a social or interpersonal context. However, intuition plays in social, interpersonal and solitary contexts. Thus, while an inventor would not need a high EI, he would definitely benefit from keen intuition.

Therefore, EI and intuition differ when it comes to empathy, the unconscious and problem solving. Symbolically, EI is a matter of the head while intuition a matter of the heart.

A financial professional emailed me regarding bosses who “manage by email.” She implied that her boss rarely calls  or meets with employees. She asked, “What does this mean?” and “What should I do?”

First, email does provide certain efficiencies over personal interactions (phone calls and visits). However, from a relationship-building perspective the others are superior. Consequently, I advise managers to have at least one personal interaction with every employee every day.

Managers who MBE will do so for different personal reasons. Nevertheless, we can categorize them under one or both of the following:

• Wanting to minimize their personal interactions
• Liking something better about email communications

So, what do you do? Begin by uncovering the specific reasons under these broad preferences. Here are a couple sample questions to customize:

• What are the advantages of emailing on ____ over meeting to discuss it periodically?
• It seems you prefer to communicate by email; if so, would you share with me why so I can ensure I communicate effectively in them

Their answers will give you a general direction as to what bosses like to see in their relationships. For instance, if he references efficiency, then speed might be more important than substance in his relationships. If she references documentation, she might prefer accountability, organization and recollection. If he references organizing or forming his thoughts, he might prefer control to spontaneity in relationships.

After gaining this insight, employees can initiate personal interactions and seek to deliver the attributes they’ve identified. Regardless, employees are wise to reverse the tables and make it a point to call or visit their bosses at least once a day. This will not only help protect their jobs but also help employees be happier and more successful in them.

A labor relations expert emailed me describing a trial in which an employee lied about a previous injury even when the truth would have helped her receive compensation. He wondered whether such lying was just something the employer had to accept.

First, I would broaden the context by asking: Why did the employee feel the need to push this to trial? She obviously had no confidence in her employer looking out for her. Yes, some employees game the system; some professionals even try to help. However, the fact remains that employers who have mediocre relationships with employees are going to experience more contention and dishonesty than those who have exemplary relationships.

In these situations, employees will lie even if the truth helps because 1) they don’t know that, or 2) even if they do know it, they don’t believe it. Once an employee refused to take documents to her doctor certifying a serious health condition because she didn’t believe her employer was trying to help.

Second, many employees just don’t believe the judicial process is there to help. To impress this on employers, I often ask whether they would tell someone like Stalin or Hitler the truth even if they assured them of fair treatment? Yes, an extreme view, but not so far from the true feelings of some employees.

Finally, we falsely assume that if people aren’t telling the truth then they are lying. In reality, they just have a different interpretation of the facts; and thus, they fully believe they are truthful.

Unfortunately, most employers feel their relationships with employees are better than they are. As a result, they need to look at situations like the above as professional and business failures. Exemplary employee relationships will minimize these situations; relationship building is often the best defense.

After watching PBS NewsHour’s analysis, “What’s Next for U.S. Military in Fight Against Al-Qaida?” which aired on Monday, May 2, 2011, I recalled an adage from a childhood story, “Sometimes the best place to hide something is in plain sight.”

In the story, someone hid an incriminating letter in his apartment. Rather than a secret place, he kept it with his routine correspondence. The authorities never found it because they didn’t believe he would keep it there.

Bin Laden’s death highlights that we are prejudiced toward three types of solutions: logical, technological and consistent. As a result, we are prejudiced against solutions that are emotional, human and deviant.

For example, we could not emotionally believe that bin Laden would hide in plain sight and in the midst of military forces that could destroy him. Furthermore, it took the consolidation of intelligence personnel (not technology) from Iraq before we saw dynamic progress. Finally, we did not expect Pakistani real estate, zoning and building protocols to be so deviant from ours.

Here are some questions that can help overcome these three prejudices:

Emotion

• What are the emotions behind the situation and our thinking?
• What solutions are we not considering because they are “unreasonable”?
• How likely will people behave as they told us?

Human

• What vulnerabilities and limitations do our technological solutions have?
• How can human intervention help?
• What assessments can humans do better?

Deviation

• How closely are we expecting others to behave the way we do?
• How much of this is because we’ve made them behave as we do?
• What would someone with an opposing perspective think and do?

It took ten years because bin Laden wasn’t rational, our technology wasn’t omnipresent and Pakistan’s zoning protocols weren’t like ours.

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Here are some related links if you’d like elaboration on these points. These two further explore how people can behave much differently than they say they will:

• “Who We Are” is Different From “Who We Think We Are”
• What the Failures of Online Dating Can Teach Us

This one gives an example of a low-tech solution besting a high-tech one: When Best Technology Isn’t Best

This one takes a “universal good” and demonstrates how it changes under the challenge of a different perspective: Is Freedom for Everybody?

You are reading my 100^th post. In the beginning, I just wanted to see if I could stay committed to publishing twice a week for a year despite other commitments. I did that, but I had help. I felt this post was a symbolically opportune time to give thanks for that help.

First, I want to thank my wife, Kathy. She was extremely tolerant in my self-imposed urgency to meet my publishing goals while I was also trying to run several businesses.

Second, I want to single out four people, Craig Palenshus, Bill Forsyth, III, Jeannette Marshall (Blog: optioneerJM) and Mary Duckworth-Demis Mimouna.

Craig quickly got me set up and running. He intuitively knew a design and color scheme that suited my preferences and purposes. Bill was instrumental in giving me a publishing strategy for my content goals and initial SEO advice. Jeannette encouraged me throughout and was an early commenter while trying to keep me abreast of the latest blog functionality. Mary encouraged me by frequently commenting and giving advice on the more technical aspects of writing for a blog.

Finally, I want to thank you. While anything can inspire me, interactions with others are my main sources. In that regard, the internet and social media have enlightened me. I now have access to people all over the world and their works. I am no longer solely dependent upon traditional media.

True, many of these “virtual” people don’t have the viewers, listeners and readers of that media or even the visitors of older websites, but they certainly don’t lack the talent to write, discuss and inspire. In fact, I’m now convinced that there is only one difference between them and the old order . . . opportunity.

Again, thank you. I look forward to your continued inspiration. Cheers!