Mike Lehr's Blog

The article, “The Modern Matchmakers,” from the February 11, 2012 edition of The Economist contained two major business lessons that I’ve discussed earlier regarding the solving of people-related problems:

1. What people think they want isn’t necessarily what they will choose
2. When faced with too much choice, people have less energy to think about them

For example, the article cites the work of Eli Finkel of Northwestern University on speed-dating in which he found that “people’s stated preference at the beginning of the process do not match the characters of the individuals they actually like.” Furthermore, “that when faced with abundant choice, people pay less attention to characteristics that require thinking and conversation to evaluate . . . and more to matters physical.” In short, just as Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University and Mark Lepper of Stanford concluded that too much choice is demotivating,” Finkel found it can dull thinking processes.

As I had also done in an earlier post on online dating, we can translate these themes to our business efforts by asking three questions:

1. How much freedom does someone want?
2. What does someone really want; what will he really do or decide?
3. How much (and what kind of) thinking will someone require from a leader?

These further translate into more tactical questions for managers and executives such as:

1. How much flexibility or process must I give someone?
2. What differences do I see between what he wants and what he actually does?
3. What kind of decisions do I give her to make and what (or when) do I decide for her?

Complicating this further is the fact that the answers will vary for each employee, requiring deeper and more interpersonal skills from managers and leaders. Are your managers up for the challenge?

Previous post on online dating:  What the Failures of Online Dating Can Teach Us

The Freedom-Order duality expresses a dimension of our personality involved in interpreting how we balance freedom and order. It can help us – in real time – understand, appreciate and predict better the reactions of others to such things as processes, decision-making, management, customer service, change and organization.

However, all of this is arbitrary, subjective, meaning different people are comfortable with different levels of freedom and order. To some freedom is chaos because it seems anyone can do whatever he wants. To others order is slavery because there is someone or a rule telling her what to do. Therefore, since there are no absolute states for either, you can be the benchmark as the figure shows. This allows you to assess whether people are more freedom-oriented or order-oriented than you are by the feelings and thoughts they trigger in you.

For instance, more freedom-oriented people might make you feel they are:

You might also notice they tend to use words such as these:

By contrast, more order-oriented people might make you feel they are:

Similarly, you might find them using words such as:

In our daily business lives, this means adding process and procedures to those who are more freedom-oriented than we are might stir anxious feelings about becoming nothing more than an automaton. Conversely, more flexibility and options to more order-oriented people might trigger anxious feelings about what is the right thing to do.

Once we are sensitive to this, we can better position the change by adapting immediately to what we observe in others. To the freedom-oriented people, we will need to reassure the flexibility of adding their own dimension, and to order-oriented people reassuring clear definitions of their duties will exist. In essence, we personalize our approach and words to by appreciating people and their needs better.

We often overlook the downside of processes in our businesses because we enjoy how they allow us to scale and reduce labor costs. However, they often become the infrastructure that retards flexibility and adaptability as people’s self-interest and comfort zones become wedded to the processes.

The November 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review, which focused on leadership lessons from the military, Boris Groysberg, Andrew Hill and Toby Johnson wrote about the tradeoffs between process and flexibility. Their article, “The Different Ways Military Experience Prepares Managers for Leadership,” discussed the tradeoffs that each of the four branches of the U.S. Military made and how they influenced leadership styles.

Their research showed that CEO’s who had military experience in the Navy and Air Force tended to “take a process-driven approach to management; personnel are expected to follow standard procedures without any deviation.” This allowed them to excel “in highly regulated industries and, perhaps surprisingly, in innovative sectors.”

Conversely, those with an Army and Marine Corps experience tended to “embrace flexibility and empower people to act on their vision.” They were able to excel “in small firms, where they are better able to communicate a clear direction and identify capable subordinates to execute accordingly.”

Throughout the article, the authors contrasted the process orientation of the Navy and Air Force with the adaptive one of the Army and Marine Corps, the important point being that there is a tradeoff between the two. Even though they justified why each branch had the orientation it did, they still contrasted the two orientations as a trade-off. In simple terms, it’s hard to have both.

Therefore, when we rush toward processes to create standardized, consistent and repeatable outcomes, we need to leave room for adaptation. After all, life never duplicates itself in exactly the same way.

When learning listening techniques, we often don’t learn their value in building relationships. As a result, we might be listening, but the other person doesn’t know it. The latter must occur to build relationships effectively.

Open-ended questions encourage a wide range of responses. Pragmatically, they retrieve an accurate assessment of the person’s thoughts and feelings. Relationally, they invite longer, deeper responses. This encourages feelings of freedom thought and expression.

Often, they begin with the words, “How,” “What,” and “Why,” or can include phrases such as “Tell me about . . .” and “Fill me in on . . .” Wording and tone should encourage the expression of thoughts and feelings, not just facts.

Some examples include:

• How do you think this project will go now?
• Fill me in on what you feel you want me to do.
• Why do you think Mary would be better than Nancy?
• How do you feel about that?
• What’s your reaction to Bill’s comments?

From a relational perspective, open-ended questions convey your desire to have answerers feel:

• Free to answer as they please
• You value their thoughts and feelings
• They control the direction of the discussion

The effect of open-ended questions is to:

• Minimize negative emotions
• Establish the questioner as someone with whom it’s easy to converse
• Encourage conversation and a longer interaction period
• Direct conversation with a talkative person

The downside of open-ended questions is that they can make discussions feel scattered or lacking purpose. That’s why we need to integrate them with other relationship building techniques.

Nevertheless, open-ended questions are often the first listening technique we learn. However, they let the other person know we are listening to them because we can’t use them well if we aren’t.

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.

Designer labels encourage us not only to believe that the wearing has status but also trustworthiness, talent and many other positive attributes. In fact, the label is more important than the clothes themselves.

In the article, “I’ve Got You Labelled”, appearing in the April 2, 2011 edition of The Economist, Rob Nelissen and Marijn Meijers of Tilburg University in the Netherlands reached this conclusion from their research. While initially far-fetched, we find that a piece of art can fluctuate enormously in value depending upon whom people think painted it even though the art itself does not change. It’s also why people persistently knowingly buy knockoffs; they want the label.

One of the needs labels address is security. As we saw in my posts, Is Freedom for Everybody? and People Follow Leaders Not Facts, not all people are comfortable making their own decisions; they want others to make them for them. Status labels do exactly that; they help people determine what is good. The attributes of what makes clothing good such as the material, stitching, design, fabric, dyes, thread, etc., can make a qualitative determination daunting.

What is fascinating from Nelissen and Meijers research, is that this qualitative stamp not only influences our perceptions of the clothes but also the wearer. The qualitative effect is transferable, and it occurs on a subconscious level.

From an intuitive perspective, this means we can upgrade ourselves simply by wearing the right labels. This is what politicians do when they try to tie themselves closely to their country’s flag. This is what manufacturers do when they invest huge amounts in the packaging of their products. Presentation strongly influences our evaluation of content; plating affects our food’s taste. Thus, this principle holds true for the presentation of our ideas.

This past month, I conversed with a resident of a Muslim country. He commented on how many of his fellow citizens couldn’t understand why Americans thought they were free. “They have all these laws directing them. They can’t drive as fast as they want and they even need the government’s permission to drive (licenses).”

Coincidentally, the December 16^th 2010 edition of The Economist reported on driving in Iraq. It’s true, at least there, that Iraq has far fewer driving restrictions than the United States has. It doesn’t even require driving licenses. However, driving there is dangerous. In fact, “the health ministry estimates that six times as many people now die in car accidents as fall victim to political violence.”

I also ran across an article about choice in the same issue. “Too much choice, concluded Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University and Mark Lepper of Stanford, is demotivating.” The article went on to suggest that this is from the anxiety people often feel when making decisions; too much freedom of choice increases anxiety.

There are people who seem to prefer less, and almost no, freedom in their work. They prefer clearly defined directions, rules, policies and procedures dictating their thinking and actions. Why? I have come to learn that this produces a different kind of freedom for some: freedom from responsibility. How can we be responsible for decisions we did not make or regulations we did not write? For some it also produces certainty; they know what the “right” decision is.

As the diagram to the right asks, “When does more freedom become chaos and uncertainty to us?” For each of us, that varies. For some of us, it restricts freedom so much that it might not even seem like freedom anymore. So, is freedom for everybody?

A CEO of a 150-employee services company made this astute observation: processes reduce the need for top talent, and thus, reduce labor costs. This company requires highly talented professionals to deliver its services. Historically, management allowed them to work without defined processes because the employees knew what to do. However, as the company grew, finding such talent became harder and more expensive.

Processes become the path to training and developing in-house talent. They are analogous to painting by numbers or following recipes in cooking; they improve the output produced by individuals who don’t have a grasp on the entire work. However, just as we wouldn’t confuse painting by numbers with being an artist and following a recipe with being a chef, we shouldn’t confuse executing the steps of a process with being talented. Processes allow the breakdown of a task without necessarily needing to understand the task itself. It’s like following a series of directions; you don’t need to know your destination.

Since an employee doesn’t need to understand the whole task to follow a process, he does not need the talent that that understanding requires. Essentially, the process is making the decisions for him as embodied by its rules and procedures. As a result, the company does not have to pay a premium for that talent.