Mike Lehr's Blog

My October 13, 2011 post, “Eloquence Trumps Honesty in Trust & Likeability Wars,” discussed how style affects our assessment of talent. Now, in the November 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review, the article, “It’s Not What You Say but How You Say It,” cites the research of

Timothy DeGroot’s team from Midwestern State University indicating the attractiveness of leaders’ voices influence our perceptions of their effectiveness.

Again, the challenge is that we often don’t realize this influence is occurring. Moreover, we tend to believe other people are influenced but we aren’t. Combining this with the way labels influence our perceptions of content and how beauty and attractiveness influences us, we begin to see easily how incompetent people can receive promotions especially if they are confident.

In combating this influence, it’s important to begin with two perspectives:

1. Acknowledge that style influences us (“That includes me!”)
2. Remain focused on more intrinsic indicators of talents such as process (how a person works, thinks and interacts)

Often, we erroneously focus on results when we don’t factor in extraneously factors such as the team, timing and situation of the person’s experience. Perhaps the person was just along for the ride. Culture, processes and tools can also affect outcomes. When we fail to account for these, we tend fall into the trap of believing people are “winners” if they come from “winning organizations.”

In the final analysis, what makes assessing talent difficult is not the intrinsic analysis of it but rather being able to do so while trying to navigate the murky cloud of our own perceptions and biases. Many forces intuitively influence us on a subconscious level to stir up this mud.

Many people agonize over decisions. A primary reason is belief in a “best” decision. Consequently, people run endlessly through their options when often there isn’t much qualitative difference among them.

I first became aware of this when discussing start-up businesses with an accountant. He made this observation: eighty percent of his clients ended up in businesses quite different from their initial plans. For example, one client began a retail operation in a specialty food product. One day, a grocer asked to carry the product. Soon, others did the same. Thus, the client was “forced” to shift from retailing a food product to manufacturing it.

However, the consistent quality in these start-ups was the ability to adapt quickly. So many times, organizations strive to research and plan their decisions then build consensuses around them. As a result, they turn decision making into a torturous process thus fulfilling the myth of the best decision: if it takes that long to make a decision then an outstanding is necessary. Thus, it’s hard to imagine an adaptive organization with an elongated decision-making process.

Yet, in our early school years, teachers grade us on right and wrong answers. Thus, our educational systems condition us to look for the best decision. Ironically, this conditioning is so strong that even a good decision is not satisfactory if it’s perceived as not being the best one.

Accelerating our decision-making allows us the luxury of correcting bad decisions more quickly. Thus, the fear of making bad decisions wanes if we have confidence in our groups’ abilities to learn, to correct its mistakes and to adapt a new direction. This is true for individuals too.

Even in hindsight, the best decision is not clear. We assume so because we make the false assumption that nothing else would have changed.

I’ve seen positive thinking do much harm to some folks; if they can’t keep their smiley face on, they feel they’re failing. Moreover, if they fail and don’t know why, they begin to question their attitude thus compounding their problems. Too many times looking at why they can’t do something is declared negativity by their friends, colleagues and family. However, these “negative” thoughts can spurn motivation, preparation and problem solving.

I came upon an excellent article by Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz in the May/June 2011 issue of Scientific American Mind titled, “Can Positive Thinking Be Negative?” They summarize research on positive thinking from many angles by concluding that many of the benefits pushed by the self-help movement are tenuous. In one, they declare:

Optimists, especially when bolstered by success, can suffer from overconfidence and Pollyannaism, creating financial and business difficulties. They are also less likely to take corrective action because their optimism is a breeding ground for complacency. We see this in something as non-business as losing weight.

Recently, improved technology and research methodologies have taught us that biology and our subconscious influence us far more than we ever thought. “Who we are” is different than “who we think we are” so positive thinking’s influence is temporary at best. That is why it requires constant maintenance very much like a sandcastle does on a beach; we need to address the underlying biological and emotional elements of our being in order to find a more permanent and natural solution.

Optimism and pessimism work best together. One without the other produces a rosy picture on one hand and a bleak one on the other.

As people’s careers progress, they tend to become more risk adverse, less willing to accept challenges. Much is because they feel they have too much to lose if wrong. Enough of these people in a company can retard its growth and our own too. Awareness of their existence will help to protect us.

In “The Paradox of Excellence,” an article in the June 2011 of the Harvard Business Review, Thomas DeLong and Sara DeLong write “high performers often let anxiety about their performance compromise their progress” even to the point that they “would rather do the wrong thing well than do the right thing poorly.” As a result, they tend to prefer options that worked well in the past to those that are best.

Early in their careers, things might have come more easily to them. As they progress and tackle more difficult assignments, they begin to function more and more on the outskirts of their attributes and skills. Rather than expand those limits they consolidate their gains, preferring consensus over what is right. As the Delongs attest, their careers flatten.

However, enough of this excellence in the right positions will flatten the company’s growth too. This conservatism will affect budget decisions, product development and talent acquisition. Expense control supersedes investing; existing products supersede new ones; the proven candidate supersedes the game changer. It helps to explain how the best and the brightest can bring about demise.

If we work for such people, the expansion of our limits could slow too. The challenges we seek will be thwarted by the conventional. It’s important to realize their existence and to avoid being blinded by their excellence and allowing our talents to rot under their light.

If you research leadership, you’ll find virtually all leadership models promoting the concept as something approaching divinity. What we don’t address is the dark side of leadership: the herd mentality it can create in many of us.

For instance, in the February 7, 2011 of The New Yorker, John Seabrook writes in “Crush Point” about a study designed by Iain Couzin of Princeton University and led by Jens Krause at Leeds University. It found that a group of 200 randomly walking people, injected by a few purposeful walkers, ended up following the latter even though they had no idea where these purposeful walkers were going. In a previous post, we also saw people believing leaders over facts.

As a result, leadership will encourage a state of mind in which some, and likely many, followers neither think nor introspect; they just follow. This will occur whether leadership is good or bad. Even a good leader can’t ensure all followers will develop their thinking and questioning skills so they can evaluate what’s best for them. They will need leaders to make decisions for them.

This also explains why confidence can be the tool of the incompetent. It encourages those, who can’t or don’t want to think for themselves, to follow someone with a purpose, no matter what that purpose might be. It plays subtly into the idea that “going somewhere is better than going nowhere.” Thus, people can achieve a purposeful life by following someone, anyone.

In reality, leadership is subjective. As a result, especially if we don’t learn to think for ourselves, we could easily follow leaders who are good for others but not good for the rest us.

Think about it. If not, ask a leader to do it for you.

Periodically, I help sensitive people so I have special life management techniques set aside for them. A recent success has encouraged me to document some. I begin with raising their awareness for their gift.

The first point I make to sensitive people is that they are more in tune with their own emotions and the emotions of others than other people are. While almost all of them believe this is a curse, I share advantages. Primarily, they will tend to do much better at assessing the emotional state of groups and individuals. I even identified for one CEO the one employee she should talk to if she wanted to get a quick pulse on her employees.

When sensitive people try to explain their feelings, problems usually occur. Since most people will likely be less sensitive, they won’t feel the same. They’ll just say the sensitive person is wrong or way off base. This hurts them and creates self-doubt. As a result, they adopt the majority view even if they feel it’s not best.

The second point I make is that even though others don’t feel what they feel it doesn’t mean they aren’t being affected. It’s just whereas it’s happening on a conscious level for them it’s happening on a subconscious level for the others. Everyone has different levels of consciousness.  Eventually, these feelings will “bubble up” from their subconscious to manifest themselves in actions, thoughts and feelings.

When I talk to sensitive people, it’s not unusual for them to feel that they get the emotional temperature of the individual or group rather quickly. However, it’s very normal to find them talked out of doing what they believe will work or going about their work beneath the radar. Thus, raising their awareness is usually a huge relief.

Other posts in this series:

• Emotional Self Defense for Sensitive People (Pt II): The Unconscious
• Emotional Self Defense for Sensitive People (Pt III): Self-Awareness
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt IV): Talent
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt. V): Intimidation
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt. VI): Defeatism & Courage

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.

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.

In a discussion with an attorney a while back, he told me about a client who routinely included him in their business planning sessions. He was puzzled because they didn’t seem to require his input on many of their discussions. This caused him to doubt the value he was giving them.

I told him a story about attending a client’s son’s little league baseball game. During the game her husband and the other fathers were busy yelling instructions. Meanwhile, the mothers were shouting encouragement. This exemplified two types of support: instructional (direct) and emotional (indirect). The sons played better because not only were fathers giving tips but moms were demonstrating their love and support through encouragement. Knowing someone about whom you care is supporting you is a powerful motivator.

I then connected this to trees. When businesses hold retreats to do their planning, they often leave the work environment for a serene setting. The setting often has trees. Now, the trees don’t offer any practical business advice but they create an emotional environment conducive to planning very much like the mothers were doing for their sons at the baseball game.

Relating it to him, I said that most likely the clients just felt better by having him there. While they might not acknowledge this consciously, they will rationalize his attendance in some way. In this way, he was like a tree. While he might not provide any practical business advice, he was creating a situation that encouraged his client to plan better.

The attorney chuckled and said he felt better about charging his fees, but the point is that some of us have the influence of trees. Our mere presence can make people do better; we don’t need to offer any pragmatic tips.

I’m often asked to improve employees’ “social skills” especially those who are classified as “quiet” or “introverted.” When I work with them, I establish two things first:

1. You don’t have to talk much to be a good conversationalist.
2. When people talk, especially about themselves, 95% of the time (if not 99%) they won’t notice that you aren’t talking.

Here is the major technique I teach them:

Focus on asking people questions especially open-ended ones encouraging elaboration.

I stumbled across this one day during college while visiting my brother at his college. He wasn’t at his fraternity so a fraternity brother entertained me until his return. Having driven for over eight hours, I was tired and unenthusiastic about returning any conversation. Fortunately, the fraternity brother was very talkative and it only took a few of my questions to carry him for almost forty-five minutes. Later, he told my brother what a “great conversationalist” I was.

Initially, people are skeptical, so I have them practice in social situations. In one case, I had an IT employee practice on his wife. When he saw how she ran with the conversation from his questions and how much more she enjoyed their “conversations,” he began integrating it into his work.

Focusing on asking questions works extremely well with people who might have an expertise that we don’t. This happened at a party last week. By focusing on the other person’s work, he carried the conversation for the entire twenty minutes while we ate together. I also learned quite a bit. However, as my wife has come to learn, you will begin to notice how few questions people really ask of others in conversation.

Related post:

Related post:

• Become a Good (or Better) Conversationalist Overnight (Part II)

Here is another site with some other good conversational techniques:

• 14 Methods and Mindset Tricks to Make you a More Interesting Conversationalist